"A book that belongs on the same shelf as Italo Calvino's "If on a Winter's Night a Traveler," Nabokov's "Pale Fire", and several works by Zoran Zivkovic, Stanislaw Lem and David Markson." - Michael Dirda, The Washington Post A collection of entrancing literary fables from an underrated master of the form … Perfect for the fans of David Mitchell, Julio Cortázar and Steven Barthelme are these 15 dreamlike tales. Welcome to the fictional universe of C. D. Rose, whose stories seem to be set in some unidentifiable but vaguely Mitteleuropean nation, and likewise have an uncanny sense of timelessness - the time could be some cobblestoned Victorian past era, or the present, or even the future.

• A journalist's interview with an artist turns into a dizzying roundelay of memory and image.
• Two Russian brothers, one blind and one deaf, build an intricate model town during an interminable train ride across the steppe.
• An annotated discography for the works of a long-lost silent film star turns into a mysterious document of obsession.
• Three Russian sailors must find ways to pass the time on a freighter orphaned in a foreign port.
• A forgotten composer enters a nostalgic dream-world while marking time in a decaying Romanian seaport.

C.D. Rose is the author of five books including We Live Here Now, The Blind Accordionist, and Who's Who When Everyone is Someone Else. He was awarded The Goldsmiths Prize in 2025. He currently teaches at the University of Birmingham in Birmingham, England.