Ruben > Recent Status Updates

"Why don’t you film in Venice, he had asked, and Danilo laughed. Because the film is not set in Venice. It is set in Fellini’s Venice, and that has to be made from scratch."

Why aren't more people reading this?!?!

Time for number 5!

Fascinating....

Back to Scotland!

One of my most anticipated books for 2025...the premise sounds a bit like 'The Rain Heron' - I hope it's just as good.

20,000 elephants in Berlin... intriguing...

Possibly a bit too cynical for me...

Rich daughter kidnapped by Corsican independentists....sounds like a good summer read!

Let's see what all the fuss is about...

Very engaging so far, but no sign of any metafiction yet....
..yet....

This is excellent!

Another 'Perfection'?

Oh my, this is really good

This is toooo slow....

I am loving this one!

Look who we have here: it's Abdulhamid II - the paranoid sultan of Orhan Pamuk's Nights of Plague...

“Before this city came to exist, in order for it to exist, we sent over the blind, which is what we Europeans always do (...) France sent over whatever they didn’t want. (...) Could there be any place more interesting than the one where all the chaff gets tossed? That’s where new things ferment, where people learn to innovate, even if those who did the tossing refuse to see it.”

In those days, King Vittorio Emanuele III and Queen Elena were in the city, having sailed from Naples as soon as they learned of our disaster. They had descended from the royal ship amid applause and whistles from the Messinese, and the mayor had been at the forefront to welcome them.

This is really good...

"It is a curious fact, Lefebvre continues, that the five most populous countries in the world –China, India, the US, Indonesia, Pakistan even if combined, would be unable to produce a team that could win the smallest cup in a top European league. The United States has in all of its history produced not a single important player of football."

I’m proud to say that the first word my son uttered, five days ago, was, against all statistical probability, the word dada. Now he says it all the time. He still has trouble, though, articulating the voiceless bilabial plosive d, and for now he replaces it with the voiced bilabial nasal m.

Outstanding non-fiction

The Red Handler closed his eyes as the eminent piano tones played with his ears. Suddenly, he heard a sound. He could see nothing. He opened his eyes.That helped.

Let's try some Austrian coming-of-age!

"Nunca ha habido tanta belleza junta: Alain Delon, Claudia Cardinale y Burt Lancaster", dijo Martín, contando el reparto con los dedos, como si estuviera nombrando la alineación del Napoli de 1987.

"Roya used to say I was a good listener. Mostly, though, I was just a bad talker."