Fiction
Arturo Perez-Reverte
Arturo Perez-Reverte was born on November 25, 1951 in Cartagena, Spain. He is a Spanish novelist and journalist. He worked as a war reporter from 1973 to 1994. He started his journalistic career writing for the now-defunct newspaper 'El Pueblo'. Then he did reports for the Spanish state-owned television 'Television Espanola'. His first novel, «El hussar», set in the Napoleonic Wars, was released in 1986.
Nowadays he is a member of the Real Academia Espanola, a position he has held since June 12, 2003.
He focuses his stories basicly on one strongly defined character. It can be either male or female. Many people considered him to have Hemingway-like maneer of narration. Plot goes along swiftly but not so fast as to make the reader lose contact with the place and time, and the writer often employs the services of some narrator who is somehow a part of the story but apart from it.
The majority of action usually takes place in Spain or around the Mediterranean, and often draws on numerous references to Spanish history, colonial past, art and culture, ancient treasures and the sea. The novels frequently deal with some of the major issues of modern times such as drug trafficking or the relationship of religion and politics, as well as timeless themes of morality, honor and ethics, love and lust and power and money, though never in a simplistic fashion - recognising that there is usually more than one way to interpret a situation and the lines between right and wrong are often blurred beyond recognition.
In his columns and his main characters, he usually displays his pessimism about human behaviour, shaped by his wartime experiences in places like the Bosnian War.
La tabla de Flandres (The Flanders Panel)
This really nice novel was written in 1990 in a crime novel style. It tells about the Spanish woman-restorer who starts restoring the old picture. But soon after she finds a hidden message in the picture which is connected with the over 500-years chess game and the set of murders.
El maestro de esgrima (The fencing master)
A historical novel set in Spain at the middle of the 19th century. Amid the political turmoil of the Glorious Revolution where conspiracy and intrigue are commonplace, fencing master Don Jaime Astarloa tries to live as he always has. Subsisting on meager funds gained through teaching fencing to the sons of the nobility, the anachronistic Don Jaime lives by one universal code: "to be honest, or at least honorable anything, indeed, that has its roots in the word honor." But soon after he was forced to participate the ‘political games’ of the Spanish high-range nobles.
I read these novels not only because of interesting stories or for some fashion trends. Actually the main reason and interest is that in these pieces is shown a really great examples of a ‘right’ alpha-leader (or alpha-model) man behavior for the effective communication between man and woman.
Paulo Coelho
Coelho was born on August 24, 1947 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He is the son of Pedro Queima de Souza an engineer, and his wife Lygia, a homemaker. His middle-class parents did not share his dream of an artistic career. When he was 17, his father had him committed to a mental institution where he endured electroshock therapy. Later when he got involved with a theatre group and started work as a journalist, they had him recommitted. He sought spiritual experiences travelling throughout Mexico, Peru, Bolivia, and Chile, as well as Europe and North Africa.
Coelho later launched an alternative magazine called '2001'. After joining the Alternative Society and publishing a series of comic strips about freedom, he was imprisoned and was kidnapped and tortured by paramilitaries. Soon after, Coelho turned away from progressive politics, working as an executive in the music industry. After a prophetic dream he met a stranger who urged him to study the benign side of magic and to walk the pilgrim's Road to Santiago.
After completing the pilgrimage in 1987, Coelho wrote 'The Pilgrimage', describing his experiences of the extraordinary in ordinary lives. A year later he wrote 'The Alchemist' which was not well received. When he wrote 'Brida', he gained much attention in the press and both books made best seller lists.
Veronica decides to die
This novel is about the girl who tried to commit suicide but failed it and found herself in a mental institution where she finds a new meaning of live. This masterpiece made a big impression on me. It's my favorite book of this author.
The Manual of a Warrior of Light
It’s a collection of Zen-like stories about the abstract character ‘Warrior of light’. Here Coelho shows his original wisdom and I found a couple of interesting thoughts for myself.
The Alchemist
A great novel about the adventures of an Andalusian shepherd traveling and searching his treasure. Well, the Alchemist is one of the most perfect mysterious characters in the Coelho’s novels.
Walter Winward. "Rainbow Soldiers"
A very natural piece. This is the only thing that I read aloud for mastering English. It tells about soldiers' life. The text is of course unadaptated and complicated but it goes.
OKsana Robski
I know her family very much. They really did a lot for us and of course I decided to read her novels ‘Casual’, ‘The Day of happiness – tomorrow’, ‘about the Loff/on’. These novels are about the ‘Glamour’ life of the Russian riches. A very slick and funny fiction. :))
Sergey Minaev
In his novels “Duhless” and “Media Sapiens” he describes mostly about the modern live of a 30 – 35-year-old generation. As for me it hasn’t any great sense, I would say: it’s just interesting.