The Book of Fantasy

This book is more what a fantasy-reader friend of mine called "literary fantasy" dismissively, but I think it's a wonderful collection - all over the map in terms of stories, global in scope and style, and just great reading overall.

"Antología de la literatura fantástica" delivers exactly what the title promises: a selection of short stories with something in common, fantasy. But what is "fantasy"?. The dictionary says that it is "fiction characterized by highly fanciful or supernatural elements", but I think that it is also literature that amazes and bewilders us, freeing the reader from reality and introducing him to other worlds, other possibilities...The selection of the short stories included in "Antología de la literatura fantástica" was made by Jorge Luis Borges, Adolfo Bioy Casares and Silvina Ocampo, three well-known argentinian writers that somehow managed to choose the perfect stories that enabled them to give the reader a good idea of what fantasy is really about. Some of the authors included in this selection are Thomas Carlyle, Julio Cortázar, G. K. Chesterton, Chuang Tzu, James Joyce, F. Kafka, Guy de Maupassant, Giovanni Papini, E. A. Poe, Saki, F. Rabelais, A. B. Casares, J. L. Borges, S. Ocampo and H. G. Wells. I really enjoyed this book, and I specially appreciated the fact that it comprises stories written by different authors, because that didn't allow me to get bored. Each author has his distinctive style, and a different way of charming the reader, but all achieve just that. On the whole, reading this book was a wonderful experience, and I can recommend it to you.Belen