Katherine Silver

"Artforum is certainly one of César Aira's most charming, quirky, and funny books to date. Consisting of a series of interrelated stories about his compulsion to collect Artforum magazine, this is not about art so much as it is about passionate obsession. At first we follow our hapless collector from magazine shops to used bookstores hunting for copies of Artforum. A friend alerts him to a copy somewhere and he obsesses about actually going to get...

Through the eyes of a Spanish architect in Rome, the dark period surrounding the rise and fall of Fascism roars to life as the architect, a passionate young librarian, and an Italian prince become entangled in a web of intrigue, love, and deceit involving a fateful map whose secrets have the power to destroy them.Fascism is on the rise. Jos and his wife Montse wait out the Spanish Civil War at the Spanish Academy in Rome. When they sell an ancient...