While Jean-Domique Bauby was driving with his son he suffered a massive stroke leaving him with locked-in-syndrome. Locked-in-syndrome left him trapped in his own body. His intellect was intact although he was only able to blink and move a few muscles in his face. This left him feeling like he as trapped in a “diving bell”. Luckily Bauby still had his “butterfly”; his imagination which he uses to escape his prison and show us the joys and tragedies of his life. One of the most amazing things about this book is that Bauby wrote it with his eye lid. A speech therapist recited the most common letters in the french alphabet while Bauby blinked to indicate the correct letter. In this way he formed words, then sentences and finally “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”. Bauby takes you on a journey through his senses and reminds us what is important and beautiful about life in this memoir. “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” is easy to read in a day but well worth reading over and over again. The movie is excellent too!

Gerbrand Bakker, winner of the Dublin award, is a famous dutch writer although not very well known outside of Europe. In Ten White Geese he brings us a mysterious novel about a dutch professor who leaves her job and moves near Caernofon in the Welsh country side after a scandal. She calls herself Emilee and is an Emily Dickinson scholar. We don't learn her real name until near the end of the book. Most of the the characters are like this, they remain unnamed or go by false names. Mystery pervades the novel, the natural world and characters don't wholly reveal themselves or connect with one another. When they do there is usually tension between them, in their gestures as well as words. This is a novel about identity whose players are secretive and complex. Emilee wants to connect with the natural world. The town folk are downright menacing and interfere with the solace she is trying to seek. The natural world rarely cooperates as well. Bakker writes beautiful poetic prose. His writing is precise and contains skillfully rendered imagery. This novel has many layers and is hard to put down. Is she really there to start over? What is the real reason she left? Will her husband find her? Why are the geese disappearing? This menacing pastoral raises many questions that are masterfully resolved by it's conclusion.