They were quaint gatherings, these, in the stiffly furnished little salon: Emmy, fluffy-haired, sea-shell-cheeked, and softly raimented, lying indolently on the sofa amid a pile of cushions – she had sent Septimus out to “La Samaritaine” to buy some (in French furnished rooms they stuff the cushions with cement), and he had brought back a dozen in a cab, so that the whole room heaved and swelled with them; Septimus, with his mild blue eyes and upstanding hair, looking like the conventional picture of one who sees a ghost; Hégisippe Cruchot, the outrageousness of whose piratical kit contrasted with his suavity of manner, sitting with military precision on a straight-backed chair; and Madame Bolivard standing in a far corner of the room; her bare arms crossed above her blue apron, and watching the scene with an air of kindly proprietorship.

Reginald Edward Morse writes reviews on RateYourLodging.com, yet they aren’t just about the quality of hotel beds and room service – but his life.

A dejected teenager discovers that the universe is communicating with him through talismanic objects left behind in a seagull’s nest.

A Fan’s Notes is a sardonic account of mental illness, alcoholism, insulin shock therapy and electroconvulsive therapy, and the black hole of sports fandom.

There was something about waste material that defied systematic naming.  It was as though the many infantile names for fecal matter and urine were concessions to the fact that the real names (whichever these were) possessed a secret power that inhibited all but the most ceremonial utterance.

In August 1997, UFOland – built by the Raëlians as the largest structure in North America made out of bales of hay – opened on their Valcourt estate.

Meanwhile the guardian angel, entirely unconscious of apotheosis, sat in the little flat in Chelsea blissfully eating crumpets over which Emmy had spread the preposterous amount of butter which proceeds from an overflowing heart.

Perhaps our toads may be more to your liking.  Our toads count dead flies all day long.

Formerly a National Geographic Channel reporter, Istvan frequently appears on television and currently writes for Vice, Gizmodo, Huffington Post, Slate, and others. He’s also the inventor of “volcano boarding.”

Peregrine FitzRoy-Tapps pointed out an enormous armchair beneath a photograph of a pair of elephant tusks.  All the pictures in the room were of tusks, horns, stuffed heads and rifles in trophy cases.  FitzRoy-Tapps was vaguely diagonal in shape.  Those visible parts of him that came in twos, like eyes, ears, shoulders and hands, seemed to be arranged at slightly varying elevations, each to each.