Ander's Favorite Reads

The Return

Tender or etched in acid, the eagerly anticipated second volume of stories by Bolano is hazily suggestive or chillingly definitive, a trove of strangely arresting, short master works.

2666

Three academics on the trail of a reclusive German author; a New York reporter on his first Mexican assignment; a widowed philosopher; a police detective in love with an elusive older woman--these are among the searchers drawn to the border city of Santa Teresa, where over the course of a decade hundreds of women have disappeared.

In the words of The Washington Post, "With 2666, Roberto Bolaño joins the ambitious overachievers of the twentieth-century novel, those like Proust, Musil, Joyce, Gaddis, Pynchon, Fuentes, and Vollmann, who push the novel far past its conventional size and scope to encompass an entire era, deploying encyclopedic knowledge and stylistic verve to offer a grand, if sometimes idiosyncratic, summation of their culture and the novelist's place in it. Bolaño has joined the immortals."

The Long Ships

Frans Gunnar Bengtsson’s The Long Ships resurrects the fantastic world of the tenth century AD when the Vikings roamed and rampaged from the northern fastnesses of Scandinavia down to the Mediterranean. Bengtsson’s hero, Red Orm—canny, courageous, and above all lucky—is only a boy when he is abducted from his Danish home by the Vikings and made to take his place at the oars of their dragon-prowed ships. Orm is then captured by the Moors in Spain, where he is initiated into the pleasures of the senses and fights for the Caliph of Cordova. Escaping from captivity, Orm washes up in Ireland, where he marvels at those epicene creatures, the Christian monks, and from which he then moves on to play an ever more important part in the intrigues of the various Scandinavian kings and clans and dependencies. Eventually, Orm contributes to the Viking defeat of the army of the king of England and returns home an off-the-cuff Christian and a very rich man, though back on his native turf new trials and tribulations will test his cunning and determination. Packed with pitched battles and blood feuds and told throughout with wit and high spirits, Bengtsson’s book is a splendid adventure that features one of the most unexpectedly winning heroes in modern fiction.

The Canterbury Tales

Beyond its importance as a literary work of unvarnished genius, Geoffrey Chaucer’s unfinished epic poem is also one of the most beloved works in the English language–and for good reason: It is lively, absorbing, perceptive, and outrageously funny. But despite the brilliance of Chaucer’s work, the continual evolution of our language has rendered his words unfamiliar to many of us. Esteemed poet, translator, and scholar Burton Raffel’s magnificent new unabridged translation brings Chaucer’s poetry back to life, ensuring that none of the original’s wit, wisdom, or humanity is lost to the modern reader. This Modern Library edition also features an Introduction by the widely influential medievalist and author John Miles Foley that discusses Chaucer’s work as well as his life and times.


Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Three Gringos while searching for gold in the mountains of Mexico get caught-up in an incrdible situation of greed and manipulation. The story, made into a movie directed by John Houston in 1948 starring Humphrey Bogart is a classic. Traven a German anarcharist who escaped from his homeland during World War I is considered one of the best, as well as mysterious, political fiction novelist of the 20th Century.


Conan the Babarian
Conan the Barbarian is a name known throughout Cimmeria, Brythinia, Turan, and all the territories bordering the Vilayet Sea—as well as most countries more familiar to us in the real world. The character has become a multifaceted industry, as famous in our world today as he was in his own world during the Hyborian Age. More than 50 novels and countless short stories featuring Conan have been written by a variety of authors, but the stories contained in this massive volume are all by the character’s creator, Robert E. Howard. Originally written by Howard to be published in the magazine Weird Tales in the 1930s, these include short stories such as "Shadows in the Moonlight" through to longer tales such as "A Witch Shall Be Born." Although many have taken up the challenge to extend Conan’s adventures over the years, Howard was a master of his craft, lovingly creating a mythical world in which his original masterpieces reign supreme.


Go Down, Moses
Faulkner examines the changing relationship of black to white and of man to the land, and weaves a complex work that is rich in understanding of the human condition.