A problem of space first of all then a problem of order. One of the most singular and extravagant imaginations of the twentieth century the novelist and essayist Georges Perec was a true original who delighted in wordplay puzzles taxonomies and seeing the extraordinary in the everyday. In these virtuoso writings about books and language he discusses different ways of reading a list of the things he really must do before he dies and the power of words to overcome the chaos of the world.. One of t