The House in Paris
by Elizabeth Bowen | 
England Made Me
by Graham Greene | 
A Severed Head
by Iris Murdoch | 
Quartet
by Jean Rhys | 
The Black Prince
by Iris Murdoch | 
Rites of Passage
by William Golding | 
Under the Net
by Iris Murdoch | 
Antic Hay
by Aldous Huxley | 
Eyeless in Gaza
by Aldous Huxley | 
Chance
by Joseph Conrad |
The Birds Fall Down
by Rebecca West | 
Hemlock and After
by Angus Wilson | 
The Bell
by Iris Murdoch | 
The Nice and the Good
by Iris Murdoch | 
Dead Babies
by Martin Amis | 
Tropic of Cancer
by Henry Miller | 
Scaramouche
by Rafael Sabatini | 
Sentimental Education
by Gustave Flaubert | 
The Man Who Laughs
by Victor Hugo | 
Our Lady of the Flowers
by Jean Genet |
In 1930s Paris, where one cheap hotel room is very like another, a young woman is teaching herself indifference. She has escaped personal tragedy and has come to France to find courage and seek independence. She tells herself to expect nothing, especially not kindness, least of all from men. Tomorrow, she resolves, she will dye her hair blonde.