The Purdzilla Show

Photo by Florencia Viadana on Unsplash We were the only customers downstairs in the shop and there were no windows and only two dim bulbs, without shades. There was the pleasant dusty soporific smell, as though the books had stolen most of the air. Ian McEwan (in Sweet Tooth )

Photo by Nong V on Unsplash Like many vivid memories, his recollection of strolling towards Turville Heath with Florence created a penumbra of oblivion around it. Ian McEwan (in On Chesil Beach )

Photo by JESHOOTS.COM on Unsplash He was thinking of that time, the way one does on long journeys when rootlessmess and boredom, lack of sleep or routine can summon from out of nowhere random stretches of the past, make them as real as a haunting. Ian McEwan (in Solar )

Photo by Graeme Worsfold on Unsplash Being late was a special kind of modern suffering, with blended elements of rising tension, self-blame, self-pity, misanthropy and a yearning for what could not be had outside theoretical physics - time reversal. Ian McEwan (in Solar )

Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash Novels and movies, being restlessly modern, propel you forwards or backwards through time, through days, years or even generations. But to do its noticing and judging, poetry balances itself on the pinprick of the moment. Slowing down, stopping yourself completely, to read and understand a poem is like trying to acquire an old-fashioned skill like drystone walling or trout tickling. Ian McEwan (in Saturday ) 

Photo by Tom Rogerson on Unsplash There are these rare moments when musicians together touch something sweeter than they've ever found before in rehearsals or performance, beyond the merely collaborative or technically proficient, when their expression becomes as easy and graceful as friendship or love. This is when they give us a glimpse of what we might be, of our best selves, and of an impossible world in which you give everything you have to others, but lose nothing of yourself...only in music, and only on rare occasions, does the curtain actually lift on this dream of community, and it's tantalisingly conjured, before fading away with the last notes. Ian McEwan (in Saturday)