Midnight's Children

Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie. Penguin.

I doubt there's much I could say about this book that hasn't said before, so I won't even try.

Pisa y corre

Pisa y corre: Beisbol por escrito. By Vicente Leñero and Gerardo de la Torre (eds). Alfaguara. ISBN:968-19-1304-3.

A collection of short stories by Latin American writers about baseball. The book is organized by innings (the table of contents actually says "innings" and not "entradas"), and as you might expect, the score's tied at the end of the ninth, so there are three extra ones.

One of the editors, de la Torre, is the father of a good friend of Alma's. Small world.

Kafka on the Shore

Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami. Vinage.

As much as I've appreciated Murakami in the past (certainly finding out about an author hitherto unknown to me, liking his work, and discovering that he's prolific is a great thing to happen), this book seemed to me in many ways to be a pastiche of his own earlier works, and as a result not very satisfying. Which is to say: a person who would or does enjoy reading Murakami but hasn't read much so far, should by no means turn down Kafka on the Shore. However, if you've already read a fair amount of his works and are, like me, a bit Murakamied out, you might be disappointed. I expect to continue reading his stuff, but I'm now in much less of a rush to do so.

God's Secretaries

God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible by Adam Nicolson. Harper Perennial.

A series of short biographies of the Translators who worked on the King James Bible.

While these biographic sketches were interesting in their own right, the book did feel somewhat incomplete: it discussed just the Translators and their close acquaintances, but very little about the process of translating and compiling the Bible itself, which is unfortunate.

Unfortunate for me, anyway; perhaps Nicolson decided, not unreasonably if so, that there are already enough works available that discuss the Bible qua literature and that writing another such work would be redundant. In which case, God's Secretaries serves its intended purpose swimmingly, and I'm merely not quite its intended audience.

Histora de una gaviota y del gato que le enseñó a volar

Historia de una gaviota y del gato que le enseñó a volar by Luis Sepúlveda. Tusquets.

So short, but so very sweet. In more than one sense. This was the book that finally sold me on Sepúlveda.

God's Crucible

God's Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570-1215 by David Levering Lewis. Norton.

A history of Western Europe, particularly the areas of it that today comprise Portugal, Spain, and France, and how conflicts between Muslims and Christians shaped it.

Letter to a Christian Nation

Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris. Knopf.

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My comments about The End of Faith apply equally here.

First Stop in the New World

First Stop in the New World: Mexico City, the Capital of the 21st Century by David Lida. Riverhead Books.

A collection of portraits of various people and places in Mexico City. Although Lida loves this place—and, in spite of everything, there is indeed quite a lot to love about it—First Stop's strongest effect on me was to make me want to leave, pronto.

On the other hand, it also made me aware of, in spite of having lived here for over four years, how little I really know about this place. I guess after I got settled in and learned my way around a bit, I became set in my routines, or at least out of the habit of regularly exploring and getting lost.

And, although I was by no means ever a regular cantina-goer, I haven't been into one in ages, and sometimes I wonder if maybe I should.

This copy was probably one of the first not initially possessed by its author in Mexico. (I acquired and read it in July.) A friend who was visiting Mexico City from California brought it for me. Thanks, Arturo.

The End of Faith

The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason by Sam Harris. Norton.

Sam Harris' take on religion. Reasonable enough, I guess, except he goes off track with new agey crap and other mostly irrelevant bits and pieces.

El hacedor

El Hacedor by Jorge Luis Borges. Emecé.

Half short stories, half poems, including "Poema de los dones" with the famous lines:

...Dios, que con su magnifica ironía
me dio a la vez los libros y la noche.

written around the time of his appointment to the Biblioteca Nacional de Buenos Aires and his final lapse into blindness.

El español en América

El Español En América by Jose G. Moreno Alba. FCE.

A slightly dry yet nonetheless interesting look at the varieties of Spanish as spoken in the Americas, its origins, and its influences.

El secreto del caldo

Hace una semana preparé un caldo de pollo. Ésta es la receta que usé (espero no haber olvidado algo esencial):

• Hervir una pechuga de pollo
• Quitar el agua hervida de la pechuga y reañadir más agua
• Añadir caldo (en cubo o en polvo)
• Añadir col rayada, zanahoria, calabacín, cebolla, dientes de ajo y jengibre (de preferencia raíz, pero sirve con polvo)
• Añadir hierbas como albahaca, orégano, tomillo, etc (opcional)
  
• Cortar el pollo en pedacitos
  
• Hervir más
  
• Hacer cubos de una papa y hervirlos aparte (opcional pero recomendado)
  
• Preparar arroz blanco (opcional pero recomendado)
  
• Meter el arroz y la papa en la sopa y cocer un poco más (sólo después de haber hecho los dos pasos anteriores)
  
• Disfrutar, con sal, pimienta, chile, limón, etc a gusto
  

Y no salió mal, pero tampoco fue muy bueno. No sé por qué. Pero anoche le tocó a Alma preparar el caldo de pollo, y salió mucho mejor. ¿Por qué? Ni idea. Queda evidente que ella tiene un ingrediente secreto o una técnica secreta. Pero no me dice qué será y me es un misterio.