The tiger does not eat far away

I picked this up from my local library the other day. I've read two of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's books before, Love in the Time of Cholera and Love and Other Demons, and adored them both.

This short work is the recollections of a ninety year old man who wants to celebrate his birthday by having a night with a young virgin. We follow him for a year as he falls in love with this girl who he only sees sleeping night after night.

I liked this book, sort of. I enjoy the way that Marquez tells a story, but I feel like this could have been better. I got confused at some points as to who the old man was talking about and I don't feel that he really talked about the rest of his life satisfactorily. The secondary characters were more interesting to me than the narrator, especially Rosa Cabarcas. I just couldn't get into this story the way I could with his other works. I wouldn't classify this one as a "must read" but I would still give the rest of Marquez's books a read.




I've got a stack of books on my desk I need to blog about. Unemployment means I have lots of time to read. I've also been having a lot of trouble sleeping and have been staying up very late reading. I finished the rest of the Charlaine Harris vampire books, Dave Eggers How We Are Hungry, and am almost done with Neil Gaiman's American Gods. Also almost done with the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Still slogging my way through 2666, though I'm stuck in a slow part right now.

Lately it seems that everyone is lending me books to read. My dad lent me Sharon Kay Penmans When Christ and His Saints Slept, my friend Liz gave me the first three books in Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series and my brother Ryan keeps harping at me to read Robert Jordan's the Eye of the World. I'm not sure which of these I'm going to start first, but I want to finish a couple of the one's I'm currently reading before I start anything else.

Also one more note, as I said earlier I got this book from the library. I went and got my first library card in years the other day. I don't think I've had one since I left for college since during college we just used our student ids. The library out here is pretty small, smaller than the one I grew up with, but it is well laid out and seems to have a good selection. I might go hang out there before work today.