Peter Bichsel does not depict the world "as it supposedly is," says Peter von Matt, but he has learned "to listen to the voices of the world, to capture them and work with them, to connect and assemble them, playfully yet in strict composition." Nowhere are those "voices of the world" better and more clearly heard than in those idiosyncratic stories that Peter Bichsel calls "columns": observations from the road. Here, we encounter the peculiar Egon, who speaks only in hints and abbreviations, witness an outburst of anger from Paul, a generally easygoing person, sit as strangers in a bar in Brisbane, visit the "winter school at the station," meet a first grader who is anything but naive, reflect on failed Christmas celebrations, the sick friend, and listen to today's boys, who will later recount that everything was different back then.