Book excerpt: Fiction. Cross-Genre. "Nona Caspers gives us a refreshingly honest and poignant slice of truth in her BOOK OF DAYS. Observing cars, neighbors, ground squirrels, desire and death, BOOK OF DAYS is a contemporary take on Montaigne's famous ESSAYS, so alive that every page feels as if it's breathing"--Maxine Chernoff. "I like how she falls through the present into prehistory (of this or that specific thing) in a blink. Supported by a rhythm of the claws of love, a hand on the back of your head, the warmth inside of coldness of the daily fading world--an avalanche of quiet risk-taking, this book sings"--Eileen Myles. Nona Caspers is also the author of Heavier Than Air: Stories (University of Massachusetts Press), which won the Grace Paley Prize in Short Fiction and was a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice. She's been awarded an NEA fellowship and Iowa Review Fiction Award along with other awards and is an Associate Professor at San Francisco State University.