Lydia Davis

There is a short street near the place de la République called the rue des Carmes. It has a dog-leg bend in it, and just at the bend is the doorway of a bookshop specialising in small-press poetry books. You learn that when you walk down this street, south from the rue de la République, which is at your back, you are walking down the centre of what used to be the nave of a large church, the Church of the Carmelites.

Dear Who Gives a C**p,

Thank you for the recent shipment, which arrived promptly. I’m glad to have it. I feel good about using recycled toilet paper, even if it does not always tear off the roll neatly and is a little coarse, though we quickly got used to that and may even come to like it. In any case, I would rather suffer a slight discomfort than be complicit in the felling of...