I brought two volumes of stories from famed Argentine writer, Jorge Luis Borges, on this trip. A Costa Rican beach seemed as good a place as any to finally acquaint myself with the founder of Latin Magical Realism. When I started thumbing through, however, I realized I had ordered the wrong edition of Fictions. It wasn’t an English translation.

“Sure,” you’re saying, “that’s a bit of an inconvenience, but aren’t you supposed to be working on your Spanish? And if anything, it should sound even better in its original language.” Which is true, except I didn’t get the book in its original Spanish either, but a translation into French. So that’s no good to anybody.

(Honestly, a Spanish edition wouldn’t be much better. Borges is a complex writer, partly influenced by Kafka, for a start. My Spanish reading level is more appropriate to See Spot Run. Fortunately, I at least managed to order the correct edition of Labyrinths.)