“Contentious, rude, hilarious, moving, and truthful. A book you’ll dip into for the rest of your life.” —Ian Rankin

The male genitals are worn externally as evolution is in the process of expelling them from the body. Another million years and they’ll be stored in a drawer.

 

The award-winning Scottish poet Don Paterson has assembled a comic, intelligent, and cranky collection of brief truths and conjectures and, in the process, revitalizes the classic pith of the aphorism. “The form’s only virtue is its brevity,” Paterson writes; “at least the reader cannot seriously hold that it has wasted their time.”

“Hundreds of wise meditations on all sorts of subjects, including love, death, literature and sex. Aphorisms, being normally only two or three lines long, are in their form perfect for our times. In Paterson’s hands, they become supremely wise and moving as well.” —Alain de Botton, Scotland on Sunday

 

“Clever, addictive and funny.” —Nick Hornby, The Guardian

Don Paterson is a poet, translator, editor, and musician. His poetry collection Landing Light won the Whitbread Poetry Award and the T. S. Eliot Prize. He lives in Kirriemuir, Scotland.

Imprint: Graywolf Press
Distributor: MPS
Publication Date: 08-05-2008
Pages: 144
Measurements: 8.50in X 5.25in