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Now the winner of the Man Booker International prize 2018, which was well deserved.

This is my third book from the Man Booker International prize shortlist and might just be my new favourite book of the year so far.

Whether or not this is a novel is debatable. It is more of an uncategorisable mixture of 116 short pieces varying in length from a single sentence to over 30 pages. On the whole the longer pieces are short stories and the shorter ones thoughts, observations and quirky pieces of science or history.

Tokarczuk has a questing curiosity which is equally at home discussing travel, exploration, the history of anatomy and the science (and ethics) of preservation techniques such as plastination. The thematic logic is sometimes opaque but becomes clearer as the book proceeds.

Like short stories, the component chapters are best read in a single sitting. I would have liked a table of contents to make it easier to find suitable break points, and I decided to create my own, which I have included as an appendix below.

There are also 12 rather intriguing historical maps scattered among the text and once again their relevance is a little unclear.

One of the most striking pieces appears near the end. It treats the uncontrollable spread of plastics in the modern world as a study in evolution - the bag becomes an ultra successful organism which spreads by anemophily (wind pollination).

This is a unique, fascinating and thought-provoking book. Highly recommended. If you want a more professional review, I recommend this one from the Guardian:


Appendix: Table of Contents
Page Title
7 Here I am
8 The World in your Head
16 Your Head in the World
21 Syndrome
23 Cabinet of Curiosities
25 Seeing is Knowing
28 Seven years of Trips
29 Guidance from Cioran
30 Kunicki: Water (i)
39 Benedictus, Qui Venit
39 Panopticon
39 Kunicki: Water (ii)
58 Everywhere and Nowhere
61 Airports
63 Returning to one's Roots
64 Travel Sizes
65 Mano di Giovanni Battista
66 The Original and the Copy
66 Trains for Cowards
69 Abandoned Apartment
69 The Book of Infamy
75 Guidebooks
76 New Athens
78 Wikipedia
79 Citizens of the World Pick up Your Pens!
79 Travel Psychology: Lectio Brevis I
85 The Right Time and Place
85 Instructions
86 Ash Wednesday Feast
102 North Pole Expeditions
103 The Psychology of an Island
103 Purging the Map
104 In Pursuit of Night
108 Sanitary Pads
109 Relics: Peregrinatio ad Loca Sancta
110 Belly Dance
111 Meridians
112 Unus Mundus
113 Harem (Menchu's Tale)
123 Another of Menchu's Tales
124 Cleopatras
124 A Very Long Quarter of an Hour
124 Apuleius the Donkey
126 Media Presenters
126 Atatürk's Reforms
127 Kali Yuga
129 Wax Model Collections
132 Dr Blau's Travels (i)
147 Josefina Soliman's First Letter to Franz I, Emperor of Austria
150 Among the Maori
150 Dr Blau's Travels (ii)
170 Plane of Profligates
171 Pilgrim's Make-up
171 Josefina Soliman's Second Letter to Franz I, Emperor of Austria
173 Sarira
174 The Bodhi Tree
176 Home is my Hotel
177 Travel Psychology: Lectio Brevis II
180 Compatriots
181 Travel Psychology: Conclusion
183 The Tongue is the Smallest Muscle
183 Speak! Speak!
184 Frog and Bird
186 Lines, Planes and Bodies
188 The Achilles Tendon
196 The History of Filip Verheyen Written by his Student and Confidant William van Horssen
214 Letters to the Amputated Leg
219 Travel Tales
220 Three Hundred Kilometres
221 30,000 Guilders
229 The Tsar's Collection
232 Irkutsk - Moscow
233 Dark Matter
234 Morality is Reality
234 Flights
266 What the Shrouded Runaway was Saying
268 Josefina Soliman's Third Letter to Franz I
272 Things not Made by Human Hands
273 Purity of Blood
274 Kunstkammer
274 Mano di Constantino
276 Mapping the Void
277 Another Cook
278 Whales, or Drowning in Air
280 Godzone
314 Fear Not
315 Day of the Dead
317 Ruth
317 Reception at Large Fancy Hotels
318 Point
319 Cross Section as Learning Method
320 Chopin's Heart
329 My Specimens
329 Network State
331 Swastikas
331 Vendors of Names
332 Death and Action
333 Evidence
334 Nine
335 Attempts at Travel Stereometry
336 Even
336 Åšwiebodzin
338 Kunicki: Earth
367 Island Symmetries
368 Air-Sickness Bags
369 The Earth's Nipples
370 Pogo
370 Wall
370 Amphitheatre in Sleep
372 Map of Greece
374 Kairos
402 I'm Here
403 On the Origin of Species
404 Final Timetable
407 The Polymer Preservation Process, Step by Step
408 Boarding