books
Writers, readers, and the ones who hid masterpieces behind the furniture.
The Man Who Was Seventy-Five People
He cast a horoscope for a man who didn't exist and determined he'd been born nine and a half hours before his own conception.
The Literalist
What does a sixteen-year-old do when his mother hides his clothes to keep him from following his father to the executioner?
The Ping-Pong Ball
What are the odds the first autobiography in English survived because a colonel hunting a ping-pong ball was talked out of burning it?
Notre Grande Chasublerie
His ceilings were 1.65 metres high, which suited him perfectly. Every guest he ever received had to crouch.
The Schoolboy Who Kidnapped a General
Expelled at eighteen for holding a greengrocer's daughter's hand, he was saluted through twenty-two German checkpoints eleven years later wearing a stolen general's cap.
The Weatherman Was Wrong Again
For ten years, a Chicago dishwasher kept a secret diary grading the local weatherman against reality.
The Woman Who Wouldn't Look Up
She rode on crusade, got hauled out of Antioch in the dead of night, was caught fleeing in men's clothes at fifty, ran England at sixty-seven — and then she designed her own tomb.
Sir Thomas Phillipps Wanted Every Book in the World
What happens when a man who sleeps on a sofa because his bedroom is full of manuscripts finally has to move houses?
Sei Shōnagon Had Opinions
What kind of person files pear blossoms under "most vulgar thing in the world" and then puts functional tweezers on the same list as the impossibility of lasting love?