I'm reading more slowly right now due to socializing and a lot of emotional distress. Still, slow and steady, right? The Master and Margarita was pretty damn good; certainly I enjoyed reading it. Any book that has the devil as a main character is going to be enjoyable, and the comic parts with Korovyov and Behemoth were zany and entertaining. ( Read more... )

Well, the book I just read is really three books in one, three collections of Garcia Marquez's short stories. Honestly, I didn't like the first one so much - only one story or maybe two in it that I really enjoyed. The second one was much better. The stories weren't in Garcia Marquez's usual style, but still the craftsmanship was there. They ( Read more... )

I continue to slack like a beast, reading far too slowly. Ah well, progress is progress, and the list of magic realist books is drawing to a close. Too bad that several of those which remain are six-to-seven-hundred page monstrosities. I am going to read The Tin Drum, no matter how daunting it looks ( Read more... )

I feel like a slacker. This Ben Okri book, The Famished Road, has taken me a solid eight days to read. It wasn't all that easy to get through, and in fact the first 350 pages were a little bit of a letdown, but the last 150 pages were just amazing. Beautiful magic realism. It's like he kicked the prose style into high gear all at once. The ( Read more... )

I really like Isabel Allende. I'm all sad now because it's time to move on.

Finished Reading: Isabel Allende, The Stories of Eva Luna
Date Finished: 5 April

Currently Reading: Ben Okri, The Famished Road
Date Started: 8 April

I don't know why, but I had a lot more trouble getting through One Hundred Years of Solitude than I did The House Of Spirits. That isn't to say that I didn't enjoy it; there were some really hilarious, laugh-out-loud moments in there that nonetheless left me feeling a little lonely and melancholy. I mean, it's brilliantly written. It's just so ( Read more... )

Wow. The House of Spirits was really astounding, enjoyable beyond belief, and marvellously well-written. It has to be the most canonical example of magic realism I've read since The Satanic Verses, although it lacks the almost dizzying intricacy of that book. I'm adding The Stories of Eva Luna to my reading list to see what Isabel Allende can do ( Read more... )

I love Borges for the rich language, but I respect him for the research and scholarship he puts into his work. He was curator of the Argentinian National Library for years, you know?

Also, my books finally came in the mail. On to Isabel Allende!

EDIT: I'm on page 31 of this book, The House Of Spirits, and it's so awesome I could dance for joy ( Read more... )

If anyone ever wants to understand, or at least begin to understand, the part of me that stands motionless and quiet, for timeless time, staring at the sea; if anyone should want to understand the part of me that loves stillness and solitude and the countryside, loves places without words, without needs; if anyone, driven by curiosity, wants to ( Read more... )

Neil Gaiman, he never disappoints. What I really like about him is his proficiency with stories of all different lengths. He's got one story in Fragile Things that's only 950 words long (I counted) and yet is wonderfully complete, spooky, and satisfying; on the other hand, the novella that wraps up the book is just as captivating and seems to go ( Read more... )