Caucasian woman, mid 40s, with close cropped bleach blonde hair, wearing a long, fluffy black and white coat and ear muffs.

Running With Scissors, Augusten Burroughs (Picador)

Page 121:

Her feet are stretched out in front of her, buried in the plush, matted fur of her dog, Zoo. When she wriggles her toes, it looks like there are animals deep inside Zoo’s fur. The sofa fabric is threadbare, so smooth from wear it’s slick.

“Thanks for the ride, man.”

They hopped out of the truck, cutting through a ditch behind the ferris wheel, onto the fair grounds past the long line up to get in. Ronnie took off his jean jacket, a satin vest underneath, his white sleeves rolled up to reveal toned triceps and a fresh burn. They passed the games to the snack shack and they ordered Cokes and pretzels. KISS’s “I Was Made For Lovin’ You” played on the radio. Gregg sucked the salt from pretzel, reminding himself to go slow, it gave him the hiccups, and tried to take in the flurry of activity. At night, everything felt bigger, heightened—hyper.

Strolling the grounds they passed a man with sleeves of tattoos pounding the holes of the groundhog game with an unreasonable amount of aggression. His girlfriend, or daughter, it was hard to tell, stood to the side smiling weakly.

“Best to just let him work it out.”

Gregg fiddled his camera out of his pocket and held it waist-high. After he’d taken the shot he apologized, like it had been a mistake and jogged ahead to catch up with the guys. He stopped briefly to watch a small boy with a floppy red afro struggle upside down on the Spaceball, a human gyroscope.

The attendant grew impatient.

“If I spin you any longer you’ll hemorrhage.”

“Go again!” the boy screamed.

“That’s it,” the attendant said. “You’re done.”

The camera’s flash filled the foreground, the latent rage of an aging carny developing on a frame of black and white film.

Caucasian male, mid 20s, with curly brown hair and a full winter’s beard, wearing a second-hand overcoat and red scarf, beige corduroys, cut off at the hem and brown leather shoes. For the record, on my car I counted 23 readers. Pretty bloody cool.

One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez (HarperCollins Canada)

Page 261:

While Aureliano Segundo ate with great bites, overcome by the anxiety of victory, The Elephant was slicing her meat with the art of a surgeon and eating it unhurriedly and even with a certain pleasure. She was gigantic and sturdy, but over her colossal form a tenderness of femininity prevailed and she had a face that was so beautiful, hands so fine and well cared for, and such an irresistible personal charm that when Aureliano Segundo saw her enter the house he commented in a low voice that he would have preferred to have the tourney in bed and not at that table.

“I’ll make coffee,” she said, jumping from the tossed white sheets at 7:36 on a Saturday morning. Yesterday she was doing rounds by now. This glorious morning, resplendent with cuddles (and cuddles lower still), was a vacation.

“I’ll make coffee and warm some scones. And steak. Do you like steak?”

Yes, I like steak.

I raised my arms over my head and took in the room. In the light, well, it looked bright. Everything was white, save for a charcoal drawing on the wall. Dark, with a story.

“Shower if you want to. And feel free to check your email.”

The CBC filled the apartment, the pleasure of living in an apartment with concrete walls. Meat hit the pan, its spit mixing with mine. God, I’d forgotten how much I loved steak. I rolled out of bed, into the clothes on the floor and stumbled towards the bathroom. No, the kitchen. This moment only comes once. I leaned over her shoulder — “Smells good.” — and we shared that first lazy Saturday morning, Hello, we’ve met, kiss.

She smiled shyly, wielding a butcher’s knife and let her head rest against my chest.

Hispanic woman, late 20s, wearing a long wool coat and black scarf. Her lush brown hair is pushed up under a tweed cap, loose strands dangling around large silver hoops. The tattoo on the base of her neck appears to be a 45 rpm record spindle.

The Writing Life, Annie Dillard (Harper Perennial)

Page 17-18:

The written word is weak. Many people prefer life to it. Life gets your blood going, and it smells good. Writing is mere writing, literature is mere. It appeals only to the subtlest senses–the imagination’s vision, and the imagination’s vision, and the imagination’s hearing–and the moral sense, and the intellect. This writing that you do, as if you were dancing next to the band, is barely audible to anyone else. The reader’s ear must adjust down from loud life to the subtle, imaginary sounds of the written word. An ordinary reader picking up a book can’t yet hear a thing; it will take half an hour to pick up the writing’s modulations, its ups and downs and louds and softs.

She draws her fingers across the page; the topography of each word builds toward a vision. She leans forward, closer, fingers moving swiftly from margin to margin. Her head tilts now, her brow restly gently on her knuckles. Her commitment to the page is almost unbearable; the pads of her fingers are seared with silent counsel. She gasps and lifts from the page, falling back into her chair, giggling.

She draws her fingers across her lips; a coquettish grin rolls across her face.

Caucasian man, mid 40s, with a conservatively wide part in his greying hair, wearing a worn leather motorcycle jacket, white and black plaid scarf, black jeans and brown hiking boots. He reads his book from his lap, cradled in his long fingers, his wide thumbs acting as book ends.

The Inheritance of Loss, Kiran Desai (Penguin Canada)

Page 56:

The sound of the cook talking reached the judge’s ear as he sat over chess in the drawing room. When he thought of his past, he began, mysteriously, to twitch. Every bit of him filled with a burning sensation. It roiled within until he could barely stand it.

Breakfast was strawberry Pop Tarts. The boy and Uncle sat in the kitchen blowing on the filling, rolling the toasted pastry around their mouths like it was hot coals. Uncle threw his down on the paper towel opting for coffee alone. The boy walked his fingers across the table and grabbed the leftover, holding it to his chest like he was planning to store it for the long season ahead. Uncle straightened up to scold him, but the boy had started nipping away at the tart like a little beast, reveling in his tiny victory. Was he snorting? Uncle wondered.

He saw a glimpse of the boy’s mother in those mischievous eyes.

He recalled living on the beach when they were young. It was the summer; their mother had called it a vacation, a whole summer down by the lake. He’d gone out into the surf, far too far. It was his sister’s job to make sure he didn’t go astray. He giggled, wading further. A succession of waves had come in and he struggled to stay above water. The shore sucked him under and spit him out, over and over. He’d scanned the shore looking for her; she would come get him. When he found her, she was standing by the tent, their mother fast asleep inside, fading. His sister had just stood there watching him bob in and out of the sight, her eyes as murky as the lake water. Uncle caught himself staring at the boy with hatred. Lord in heaven, he thought.

Please don’t let the kid have it too.

Caucasian woman, late 30s, brown hair in a tight bun, wearing a black parka and blue and green scarf. Her mittens are stuffed into her pockets. To keep her hands free to turn the page, she bites the lip of her Starbucks cup.

A Spot of Bother: a Novel, Mark Haddon (Doubleday)

Page 38:

Jean felt ashamed. As any sane person would. If you kept quiet about it you felt like a liar. If you told the story you felt like something from a circus.

They switched places, her elder sister taking the top bunk. The two of them figured this would keep the younger sister safer. She wasn’t as likely to have accidents if she didn’t have so much space around her. She didn’t like being enclosed, but she couldn’t disagree; this made sense. When the parents asked why the change, the elder sister panicked, chirping, “If cleanliness is next to godliness, then she doesn’t deserve to sleep so close to Heaven!” The parents seem to accept this and closed the door. The younger sister kicked the bottom of her sister’s bunk.

“What was that?!”

The elder sister swung her head over the bed, her hair hanging loose as vines.

“You want me to tell them the truth?”

“…No.”

“Then go to sleep.” She propped herself back on the top bunk. “Maybe you should wear Mom’s ankle weights.”

The younger sister scowled at the bottom of her sister’s bunk. All she had to do was get through the night. That would show her. She closed her eyes and dared sleep to come swiftly.

Two hours later, she awoke to the urgent whispers of her sister, standing on a chair trying to reach her. Her face was pressed against the ceiling, her body levitating in the night.

“Dammit…”