Summer is that time when the fat books we’ve accumulated over the year are waiting to be read. They have been left under the pile or perhaps we have bought them at the last minute when going to look for reservations for the holidays.
Expectations are always treacherous. When we are presented with a few days in a row without a watch, with a sea or a pool nearby to soak in, plans are always surpassed by reality. Because even if it’s a vacation, you won’t have all the hours in the world to read. You also have to count the vermouth time with friends, go on a cultural visit, go out to a local festival and get up late the next day… So time is shortened and perhaps that much-desired billet will not even leave the room. suitcase.
Among the benefits of Twitter, that not everything is wallowing in the mud, I prefer a tweet from the translator Yannick Garcia, in which he asked: “Your favorite short novel?” I wanted to make my contribution –Tres luces de Claire Keegan–, but the writer Laura Tejada had already recommended it and I limited myself to painting a heart. The tweeters were generous and a good list was formed. And then the people who put things in order intervened: Biblioteques de Girona collected all the short novels that were coming out, added their favorites and created a poster with all the covers and a list that was easy to consult.
We have crumb for summer and more. We can start with the one that gives us the most Ràbia by Sebastià Alzamora, and continue with Nothomb, Eva Baltasar, Zweig, Alina Bronsky, Miquel Martín, Kent Haruf, Chiyo Uno, Vanderbeke, Modiano, Echenoz, Kotzwinkle, McCullers… Let’s go chaining nouvelles to read the equivalent in pages of a good billet, without a blade of straw.