From the Bookshelf of Read a book from each country…

From above, the two-up circle looks like a sea creature, some simple hungry organism in the water of night. A sea anemone whose edges rise and fall as bodies press and spread with two glittering morsels turning and dangling in its maw. Two coins spinning above the pulsating mouth, catching light and shining to tantalize. But they’re men down there and the coins’ light shines on them the way the sun and moon have never done. A swearing, moneyflicking, beery mob of blokes dancing to the music of the toss, the dance of chance. They call in intercession, they pray and whine and moan as if those two big crosspainted pennies can hear them. See among them the little fella with the stump and the mad light in his eyes, crazy as a crusader, mad as a cut snake, driven as a dog.