Reading roundup

Love in the Time of Cholera
Gabriel García Márquez

My second reading of this one. It's a wonderful book, exquisitely translated by Edith Grossman. Although Márquez is famous for his magical realism, there is not much magic here. Behavior and incidents are occasionally implausible, but hardly fantastical. The battle between the powerful and capricious forces of inevitable death and uncertain love drives the narrative, along with numerous picaresque set pieces.

The Beauty of the Death Cap
Catherine Dousteyssier-Khoze

Knowing my love of all things mushroom, MK couldn't resist gifting this one to me. It's a novella in the tradition of French noir thrillers about nasty characters, a la Jean-Patrick Manchette. Our protagonist narrator Nikonor is indeed a nasty fellow who loves mushrooms too. His obsession, it turns out, is not with the death cap, but with the highly prized edible cep (porcini), although he doesn't eat mushrooms himself. That doesn't prevent him from putting the death cap to other purposes. Funny and well-written, if not up to Manchette's standard.

Good People
Patmina Sabit

This is a novel about a crime (maybe) and assimilation (or maybe not), taking place in a fictional Afghan-American family/ community. Was it an accident or an honor killing? Was the investigation driven by a search for truth and justice, or racism and xenophobia? Written as a sequence of interviews with acquaintances and witnesses, it has a Rashomon vibe that won it a good bit of praise. Although the plot will keep you going, I found the style and tone of the "interviews" implausible, and the characterizations a bit one-dimensional.