Windmills in La Mancha. Photograph: Paul Hardy/Corbis
Normal service resumes on the world literature tour, with this month's destination determined by popular vote - though the votes didn't take too long to tot up (of which more anon).
Last month's anniversary of the creation of India and Pakistan inspired us to force a landing on the subcontinent, where you recommended Rushdie (early), Seth (verse ) and Roy (though some weren't convinced) as well as some other, less familiar names and some untranslated work. Many thanks for all your suggestions (and grimus, a specific recommendation for something you really like is exactly what we're looking for).
Perhaps the discussion of the difficulty of getting a handle on work not written in English was a little too distracting, but nobody - I mean nobody - cast a vote for where the tour should go next. At the risk of boring you all with history, let me remind you of the two facets of Diego's brainwave.
1 everybody recommends books from the country (or countries) concerned 2 everybody votes for the next country
Or maybe you were all just happy with Spain, which was leading Indonesia from, ooh, months ago. I certainly am. It gives me a chance to kick off this month with Don Quixote - not the most orignial pick, I know, but it really is very funny as well as genre-creating, era-transcending etc etc etc. I'm going to casually mention Arturo Pérez-Reverte's Captain Alatriste and Javier Cercas's Soldiers of Salamis as well, but following the fmk school of recommendation, I'm not going to wax lyrical about any of these. I'll just hand the baton over to you, and ask for your recommendations for the best of Spanish writing - novels, plays, poetry or whatever - either translated or not.
Oh, and did I mention voting? Otherwise it'll be Indonesia for sure.
