Ok, it may seem as though I am avoiding Anna Karenina. I'm not, it's just that I started so many books in January that I am trying to finish a few in between reading AK. This was a beautiful slim book by Amos Oz, who is probably the best known novelist in Israel. Called Rhyming Life & Death, it is the first thing I have ever read by Oz. I honestly picked it because of the look and the feel of the book. I do this every once in awhile. I roam the stacks and I pull out book by book to read the backs and explore. This novella takes place during the span of one night. The narrator is referred to as the "author." The author is in Tel Aviv for a reading at a local community center. He arrives early and goes to a nearby cafe to pass the time. He is not looking forward to the evening, the same questions he is asked over and over again i.e. why do your write, do you write with pen or computer, do you draw from imagination more than real life, how much do you earn, how do you handle criticism, etc. As he sits in the cafe he starts making up stories about some of the people in the cafe, the waitress, the two men sitting at a nearby table. He goes to the reading and continues to do this, makes up stories about the man who introduces him, the woman who reads his work, the heckler, the young hopeful poet, etc. The rest of the night switches between his reality and the made up realities of the characters. It is beautifully written but the stories he makes up are almost all ugly, almost brutal in their telling - this man is in the hospital with a catheter no one empties, this man lives with his mom and has to change her sheets, this woman lives trapped in the memory of an affair she had twenty years ago, etc. But there are a few passage that are so beautiful they take your breath away. It is a mix of ugly and beautiful, pure and profane. It is indeed a rhyming of life and death. I really took a lot away from it. And am definitely going to read more by this author.