And our faces, my heart, brief as photos by John Berger

When I open my wallet
to show my papers
pay money
or check the time of a train
I look at your face.

The flower's pollen
is older than the mountains
Aravis is young
as mountains go.

The flower's ovules
will be seeding still
when Aravis then aged
is no more than a hill.

The flower in the heart's
wallet, the force
of what lives us
outliving the mountain.

And our faces, my heart, brief as photos. *

Sailing to Sarantium by Guy Gavriel Kay

Nobody does mytho-poetic-historical-political-adventure-romance like
Guy Gavriel Kay.

Overclocked by Cory Doctorow

All of the stories in Overclocked are engaging; Anda's Game is brilliant.

Book History

My copy of Book History Volume 10 from SHARP, 'a scholarly journal devoted to every aspect of the history of the book, broadly defined as the creation, dissemination, reception, and use of script, print, and mediacy.'
Table of Contents

Italian Folktales by Italo Calvino ed.

A wonderful collection of tales often reminiscent of the Brothers Grimm but with an absurdist humour that either reflects Calvino's taste or is deeply a part of the Italian folk tradition or both. Probably both.

Motel Chronicles by Sam Shepard

I admire all of Sam Shepard's work tremendously, but I think Motel Chronicles is the book I'd grab during a fire. And Seven Plays.

Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov

An astonishingly sensuous memoir that somehow captures the movement of memory itself.

Excession by Iain M. Banks

Brilliant space opera adventure in the post-scarcity, artificial intelligence driven world of The Culture.

Nutshell Library by Maurice Sendak

Alligators All Around, One Was Johnny, Pierre: A Cautionary Tale &
Chicken Soup With Rice by the brilliant Maurice Sendak.
I told you once
I told you twice
all seasons
of the year
are nice
for eating
chicken soup
with rice!

Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay

“The first time I went to Croatia, the first question I was asked from the floor (with a UN interpreter beside me) was, 'When you wrote Tigana, were you writing about us?' I get that in Poland, and I get that in Quebec." (locusmag.com) Tigana is a brilliant and moving exploration of personal and cultural identity.

Home by Witold Rybczynski

Rybczynski combines awesome research with wonderful writing to illuminate the evolution of the ideas of home, comfort, privacy, and style.

fragile things by Neil Gaiman

An eclectic, diverse, hits-and-misses collection from the astonishingly prolific and multi-talented Mr. Gaiman.

Clay’s Ark by Octavia Butler

Butler’s brilliant novel combines intriguing characters facing terrifying and believable challenges (biological, political) and evolving to survive them.

Everything Is Miscellaneous by David Weinberger

Weinberger describes the ways we order things: first order (say, a collection of books), second order (information about those books, say, a catalogue) and champions a third order (digital) that removes the limitations of the others; I think.

Pattern Recognition by William Gibson

A thriller in the Gibsonverse of contemporary London and Moscow filled with engaging characters and great explorations of media, information, community and trust.