Sixty-Four Chance Pieces: A Book of Changes

One of the essential qualities of the ancient Chinese divination manual I Ching is its capacity to provoke new ideas and new ways of thinking. Perhaps unsurprisingly then, the text has, over centuries, accreted thousands of companion texts and commentaries, which use the work as a jumping off point for spiritual or philosophical contemplation.

In Sixty-Four Chance Pieces, the British writer and philosopher Will Buckingham has channeled the inspiration of the I Ching in a more literary direction, employing the text as a "literature machine" to provide imaginative material for a collection of 64 short stories – one for each of the hexagrams or gua around which the I Ching is organized.