Kan Koor Koor itibaren Tellaste, Võru maakond, Estonya
Inventive writing with a focus on the events of the Spanish civil war. The first third is about the writer researching the material for a book, the second third is the central story, and the final third is effectively a further elaboration of the events by introducing another key character. I enjoyed the first and last sections far more than the central section, especially the Moralles character and the sense of respect so much in fighting during the wars. There is plenty of interesting historical background here, but to me some of the political history became complicated and diverted attention from the main story and characters. Occasionally obscure language is used in the English translation too and I did have to reach for the dictionary a few times.
On the April 12th NYTimes Bestseller list!! A Tor book!
If you're like me and oddly fascinated with books about black holes (I have been since a child), this book is seriously fascinating. And, like his other books, completely accessible.
I have a story about this book: When I was in college I worked at Barnes and Noble and I happened to be working in receiving when this book arrived. I pulled a stack of Cunts out of the box and asked the older, more conservative gentleman that I was working alongside a question about...where the book went or something, I can't remember exactly. He promptly gathered the Cunts up and said "This is what we do with books like this" and dumped them in a box of books to be returned to the publisher. He said they were inappropriate, we couldn't shelve them. I decided to raise hell. I gave my manager a talking to about censorship then I shortlisted 10 more of them and put them on the staff rec shelf next to the Vagina Monologues. They stayed there until a customer complained. Having said that all that, I actually only read part of this book, I thought it was a little lame and I'm tired of people trying to "reclaim" words.