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Extracts

Extract
The Boy from the Woods

In one of the most bizarre cases in recent history, a wild-haired young boy, estimated to be between six and eight years old, was discovered living on his own in the Ramapo Mountain State Forest near the suburb of Westville.

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Showtym Adventures 7: Jackamo, the Supreme Champion

Fourteen-year-old Vicki sat up in bed, her heart racing.

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Shakti

A young man is taking a shortcut home from the railway station through fields, as he does every day of the week.

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Ali Cross

It had been three days since my friend disappeared and I was starting to think the worst might have happened.

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Into the Fire

The industrial sliding doors heaved open to a burst of bitter alpine air, a dizzying flurry of snow, and a barrage of hoarse cries

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Actress

People ask me, ‘What was she like?’ and I try to figure out if they mean as a normal person: what was she like in her slippers, eating toast and marmalade, or what was she like as a mother, or what she was like as an actress – we did not use the word star

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The Memory Wood

When they file back into the room, I’m no longer in the chair. Instead, I’m sitting on the table, bare legs swinging.

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The Other People

She sleeps. A pale girl in a white room. Machines surround her. Mechanical guardians, they tether the sleeping girl to the land of the living, stopping her from drifting away on an eternal, dark tide.

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Grown Ups

Johnny Casey launched into a fit of energetic coughing – a bit of bread down the wrong way.

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Mix Tape

There they go, at the beginning of it all, their younger selves, walking through the dark, winter streets of Sheffield: Daniel Lawrence and Alison Connor.

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Long Bright River

There’s a body on the Gurney Street tracks. Female, age unclear, probable overdose, says the dispatcher.

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Dear Edward

“Since death is certain, but the time of death is uncertain, what is the most important thing?” — PEMA CHÖDRÖN

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Girl, Woman, Other

Amma is walking along the promenade of the waterway that bisects her city, a few early morning barges cruise slowly by to her left is the nautical-themed footbridge with its deck-like walkway and sailing mast pylons

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Olive, Again

In the early afternoon on a Saturday in June, Jack Kennison put on his sunglasses, got into his sports car with the top down, strapped the seatbelt over his shoulder and across his large stomach, and drove to Portland.

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The Starless Sea

Back in his den with the cocoa he settles into the beanbag chair bequeathed to him by a departing student the year before.

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The Body

Long ago, when I was a junior high school student in America, I remember being taught by a biology teacher that all the chemicals that make up a human body could be bought in a hardware store for $5 or something like that.

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Dear Girls

Dear Girls, You are prohibited from reading this book until you are twenty-one years old.

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The Cockroach

That morning, Jim Sams, clever but by no means profound, woke from uneasy dreams to find himself transformed into a gigantic creature.

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19th Christmas

It was four nights before Christmas Eve, and the city of San Francisco had decked the halls, houses, and grand public edifices in a sparkling, merry Christmas display.

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Blue Moon

The city looked small on a map of America. It was just a tiny polite dot, near a red threadlike road that ran across an otherwise empty half inch of paper.

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North Korea Journal

For much of the year I had been awaiting the go-ahead on what was potentially one of the most demanding, exhausting, but exhilarating acting roles I’d ever been offered.

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Letters from an Astrophysicist

Now that people communicate with one another primarily by social media, letter-writing has become a lost art.

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Christmas Shopaholic

OK. Don’t panic. Don’t panic. I’ve got 5 minutes 52 seconds before my basket expires.

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Everything is Figureoutable

My mother has the tenacity of a bulldog, looks like June Cleaver, and curses like a truck driver.

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