Paris art student Aurelie throws a stone that unintentionally hits a baby in the face. Suddenly she finds herself in sole charge of the stranger's baby for a week. Having no idea how to care for a baby, she enlists the help of her professor and his wife, along with her best friend Sylvie. As this is going on a man, known as 'La Machine', is about to live naked on stage for 12 weeks as part of his wildly popular art installation, in order to demonstrate to people what it means to be alive. The interconnectedness of their stories plays out through the entertaining and thought provoking storyline. I only picked this up off the library shelves due to its awesome cover, but I'm really glad I did. Really enjoyed, highly recommended. ( )

When Aurelie, an art student working on an art project for school, throws a stone in the air in order to pick the random person at whose feet the stone falls as her art subject, she sets a series of events in motion that nobody could have foreseen.

First her stone falls on the face of a baby. Oops... now she has to face an angry mother threatening to call the police. But next she finds herself being handed the baby, carriage and all, and told to look after baby Herbert for a spell. It's down the rabbit hole for Aurelie as she navigates and learns about life with happy Herbert in tow.

With the help of her best friend, Sophie, who lends her a gun, an ex-boyfriend ( )

Setting is Paris. Art student Aurelie tosses a stone and accidentally hits a baby, and then has to take care of it for a week.. Former art student Leandre lives naked on a stage for 12 weeks as La Machine to demonstrate the meaning of life to his audience.

I loathe books that use what used to be called foul language, and those that are obsessed with the male member and with people 'going to the toilet': "This is Life" has all these characteristics but, to my surprise, I absolutely loved it. This book came into the grey and rather sad place that is my current existence and helped put a smile back on my face. It is a light-hearted and entertaining read that also has something quite useful to say about modern art and, as its title hints, about the meaning of life. Minor characters include an old-fashioned Japanese gentleman for whom the meaning of life is working for a large corporation, a pretentious art student who thinks words can compensate for lack of talent, and an equally unpleasant newspaper arts correspondent who has succeeded in life largely on account of nepotism. Centre-stage, literally in one case, are a male performance artist, a baby, and a female art student who only wants to draw but ends up having the most momentous week of her life as a result of a poorly thought through attempt to create the sort of art project she thinks is expected of her. The humour content rises to a crescendo in the final chapters, with both the English nation and the French President being mocked - hilariously, in my view, though humour is notoriously subjective. I shall definitely be reading more of Dan Rhodes work. ( )