Good Reads

[Laurel]

That's worthwhile. It's hard as hell to keep calm and think in life-threatening situations— but it's absolutely necessary if you're to survive things like being caught swimming in a rip tide or falling overboard or hypothermia. You've got to fight panic because that'll kill you for sure.


A couple of months ago (possibly longer) thør had a good discussion of and description of the use of "pegs" in self-rescue from falling through ice-covered water. I think it was in his "Today In Anchorage" thread.

I actually worry about stuff like this. In high school I found a copy of a 1960s book called "The Art of Survival" at a thrift store. It contained all sorts of info on what to do if you survive a plane crash or get lost in the desert, or are stuck in the tropics. I read it from cover to cover several times - which is funny because at that time I'd never even been in a plane, had never been anywhere tropical, and the only desert I'd ever seen was during family trips to Anza Borrego or Death Vallet. lollsers

But yeah - I think that was the Today In Anchorage thread. I love that thread. It's a great read.

 

[Aquagal]

When he snowmachines he puts some kind of peg or hook in his pocket so if he goes under he can pull himself out.

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

The brains of humans and dogs respond in the same way to vocal sounds like laughter and barking-

Attila Andics of the MTA-ELTE Comparative Ethology Research Group in Hungary and his colleagues trained 11 dogs to lie motionless in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner. They recorded patterns of brain activity in the animals as they listened to nearly 200 human and dog noises, from whining and crying to barking and laughing. They also performed the same experiment on 22 humans.

Most animals have to be sedated for brain scans, to stop them moving. This limits what the scans can tell us. But recently, better training methods have meant it has become possible to train dogs to lie still long enough to scan them while awake. Andics is the first to compare humans and dogs in the same experiment.

The scans revealed that human and dog brains both lit up in similar areas in response to the sounds. As might be expected, dogs responded more strongly to dog sounds, and humans responded more to human sounds.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25094-dog-brains-respond-to-calls-just-like-human-brains.html

Dogs and humans share a similar social environment," says Andics. "Our findings suggest that they also use similar brain mechanisms to process social information." That might help explain why humans and dogs communicate with each other so readily.

Andics also proposes that the results indicate a single evolutionary origin for the voice processing area of the brain, potentially dating it back to at least 100 million years ago – the last time humans and dogs shared an ancestor.

But there is an alternative explanation, says Clive Wynne of Arizona State University in Tempe. "The brain is a highly plastic organ, and the dogs' responses could just be the result of a lifetime listening to human voices," he says. "It doesn't necessarily point to an evolutionary similarity, except to show that there are similar 'continents' in human and canine brains that might do similar things."

"Similar brain activity does not necessarily mean that dogs and humans, or even individuals within each species, experience sounds and vocalisations in the exact same way," says Monique Udell of Oregon State University in Corvallis. "We should take care to recognise and value the unique perceptual and emotional worlds of each species, just as much as we have come to value the similarities."

 

[JohnnySavage]

Scams of yesteryear



http://nightstick.azurewebsites.net/image.axd?picture=2013%2F7%2FPrescott-F-Jernegan.jpg

In October of 1897, Prescott Ford Jernegan, a Baptist minister, and Charles Fisher, both from Edgartown, Martha’s Vineyard, arrived in Lubec and immediately set an elaborate plan in motion that ultimately resulted in financial ruin for hundreds of defrauded investors throughout New England and dashed the hopes of Lubec townspeople.

--read the full article Klondike: Lubec's Gold from Sea Water Hoax

 

[Laurel]

http://wbbw1.bwbx.io/cms/2014-02-20/0220_nj_salt_630x420.jpg

After an epic winter, New Jersey is pretty much out of road salt. Through Feb. 11, the Garden State has spread 372,000 tons of salt this year, 44 percent more than during all of last year. Even though it’s a balmy 40F today, politicians live in fear of being unprepared for a snowstorm. So they’re desperate to replenish depleted road salt stocks.

Finding more salt was hard enough, but New Jersey managed to secure 40,000 tons from Maine. Then New Jersey’s transportation officials realized they had no way of shipping it in, because of a 90-year-old maritime law. The Jones Act requires that any cargo shipped between two U.S. ports has to be carried by a U.S. flagged ship—one that’s American-owned, American-built, and crewed by American citizens. This tends to limit the options.

New Jersey officials have applied for a federal waiver, but the U.S. Department of Homeland Security says it will grant a waiver only if “federal transportation officials confirmed that no vessels with United States flags were available to move the cargo,” according to a report in the New York Times. Oh, and it would also have to be in the best interest of national defense.​

- read the full article New Jersey Is Out of Road Salt. Blame Maritime Law (from Bloomberg Businessweek)​

 

[Laurel]

http://www.wnyc.org/i/620/372/l/80/1/the-knowledge_1.jpg

Every year, a small group of sports fans scattered across the US play a game called "Last Man." The goal is to be the last man in America to find out who won the Super Bowl. TLDR Sports reporter Lisa Pollak followed the game this year, and found out just how hard information was to avoid in the internet age.​

- hear the full article #14 - The Knowledge (from On The Media / TLDR)​

 

[Laurel]

http://d.ibtimes.co.uk/en/full/421193/sleep.jpg?w=660&h=440&l=50&t=50

Researchers have examined the brain activity of people experiencing dreams in order to work out why some individuals remember their dreams, while others forget.

The researchers, from the Lyon Neuroscience Research Centre, studied the brain activity of two different types of dreamers to look for any key differences between them.

Why people dream is still mystery among scientists. Some believe it is a result of the brain processing information to get rid of unimportant information, while others say it is neurons firing randomly.

Why some people are remember and others forgotten has also remained unclear.

Published in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, the team, led by Perrine Ruby, showed that one area of the brain involved in information processing is far more active in people who regularly remember their dreams.

"High dream recallers" have more activity in the temporo-parietal junction, which the researchers believe may allow the dreamer to focus more attention on external stimuli, promoting intrasleep wakefulness, which means dreams are better embedded into the sleeper's memory.​

- read the full article Why Do Some People Remember Their Dreams While Others Forget? (from International Business Times)​

 

[trysail]

I actually worry about stuff like this. In high school I found a copy of a 1960s book called "The Art of Survival" at a thrift store. It contained all sorts of info on what to do if you survive a plane crash or get lost in the desert, or are stuck in the tropics. I read it from cover to cover several times - which is funny because at that time I'd never even been in a plane, had never been anywhere tropical, and the only desert I'd ever seen was during family trips to Anza Borrego or Death Vallet. lollsers

But yeah - I think that was the Today In Anchorage thread. I love that thread. It's a great read.

When he snowmachines he puts some kind of peg or hook in his pocket so if he goes under he can pull himself out.

I just thought of another situation where it is imperative that one learn to resist panic and a natural instinct.


If you are driving an automobile through a curve and your car fishtails, it is absolutely critical that you, the driver, turn the wheel into the direction of the skid. That is not our natural instinct**.


It's a technique that is best learned and practiced on an empty, snow filled parking lot. Aside from having a bit of fun, you'll learn something that may save your life.







_______________
**The typical unpracticed driver will usually continue attempting to drive through the curve. This will exacerbate and continue the skid and, likely, lead to a wreck.

​

 

[oggbashan]

I actually worry about stuff like this. In high school I found a copy of a 1960s book called "The Art of Survival" at a thrift store. It contained all sorts of info on what to do if you survive a plane crash or get lost in the desert, or are stuck in the tropics. I read it from cover to cover several times - which is funny because at that time I'd never even been in a plane, had never been anywhere tropical, and the only desert I'd ever seen was during family trips to Anza Borrego or Death Vallet. lollsers

But yeah - I think that was the Today In Anchorage thread. I love that thread. It's a great read.

Somewhere buried in the piles of books is my copy of the US Navy Survival Pocket Book dated 1944.

It was issued to those in the Pacific War but it included, in an Appendix, how to ask a lady for a dance at a formal ball...

More useful information was how to make fish hooks, what plants to eat, what to avoid, how to get fresh water on an island etc.

 

[trysail]

Here we go— it's only a matter of time before...




Dad May Join Two Moms for Disease-Free Designer Babies
By Elizabeth Lopatto
February 25, 2014

A new technology aimed at eliminating genetic disease in newborns would combine the DNA of three people, instead of just two, to create a child, potentially redrawing ethical lines for designer babies.

The process works by replacing potentially variant DNA in the unfertilized eggs of a hopeful mother with disease-free genes from a donor. U.S. regulators today will begin weighing whether the procedure, used only in monkeys so far, is safe enough to be tested in humans.

Because the process would change only a small, specific part of genetic code, scientists say a baby would largely retain the physical characteristics of the parents. Still, DNA from all three -- mother, father and donor -- would remain with the child throughout a lifetime, opening questions about long-term effects for this generation, and potentially the next. Ethicists worry that allowing pre-birth gene manipulation may one day lead to build-to-order designer babies...

​

- read the full article Dad May Join Two Moms For Disease Free Designer Babies (Bloomberg)


​

 

[ryan8558]

Here we go— it's only a matter of time before...




Dad May Join Two Moms for Disease-Free Designer Babies
By Elizabeth Lopatto
February 25, 2014

A new technology aimed at eliminating genetic disease in newborns would combine the DNA of three people, instead of just two, to create a child, potentially redrawing ethical lines for designer babies.

The process works by replacing potentially variant DNA in the unfertilized eggs of a hopeful mother with disease-free genes from a donor. U.S. regulators today will begin weighing whether the procedure, used only in monkeys so far, is safe enough to be tested in humans.

Because the process would change only a small, specific part of genetic code, scientists say a baby would largely retain the physical characteristics of the parents. Still, DNA from all three -- mother, father and donor -- would remain with the child throughout a lifetime, opening questions about long-term effects for this generation, and potentially the next. Ethicists worry that allowing pre-birth gene manipulation may one day lead to build-to-order designer babies...

​

- read the full article Dad May Join Two Moms For Disease Free Designer Babies (Bloomberg)


​

Worrying is not necessary. If there is a chance a doctor will do it for money, the answer is you bet your ass they will!!!

 

[eyer]

It's not only one of the very, very few surviving first-person accounts of exactly what went down in Boston Harbor the night of December 16, 1773, but George Robert Twelves Hewes' memories of it are, without a doubt, the most detailed and expansive...

...if you're interested in the subject and free to read this weekend (the tale itself is less than 170 pgs), click the link and enjoy digitally turning the pages of a New York Public Library original of the 1834 edition:

Retrospect of the Boston Tea-Party, with a Memoir of George R.T. Hewes, A Survivor of the Little Band of Patriots Who Drowned The Tea In Boston Harbor in 1773, by a Citizen of New-York

A few notes:

- Hewes was a simple Boston craftsman - a shoemaker.

- the big black arrows at the lower-right portion of your screen turn the book's pages.

-ENJOY!

 

[SuprSalor]

http://wbbw1.bwbx.io/cms/2014-02-20/0220_nj_salt_630x420.jpg

After an epic winter, New Jersey is pretty much out of road salt. Through Feb. 11, the Garden State has spread 372,000 tons of salt this year, 44 percent more than during all of last year. Even though it’s a balmy 40F today, politicians live in fear of being unprepared for a snowstorm. So they’re desperate to replenish depleted road salt stocks.

Finding more salt was hard enough, but New Jersey managed to secure 40,000 tons from Maine. Then New Jersey’s transportation officials realized they had no way of shipping it in, because of a 90-year-old maritime law. The Jones Act requires that any cargo shipped between two U.S. ports has to be carried by a U.S. flagged ship—one that’s American-owned, American-built, and crewed by American citizens. This tends to limit the options.

New Jersey officials have applied for a federal waiver, but the U.S. Department of Homeland Security says it will grant a waiver only if “federal transportation officials confirmed that no vessels with United States flags were available to move the cargo,” according to a report in the New York Times. Oh, and it would also have to be in the best interest of national defense.​

- read the full article New Jersey Is Out of Road Salt. Blame Maritime Law (from Bloomberg Businessweek)​

Most shipping companies these days can get around the "Jones Act" by going to a nearby foreign port then back to the U.S. From Maine a ship could load there, go to a Canadian port and simply drop anchor or even 'check-in' then proceed to the other U.S. port. Then again, I know of no Jones Act carrier that goes to Maine. APL calls at Halifax, but not Maine.
Many so called plights are blamed on the Jones Act, HorizonDeepwater was one recent example. One of the major platforms for Republicans is the elimination of the Jones Act. Thats one of the few reasons I can't vote for them. Would put me out of work..

Finally got around to reading Kinslayer by Jay Kristoff, the sequel to Stormdancer. Oof! Hope there's another installment in this series..

 

[Laurel]

The author of the article below has died of heatstroke at the age of 39 while on assignment in Uganda.

http://www.gq.com/images/news-and-politics/2013/11/confessions-of-a-drone-warrior/confessions-of-a-drone-warrior-gq-magazine-november-2013-01.jpg

He was an experiment, really. One of the first recruits for a new kind of warfare in which men and machines merge. He flew multiple missions, but he never left his computer. He hunted top terrorists, saved lives, but always from afar. He stalked and killed countless people, but could not always tell you precisely what he was hitting. Meet the 21st-century American killing machine. who's still utterly, terrifyingly human​

- read the full article Confessions of a Drone Warrior (from GQ)​

 

[Aquagal]

I just thought of another situation where it is imperative that one learn to resist panic and a natural instinct.


If you are driving an automobile through a curve and your car fishtails, it is absolutely critical that you, the driver, turn the wheel into the direction of the skid. That is not our natural instinct**.


It's a technique that is best learned and practiced on an empty, snow filled parking lot. Aside from having a bit of fun, you'll learn something that may save your life.







_______________
**The typical unpracticed driver will usually continue attempting to drive through the curve. This will exacerbate and continue the skid and, likely, lead to a wreck.

​

Like Lightening McQueen is told by Doc Hudson, "You have to turn right to go left."

According to Popular Science, this is called drifting:


In order to maneuver a turn, there must be friction between the tires and the road. Try driving around a turn on ice and you'll see what I mean. The friction force gripping the tires acts centripetally, pulling the car into its circular path around the curve in the road. The car's natural tendency is to go straight (see Newton's First Law on inertia) but when you turn the front tires static friction grips them, preventing the car from sliding out along the straight path, and pulling it into a curved one. So normally when you want to turn left, you turn the front tires to the left and the friction force pulls you leftward.

 

[thør]

Like Lightening McQueen is told by Doc Hudson, "You have to turn right to go left."

According to Popular Science, this is called drifting:


In order to maneuver a turn, there must be friction between the tires and the road. Try driving around a turn on ice and you'll see what I mean. The friction force gripping the tires acts centripetally, pulling the car into its circular path around the curve in the road. The car's natural tendency is to go straight (see Newton's First Law on inertia) but when you turn the front tires static friction grips them, preventing the car from sliding out along the straight path, and pulling it into a curved one. So normally when you want to turn left, you turn the front tires to the left and the friction force pulls you leftward.

Just normal winter driving........

 

[Laurel]

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5488/10491675236_d7f745d380.jpg
image courtesy followthethings.com (Flickr)

The orgy invitation email arrived in my inbox unbidden, sent straight to Gmail; whoever was behind the PR arm of the organization knew me personally. The subject line started tantalizingly — “This St. Valentine’s Day . . .” it read in bold text — and the email ended by endeavoring me to “cum and join us on our journey down the rabbit hole (or any hole you’d prefer).” I starred the message, for it to rest, like a red mouth, at the tip of my priority inbox. Then I pitched this story to my editor.

The night of February 14th, I washed my hair with lavender Dr. Bronner’s; cut my fingernails and painted my toenails poppy-red; shaved my legs and labia, hopping on one foot in my tiny shower; picked out a pair of silky underwear; and then very carefully, so as to not tear the nylons, rolled on a pair of black thigh highs, which I clipped to a seventy-five dollar garter belt I bought online my freshman year of college.

Then I pulled a dress over my head and went on my way to the designated address, which had come enclosed in a second missive, and included a phone number. The cold winter air blew up my skirt and moved between my legs.

* * *

Bonobo monkeys are known to greet each other with oral sex, hence the title of the book, The Bonobo Handshake, wherein the handshake is actually cunnilingus. This is far better than the human greeting of oral circle-jerking. The 2010 pop-evolutionary psychology book Sex At Dawn made waves for comparing human and bonobo sexuality — one of its main arguments was that monogamy is against human nature. Hey, birds do it. Bees do it. Even the trees do it. So wanna screw? The point being: our sexual hang-ups are social constructions, and it might be best if we did as the bonobos do.

The sex party was held at an apartment, the host — dressed in a robe that was tied loosely at his waist, and revealed a long stretch of hairy leg — ushering us into a living room dimly lit with candles and a floor lamp turned to its lowest setting. If you are wondering, we shook hands like people, not bonobos.​

- read the full article How to Have Sex with Multiple People at Once in a Chill Way (from Full Stop)​

 

[userid_unknown]

almost anything by Lora Leigh but especially her Breeds series

 

[LorraineRenee]

I've read this!

The brains of humans and dogs respond in the same way to vocal sounds like laughter and barking-

Attila Andics of the MTA-ELTE Comparative Ethology Research Group in Hungary and his colleagues trained 11 dogs to lie motionless in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner. They recorded patterns of brain activity in the animals as they listened to nearly 200 human and dog noises, from whining and crying to barking and laughing. They also performed the same experiment on 22 humans.

Most animals have to be sedated for brain scans, to stop them moving. This limits what the scans can tell us. But recently, better training methods have meant it has become possible to train dogs to lie still long enough to scan them while awake. Andics is the first to compare humans and dogs in the same experiment.

The scans revealed that human and dog brains both lit up in similar areas in response to the sounds. As might be expected, dogs responded more strongly to dog sounds, and humans responded more to human sounds.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25094-dog-brains-respond-to-calls-just-like-human-brains.html

Dogs and humans share a similar social environment," says Andics. "Our findings suggest that they also use similar brain mechanisms to process social information." That might help explain why humans and dogs communicate with each other so readily.

Andics also proposes that the results indicate a single evolutionary origin for the voice processing area of the brain, potentially dating it back to at least 100 million years ago – the last time humans and dogs shared an ancestor.

But there is an alternative explanation, says Clive Wynne of Arizona State University in Tempe. "The brain is a highly plastic organ, and the dogs' responses could just be the result of a lifetime listening to human voices," he says. "It doesn't necessarily point to an evolutionary similarity, except to show that there are similar 'continents' in human and canine brains that might do similar things."

"Similar brain activity does not necessarily mean that dogs and humans, or even individuals within each species, experience sounds and vocalisations in the exact same way," says Monique Udell of Oregon State University in Corvallis. "We should take care to recognise and value the unique perceptual and emotional worlds of each species, just as much as we have come to value the similarities."

I've actually read about this quite a bit! To be honest, not all studies were as kind as to only use MRI scanning...
People (including myself) have been fairly interested lately in the similarities in brain chemistry between humans and dogs in relation to emotion. As we've known for a while, certain chemicals like dopamine, seratonin, epinephrine and norepinephrine, etc. are found across many species of vertebrates. But the levels of those chemicals during certain responses has been a little bit of a gray area.

Long story short, we now know that dogs feel many emotions in the same way we do (though their individual interpretation of that is subject to tons of speculation-- where does sentience come in, and what is it in the first place??) but they can only feel more basic ones like happy, sad, frightened, angry, excited... Emotions like guilt, jealousy, etc. are not in that list, no matter how much it may seem like it. When you catch your dog with his tail between his legs after tipping over the garbage, he's not going "oh no, I did something wrong and don't want my master to be unhappy". It would be something more akin to "I did something I know my master doesn't like. He is higher ranking than me. I am afraid of being punished for making him angry."

But as I always say, science only can know things so far as it can observe them with current technology...

 

[Laurel]

http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6009/6006599095_f698821fbe.jpg
image courtesy Anime Nut (Flickr)

I chose Stoya because it was there. It was a diminutive of my grandmother’s maiden name, and my mother had considered it before naming me after Jessica Savitch, the news anchor. Spoken aloud, Stoya had a nice balance between femininity and strength. It felt rightfully mine because of the family history. An insurance agent owned the domain stoya.com, but I didn’t think I’d ever need a website of my own.
[...]
My stage name is less about withholding parts of myself or maintaining privacy than it is a symbol of the idea that I am more than just my job or any other isolated slice of my identity.

The strangers who call me Jessica at publicity appearances lean in far too close. They hiss it as if they have top-secret information. All they’re doing is letting me know that they had 30 seconds to spend on Google and no sense of propriety — which may sound funny coming from a woman who flagrantly disregards it herself. They’re often the same people who refer to my orifices as “that” instead of “your,” as though the body part in question is running around free-range instead of attached to a person with free will and autonomy.

Yes, there’s a paradox here in that I willingly engage in work that reduces me to a few sexual facets of myself but expect to be seen as a multifaceted person outside of that work. I participate in an illusion of easy physical access, and sometimes the products associated with that illusion — the video clips and silicone replicas of my sexual organs (seriously, and they’re popular enough to provide the bulk of my income) — do, in fact, exist without attachment to a person with free will or autonomy.​

- read the full article Can We Learn About Privacy From Porn Stars? (from The New York Times)​

 

[Laurel]

http://www.papermag.com/uploaded_images/InvisibleBeauty3.jpg

KH: I remember. I thought that the closing of your amazing agency was the first domino to fall. The runways became more monochromatic. Then the late '90s brought this whole millennial aesthetic to fashion that had to do with futurism. Miuccia Prada did a show where all the models looked like clones marching into the 21st century. It almost felt fascistic to me. Prada became "It" and all the lemmings of fashion followed. Suddenly the runways were whitewashed. There was no more diversity. No more individuality. Everyone jumped on the bandwagon showing girls who all looked alike.

BH: Yes, eventually it was [Miuccia] Prada who got rid of the fashion model. It wasn't that she got rid of the black girl. The black girl just started disappearing. She did something that was very editorial. She flipped it. She didn't use models who had famous faces. She whitened it up because she wanted everybody to look alike. So you would not notice the girl, but instead notice the clothes. It caught on and ultimately the fashion model was no longer someone with personality like Linda Evangelista or Naomi. The model became somebody you didn't know who just walked down straight to the end of the runway and back. Once you don't want anyone to stand out, then you have to take out the people who stand out. Then the casting directors came along, which is the worst thing that's ever happened to this industry. They never existed before. This pushed the fashion model further away from the designer.​

- read the full article invisible beauty: The Legendary Fashion Guru Bethann Hardison Explains Why Models All Look The Same These Days (from Paper)​

 

[trysail]

AP Interview:
Yanukovych Was 'Wrong' On Crimea
by The Associated Press

April 02, 2014


ROSTOV-ON-DON, Russia (AP) — In his first interview since fleeing to Russia, Ukraine's ousted president said Wednesday that he was "wrong" to have invited Russian troops into Crimea and vowed to try to persuade Russia to return the coveted Black Sea peninsula.

Defensive and at times teary-eyed, Viktor Yanukovych told The Associated Press and Russia's state NTV television that he still hopes to negotiate with Russian President Vladimir Putin to get the annexed region back.

"Crimea is a tragedy, a major tragedy," the 63-year-old Yanukovych said, insisting that Russia's takeover of Crimea wouldn't have happened if he had stayed in power. He fled Ukraine in February after three months of protests focused on corruption and on his decision to seek closer ties to Russia instead of the European Union.

Yanukovych denied the allegations of corruption, saying he built his palatial residence outside of Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, with his own money. He also denied responsibility for the sniper deaths of about 80 protesters in Kiev in February, for which he has been charged by Ukraine's interim government...

​

- read the full article AP Interview: Yanukovych Was 'Wrong' On Crimea (from NPR's Associated Press feed)​

 

[islandman]

A high-resolution map of the human brain in utero is providing hints about the origins of brain disorders including schizophrenia and autism.​

http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2014/04/02/brain_jh_wide-07dc4a1bc7b1d85876f0c092143b9073e029f572-s40-c85.jpg

- read the full article: Map Of The Developing Human Brain Shows Where Problems Begin (via NPR)​

 

[eyer]

Coming to America...

...young Dodger superstar Yasiel Puig's story:

http://www.lamag.com/Pics/Images/features/2014/05/puig_h1.jpg

Escape from Cuba: Yasiel Puig's Untold Journey to the Dodgers
The shocking saga of Major League Baseball's most controversial player

http://www.lamag.com/features/2014/...el-puigs-untold-journey-to-the-dodgers/page/1

 

[butters]

Hunting and Gathering - Anna Gavalda

http://www.amazon.com/Hunting-Gathering-Anna-Gavalda/dp/159448144X

Gavalda explores the twists of fate that connect four people in Paris. Comprised of a starving artist, her shy, aristocratic neighbor, his obnoxious but talented roommate, and a neglected grandmother, this curious, damaged quartet may be hopeless apart, but together, they may just be able to face the world.

it's a wonderful book. delicate, harsh, sorrowing and uplifting, infinitely touching on the human condition.