Rob Baker > Recent Status Updates

Flying from Chicago to Madrid today. This is my airplane book :)

The 4th book I' reading because it is set in Gibralter, which I may be visiting soon.

So far it seems like it will bee the novel that describes what life is like there, albiet from a 1930's perspective.

I read the 1st book in this mystery series a while back and remember liking it. This is the ninth, and I skipped the intervening books, so hopefully that won't interfere with my understanding of what's happening.

The third book I've chosen just because it takes place in Gibraltar, which I might be visiting this fall....

From the octopus's musings:

"Humans have few rdeeming qualities, but their fingerprints are miniature works of art...

...(W)hen the doors lock for the night and the lights dim, they leave behind a stunning, intricate mural on the glass at the front of my tank.

Sometimes I spend quite some time staring at them, studying. Little oval masterpieces" (59).

First book I've read (and perhaps the only in existence) partly narrated by a philosophical octopus:

"For a moment I considered this option (death). Nothing was something. What might lie on the other side of life?" (25).

"....the last three were the finest fish I ever caught. They weren't the biggest or most spectacular fish I ever caught, but they were the three fish I caught because my brother waded across the river to give me the fly that would catch them and because they were the last fish I ever caught fishing with him" (94).