I Am God is an almost outrageously charming book. In the first of his seven novels to be published in English, Giacomo Sartori takes a simple, playful premise and sets the universe crazily spinning. The Italian writer has conjured up a delicious, comical stream of omniconsciousness: a pensive diary by the original omniscient narrator, God. Sartori’s God, a being of authentic complexity and paradoxical humanity, of both otherworldly dignity and satirical absurdity, is an irresistible character. He is also in love. Imagine how disconcerting this is for God.

The Labyrinth is the Saul Steinberg book that was in the house when I was growing up. I must have been about seven years old when I first opened it on my lap. Despite lacking text of any kind, this book told even a child that it was meant to be leafed through from start to finish.