Hello all, and welcome back to the cottage. I feel as though I’ve said this about every book I read so far, but I hope that it does not come off as disingenuous when I say that this was an intriguing read. Tragically, the Spanish Civil …
This book has been quite a good read, in the beginning i thought it would be straightforward story about the Spanish civil war (which is knew nothing of). Not only does the book tell us about what happened during war, but it also shows us how difficult it is to know what happened in the […]
Hi there, I’m back! For this week’s read “The book of Chameleons”, José Eduardo Agualusa creates an interesting take on identity, memory, and the nature of truth (which honestly should be pretty self explanatory with the name I guess). blending a built upon sense of identity with historical and political insight, Agualusa takes us […]
I was not expecting to like Soldiers of Salamis as much as I did but I was pleasantly surprised. In all honesty, I don’t know much about the Spanish Civil War so I enjoyed that this book explained the political/social context of Spain in the 1930s, making it a little easier to understand. At times, I […]
The fact that the title of this very book is “Book of Chameleons”, should send red flags all over, after all this is, in fact, not a book about chameleons. Chameleons are the symbol of masking, of a facade, I mean that’s how they survive in nature. It’s quite on brand that there are no […]
One thing that stood out to me most when reading The Book of Chameleons was the idea of identity and how it is seen as something malleable. In the book, identities can be changed, created, or invented from nothing. Félix Ventura’s job is literally creating new identities for his clients. In this way, the book […]
I liked this one! I felt like I read it in mere minutes, it went by so quick. I really felt this book, felt it sweating and sweet as I read it, as our gecko narrator scurries along the wall “like a tick on its host’s skin” and describes how the sun “silenced the birds, […]
I see before me pieces of the human condition, bound together by the umbrella of a narrative that does not quite make any sense. Names reel in and out of sight, like stars in a black river flowing tear-like across the immensely lonely regions of the wo…
José Eduardo Agualusa, The Book of Chameleons
