Book cover of Battles in the Desert

Book description

This landmark novella-one of the central texts of Mexican literature, is eerily relevant to our current dark times-offers a child's-eye view of a society beset by dictators, disease, and natural disasters, set in "the year of polio, foot-and-mouth disease, floods." A middle-class boy grows up in a world of children…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Battles in the Desert as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

I loved this poignant, colorful, and nostalgic look at life in Mexico City during the 1940’s. A young Carlos falls in love with his best friend’s mother, the misbegotten attraction launching an emotional odyssey that sends him through a landscape of class struggle and corruption. In his search for love and truth, Carlos sees his innocence chipped away by repeated episodes of hypocrisy and moral failure, from himself and those around him. “Love is a disease where only hatred is natural.”

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The High House by James Stoddard,

The Victorian mansion, Evenmere, is the mechanism that runs the universe.

The lamps must be lit, or the stars die. The clocks must be wound, or Time ceases. The Balance between Order and Chaos must be preserved, or Existence crumbles.

Appointed the Steward of Evenmere, Carter Anderson must learn the…

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