Ficciones, by Borges
4.0 Stars
8-20-2015

A series of brilliant but dry short stories. The stories tend to be abstract, self-referential, and experimental. They are what you would expect from a very smart South American who is skilled at writing and has an advanced CS degree. But the thing is, Borges didn't have a CS degree. o_O. Borges wrote all of these about 30-50 years before his ideas really started filtering out to other authors. Despite the clear genius of the design, his writing never really grabbed me. The stories were a bit too puzzle like, and I read each one focusing on identifying the trick or conceit of the story rather out of any enjoyment of the tale.