A general approach to Read's type constructions of operators without non-trivial invariant closed subspaces

Abstract: We present a general method for constructing operators without non-trivial invariant closed subsets on a large class of non-reflexive Banach spaces. In particular, our approach unifies and generalizes several constructions due to Read of operators without non-trivial invariant subspaces on the spaces $\ell_{1}$, $c_{0}$ or $\oplus_{\ell_{2}}J$, and without non-trivial invariant subsets on $\ell_{1}$. We also investigate how far our methods can be extended to the Hilbertian setting, and construct an operator on a quasireflexive dual Banach space which has no non-trivial $w^{*}$-closed invariant subspace.