There Is No Outside: The Secret Life of a Goldfish Told by the Goldfish (Life as a Pet)

His name is Archimedes. He does not have a three-second memory. He has a perfect one. He has had three years, sixty liters, and a ceramic castle to think about this, and he has.In the fourth book of the Life as a Pet series, a goldfish offers his complete account of domestic life from inside the tank. He has mapped every cubic centimeter of his world. He has named the furniture visible through the glass. He has developed a precise theory about the nature of the wall that separates him from everything else, a thorough assessment of his tankmate Copernicus (intelligent, results still inconclusive), and a deeply considered philosophy of water, memory, light, and what it means to pay attention to a world that most observers would describe as small.Archimedes would like a word with those observers.Written in first person, with one full cartoon illustration per chapter, There Is No Outside is funny for children and funnier for adults. It is about small worlds and deep attention. It is about the difference between knowing something and noticing it. And it is, underneath the philosophy and the dry wit and the meticulously maintained catalog, a quiet love story about a fish, a tank, and the hand that appears every morning at approximately 7:43am to deliver fourteen pellets.He has noted the hand. He has filed it.He has not yet found the right words for it. He is working on that. Read more