The Lonely Hearts Book Club

by Lucy Gilmore

I could tell right away that he was the kind of person who couldn’t enter a room without changing it.

It was one of those attributes that fascinated and repelled me in equal measures.

I couldn’t help wondering what it must be like. To be so present in the world, so much a part of it, that it had no choice ...

Hearing Sloane and Arthur talk about books was like listening to a song in another language. The message didn’t always make it through, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t appreciate the melody.

Life stories were written in ink, not pencil. Once they were down, the only thing you could do was turn the page.

You don’t gain her kind of insight into people without some kind of mystical force at play.”

The smooth, unbroken path wasn’t the one I wanted to tread anymore.

I couldn’t stop. The floodgates had opened, and I was no longer in command of the tide.