Encuentros Maravillosos Hardcover Student Edition Level 5 1998c

I used this book in my Spanish 4 class and it was great. I really became interested in the authors and the complete stories. All the stories were great, especially "El otro" and "La peste del insomnio." They give you an insight into different aspects of the hispanic culture and how each country's authors use different words and have slightly different views on life and culture. Even to native speakers, the reading sections were a bit difficult at times due to some of the vocabulary. The readings were interesting and had footnotes at the bottom for words the reader might not know which were not in the vocabulary section.The book is split up into something like 12 chapters, maybe more or less. Each chapter covers a couple areas of grammar, has a vocabulary section (usually around 15-20 words), and features a poem or fragment from a piece of literature which includes some of the vocabulary words. There are questions you can answer after each reading section, and each grammar area comes with explanations and exercises. Everything in the book, including the grammatical explanations with examples, is written in SPANISH. Do not start with this book if you've only taken Spanish 1 or something. Some of the stories and authors:-El otro por Jorge Luis Borges-Un perro ha muerto por Pablo Neruda-Viajes por Julio Cortázar-Nada menos que todo un hombre por Miguel de Unamuno-El niño al que se le murió el amigo por Ana María Matute-La peste del insomnio (Cien años de soledad) por Gabriel García Márquez-Romance de la luna, luna por Frederico García Lorca-Como agua para chocolate por Laura Esquivel-La casa de los espíritus por Isabel AllendeThis books is skinny, light-weight, and has a small Spanish/English and English/Spanish dictionary in the back. It's not exactly a dictionary, but it has the translations for all of the vocabulary words plus some other relevant words.