6/17/2006

Getting out of the hot sun in a Mission coffee shop and reading Se habla español, Voces latinas en USA, edited by Edmundo Paz Soldan and Alberto Fuguet. It's a collection of short stories by Latin authors living in the United States, about the United States. She bought the book as a gift for some friends who live in Spain, figuring it's something in Spanish that they probably haven't read before. And, she's enjoying reading through it and learning about authors that are new to her as well. Her interest in Latin authors comes from the five years over a period of ten years living in Central and South America doing human rights work.

Right now she's also reading Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill, by Robert Whitaker. She teaches Health at City College here in San Francisco and says the book is well researched and very readable.

Also on her night table, Historia Marginales, by the Chilean author, Luis Sepúlveda, who wrote what is, in her opinion, the perfect novella--An Old Man Who Read Love Stories. What makes it so good? It's just perfect, she said, you have to read it yourself. City Lights has even translated it into English.

Another couple of good books to read one after the other--Days and Nights of Love and War, and The Book of Embraces, by the Uruguayan author, Eduardo Galeano.