"books-libros-livres-Bucher-libri-livros-boeken" by swesn

The world is a book, those who do not travel read only one page - St. Augustine

Below are some books that I have read; intend to read (I hope!); would be buying soon; am considering if I ought to buy; am waiting for the elusive BRILLIANCE to take form in my brain before I attempt to read; have given up due to miscellaneous reasons, NOT excluding inadequate intellectual level (I am not worthy)...

Feel free to offer your encouragements, make some recommendations or diss at my inaptitude.

Jorge Luis Borges

"Reading Jorge Luis Borges is an experience akin to having the top of one's head removed for repairs. First comes the unfamiliar breeze tickling your cerebral cortex; then disorientation, even mild discomfort; and finally, the sense that the world has been irrevocably altered - and in this case, rendered infinitely more complex." -- Mary Park

Labyrinths - Teases your mind with highly imaginative and brilliant stories, swarmed with philosophical plots, paradoxes, images, infinity, magic, labyrinths, riddles and mazes. May need a few re-readings to get it!

The Book of Sand - Excellent, profound, and sometimes, eerie tales, done Borges' style!! He is truly the MOST IMPRESSIVE short story writer ever lived.

Collected Fictions - Collection of more evidence of Borges' genius. Just had to get it! Am going to slowly savour it one day...

Julio Cortazar

"Anyone who doesn't read Cortazar is doomed. Not to read him is a serious invisible disease which in time can have terrible consequences. Something similar to a man who has never tasted peaches. He would quietly become sadder . . . and, probably, little by little, he would lose his hair." - Pablo Neruda

Bestiary and Other Stories - Totally floored me. Became a fan overnight although this is the only Cortazar book I actually completed. Filled with fantastic, memorable stories - a pair of siblings' house taken over by unseen people, a tiger roams in a house lived by a family, a guy who vomits rabbits, a boy who became an axolotl, etc...

Hopscotch - A non-linear book whereby you can choose to read it 'the normal way, from Chapter 1 to Chapter 56' or start off at Chapter 73 and follow the sequence indicated at the end of each chapter.

Blow-up and Other Stories - More of the great Cortazar's magic (some repeated stories from Bestiary and Other Stories).

Cronopios y Famas - Whimsical short stories that will no doubt put a smile, albeit slightly quizzical, to your face. Some stories are about strange fantasy beings called Cronopios, Famas and Esperanzas. In Spanish, a struggle for me, but thoroughly delightful nevertheless when I finally understand the stories.

Bestiario - The Spanish (and shorter) version of Bestiary. Hopefully, I can understand this better since I've read the English version.

Roberto Arlt

The Seven Madmen - Written in 1929, some described this as the perfect start to understand the greatness of Latin American literature. However, while this might be due to the translation, it had too much ANGUISH for me to stomach.

Manuel Puig

Boquitas pintadas

Ernesto Sabato

El tunel

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

"Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature 1982 for his novels and short stories, in which the fantastic and the realistic are combined in a richly composed world of imagination, reflecting a continent's life and conflicts" - Nobel e-Museum

One Hundred Years of Solitude - Superb!! Absolute required reading for everyone!! The nonpareil book on magical realism. A little rambling at first but for the determined, you will be mighty curious how it is going to end. And when it does, it will just totally blow your mind away!

Chronicle of a Death Foretold - Another magical page-turner that chronicles the murder of a guy. Everyone knows he will be killed that day (including you, right at the start). Yet due to all sorts of 'concidences', he still gets killed.

Love in the Time of Cholera - Marquez other famous novel... However, not quite my cup of tea as I am unable to find sympathy for the main characters.

Doce cuentos peregrinos - OK, Marquez in Spanish??? I'm so kidding myself. But one needs to believe in MAGIC!

Alvaro Mutis

"Mutis es un poeta de la estirpe m?s rara en espa?ol: rico sin ostentaci?n y sin despilfarro. Necesidad de decirlo todo y conciencia de que nada se dice. Amor por la palabra, desesperaci?n ante la palabra, odio a la palabra: extremos del poeta. Gusto del lujo y gusto por lo esencial, pasiones contradictorias pero que no se excluyen y a las que todo poeta debe sus mejores poemas. Lujo y, ya se sabe, "orden y belleza", es decir, econom?a en la expresi?n." - Octavio Paz

Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll - Collection of 7 intriguing novellas which chronicle the crazy antics, incredible adventures and near-death disasters Maqroll el Gaviero somehow always manages to get himself in. For the true wanderers of the world...

PERU

Mario Vargas Llosa

"Politician, playwright, art, film and literature critic and essayist, Vargas Llosa is perhaps best known as one of a handful of novelists that have brought contemporary Latin American literature to the forefront internationally." - Heidi Johnson-Wright (January Magazine)

Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter - What a riot! A very fun and simple read, highly entertaining. Part auto-biographical, no less.

The War of the End of the World - A thoroughly vivid description of all the heinous deeds, disembowelments, decapitations, miscellaneous gross stuff of a religious rebellion in the Brazilian jungle in the 1800s, based on a true event. Absolutely breathtaking!

Isabel Allende

"One of the most highly praised and widely read writers of fiction to come out of Latin America in this century, Isabel Allende has mesmerized readers throughout the world with her own blend of magical realism, politics, and romance." - from book jacket of 'Paula'

The Stories of Eva Luna - Very lovable and imaginative stories with a feminine touch, told by Allende's heroine from another book, Eva Luna, the Scheherazade of her time.

Eva Luna - The first book that I completed in Spanish. Gosh, what a lovely, lovely book, chronicling matter-of-factly the extremely unusual life experiences of Eva Luna. When you finish the book, you want to be an Eva!

The House of the Spirits - Similarly done in the style of 'One Hundred Years of Solitude' but with her feminine touch, this narration is a thoroughly engaging epic, well deserved of the accolades it receives.

Portrait in Sepia - I read it in Spanish, yet another wonderful novel about the unusual life of a strong female character at the turn of the century. I love how Allende weaves a tale. Thoroughly recommended to female readers!

Pablo Neruda

The Captain's Verses - A collection of poems. Muy romantico!

URUGUAY

Mario Benedetti

La Tregua - Asked a bookstore owner in Buenos Aires to recommend a 'simple' Spanish book and he picked out this one. Ahem, we shall see...

BRAZIL

Jorge Amado

"One of the greatest writers alive...also one of the most entertaining." - Mario Vargas Llosa

Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands - Very beautiful, flowery prose on the morals of amorous Dona Flor. Captivating to read, with many tiny little delightful descriptions of Bahian culture, including food and sex, thrown in for the fun.

Gabrielle, Clove and Cinnamon - Not as fun to read as Dona Flor, I thought. Didn't feel quite sympathetic towards any of the characters in the end.

Laura Esquivel

Como Agua Para Chocolate - In Spanish, very interestingly written with recipes intermixed amongst the stories. Have stopped for a while but will get back to it when my Spanish improves

Octavio Paz

Labyrinth of Solitude - OK, way too intellectual for me. Believe I never made it beyond the first few chapters. Happy to leave it sitting and gathering dust on my shelf.

Juan Rulfo

Pedro Paramo - Some said it is one of the models for Marquez's 'One Hundred Years of Solitude'

The Burning Plain and Other Stories

Carlos Fuentes

The Years with Laura Diaz

TRINIDAD

V.S. Naipaul (not sure where to place Naipaul - Trinidad-born, Indian ancestry, based in England, writes about the world)

India - A Million Mutinies Now

Milan Kundera
"Kundera has raised the novel of ideas to a new level of dreamlike lyricism and emotional intensity." - Jim Miller

Immortality - Wonderful style of writing, where the 'real life' stories and characters get caught up with the stories the writer is writing.

Identity - A Novel - Er... quite a disappointing ending, frankly. Not as good as Immortality.

The Unbearable Likeness of Being - In typical Kundera style, describing the same situation from different perspectives. Interesting and enjoyable to read.

The Joke - Be sure to get the 6th edition, the one finally approved by Kundera. It was his first novel but what brilliance! Deception and self-deception

ITALY

Italo Calvino

If on a winter's night, a traveller... - Great read, interesting and humourous style of writing. The start of several novels are interspersed with the 'adventures' of the reader as he keeps getting hold of dud books!

Difficult Loves - Very sweet, short stories, whimsical and some very descriptive in all the mundane, everyday details that you never realised anyone noticed them but all so very true! Just can't help but put a smile to your face.

Our Ancestors

Umberto Eco

The Name of the Rose - I cannot stop raving about this book!! Wonderful historical novel about murders in a 14th-century monastery. Absolute page-turner as the gruesome bodies came popping up. Superbly made into a film starring Sean Connery as William of Baskerville

Baudolino - A fantasy gem which chronicles the adventures of Baudolino in the 12th century as he journeys through fabled lands meeting really bizarre creatures. As I read this, I really felt myself floating through the astounding scenes and incredible tales

Foucault's Pendulum - My very first Eco and while there were A LOT OF words to get through, I became an overnight fan. Recommended to anyone interested in esoterism, Knights Templar, conspiracy theories

Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana

SPAIN
Antonio Munoz Molina
El Jinete Polaco - Gift from a Spanish friend. I will try...

Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The Shadow of the Wind

Fyodor Dostoevsky

"Russian novelist, journalist, short-story writer whose psychological penetration into the human soul had a profound influence on the 20th century novel. Dostoevsky's novels have much autobiographical elements, but ultimately they deal with moral and philosophical questions." - books & writers

Crime and Punishment - One of those books that you have to read, just because... Stunning, brooding, deservedly famous.

The Brothers Karamazov - BOOK OF THE MOMENT

Leo Tolstoy

"Russian author, one of the greatest of all novelists. Tolstoy's major works include War and Peace (1863-69), characterized by Henry James as a "loose baggy monster", and Anna Karenina (1875-77), which stands alongside Flaubert's Madame Bovary and Fontane's Effi Briest as perhaps the most prominent 19th-century European novel of adultery. Tolstoi once said, "The one thing that is necessary, in life as in art, is to tell the truth." " - books & writers

Anna Karenina - Another thick one...

Mikhail Bulgakov
The Master and Margarita

UKRAINE
Irene Nemirovsky
Suite Francaise

NORWAY

Jostein Gaardner

Sophie's World - 3000 years of philisophy cramped down your throat in 1 book. Got lost amongst the names of the philiosophers, I have to admit but the mystical ending is well worth the read.

The Solitaire Mystery - Much easier to digest than Sophie's World and very memorable. I am always watching out for joker cards ever since I found one after I read this book!

Jiddu Krishmamurti

This Matter of Culture

TIBET

Dalai Lama
The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living (written by Howard Cutler)

Path to Freedom

LEBANON
Amin Maalouf
Samarkand

AFGHANISTAN
Khaled Hosseini
The Kite Runner

NIGERIA
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Half of a Yellow Sun