I started collecting oddities and paradoxes of the literary world from my student years in England, the homeland of irony, sarcasm, and a contagious humor that persists, but with great grace and elegance, especially among fellow writers. Later, my findings were enriched with similar snapshots from politics and other arts. As the years went by, this habit, a good antidote to the bitterness that the domestic literary microcosm can generate (since gossip has no homeland), did not abandon me...

(from the Introduction)