You will craft nothing less than epic with your life

The Swedish cover of Marisha Pessl’s book Special Topics in Calamity Physics is one of my favorite book covers ever. It is so pretty and needs to be displayed. I like the title too.

Special Topics in Calamity Physics in Swedish Fördjupade studier i katastroffysik av Marisha Pessl

I have been eyeing this book in the shop for a while… Then recently I found it at a flea market for 1/7th of the price of a new book. Yay! I think it was a sign that I should buy it.

I love the way Marisha writes. It’s a mix of high school drama and murder strewn all over – with many literary book title associations. I might finish reading it tonight. Here is a quote from the book, said by the teen protagonist Blue’s father:

Those around you can have their novellas, sweet, their short stories of cliché and coincidence, occasionally spiced up with tricks of the quirky, the achingly mundane, the grotesque. A few will even cook up Greek tragedy, those born into misery, destined to die in misery. But you, my bride of quietness, you will craft nothing less than epic with your life. Out of all of them, your story will be the one to last.

Marisha Pessl

Oh how I love good novels. And also, a photo of my own queen of quietness;

Smilla the most beautiful cat in the world
Smilla, my beloved cat.


Smilla is great book reading company. She never feels the need to talk or interrupt the reading, she just cozily purrs by my side in a not too disturbing way…


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11 Responses

  1. Melydia, thanks for commenting and linking to your review. I love audio books too, right now I’m also listening to Maxim Gorkijs biography about his childhood. Great read too. Smilla is named after Peter H?egs book yes indeed, but she has no sense of snow, she just hates that stuff. ;-)

  2. That book has been on my shelf for awhile, but I haven’t read it yet. The Swedish cover is MUCH better!

  3. The book looks gorgeous and I’m going to go look into it right now!

    My cat is similar, although she can be quite disturbing as she always wants to cuddle and will brazenly crawl across me to sit right on top of my book until I pay attention to her.

  4. I loved the book, but somehow it was not very popular here in The Netherlands. It ended up quite soon in the sales baskets. A pitty!
    [or not for the people who could buy it cheap :-)]

  5. I absolutely love the quote you shared from the book. LOVE it! Thank you!
    Your kitty is beautiful. And lucky you to have a kitty who loves to snuggle and purr – I mean how could anyone stand having a kitty this beautiful who simply prefers to sit across the room and stare.

    Give her an extra pat from me!

  6. Thanks for commenting you guys!
    Pam, I knooow, it’s a great quote right? I love great quotes and I can tell you understand to appreciate them too. I mean: “my bride of quietness, you will craft nothing less than epic with your life”… wow, what a beautiful sentence! :-) I just keep re-reading it.