prickly spines of irony in a moving story of philosophy and beauty. My name is Renée. I am fifty -four and I have been making a housewife in issue 7 on Grenelle for twenty -seven years. It is a nice private house with a yard and garden inside, which is divided into eight very luxurious apartments. They are all huge and someone lives in each. I'm a small, ugly, fat widow, I have corns and sometimes when I have a hard morning, wheezing like a mammoth. I am exactly exactly what the general social consciousness has identified the paradigm of the house, so no one would even think that I was more read and educated than all the rich inhabitants of our house. My name is Paloma, I am twelve and I live in Paris in one expensive apartment in number 7 on Grenelle Street. Despite all this happiness and all this wealth, I have long known that the final station is the same aquarium. And how come I know it? I'm pretty intelligent. Even exceptionally intelligent. That's why I decided. At the end of this school year, on the day of my thirteenth birthday, exactly 16 June, I commit suicide. Muriel Barbery writes about deep things with seductive ease, an ironic language tells a simple and moving story of meeting and passing, blindness and vision, about the transience and eternity. International bestseller / in France sold 1,100,000 copies / published in 35 countries.