Book summary

Famed illustrator Maira Kalman comes as close as anyone in recent memory to mimicking the stream of consciousness with this collection of random musings, personal thoughts, and arbitrary facts, all accompanied by her beautifully bizarre paintings. Ostensibly an illustrated journal of a year in Kalman's life, but best described as a picture book for adults, PRINCIPLES OF UNCERTAINTY allows various topics to bubble up to the surface to mix and merge with one another, so that a eulogy for the dodo bird inexorably becomes a reminiscence of a young Vladimir Nabokov, by way of Pavlov's dogs. The joy of this exquisite book lies in discovering where your own thoughts may lead after launching off of Kalman's shimmering mental blueprint.