#Friday56 & #BookBeginnings: Strange Pilgrims

For Book Beginnings:
He sat on a wooden bench under the yellow leaves in the deserted park, contemplating the dusty swans with both his hands resting on the silver handle of is cane, and thinking about death.

- p. 3, from the first short story "Bon Voyage, Mr. President"

For Friday 56:
By the time I managed to board, the other first-class passengers were already in their seats, and a flight attendant lead me to mine. My heart stopped. In the seat next to mine, Beauty was taking possession of her space with the master of an expert traveler. "If I ever wrote this, no one would believe me," I thought. And I just managed to stammer out an indecisive greeting she did not hear.
- p. 56, from the short story "Sleeping Beauty and the Airplane"

Back blurb of Strange Pilgrims by Gabriel Garcia Marquez: In Barcelona, an aging Brazilian prostitute trains her dog to weep at the grave she has chosen for herself. In Vienna, a woman parlays her gift for seeing the future into a fortune-telling position with a wealthy family. In Geneva, an ambulance driver and his wife take in the lonely, apparently dying ex-president of a Caribbean country, only to discover that his political ambition is very much intact.

In these twelve masterful stories about the lives of Latin Americans in Europe, Garcia Marquez conveys the particular amalgam of melancholy, tenacity, sorrow and aspiration that is the emigre experience.

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Have you noticed, it's been a Nobel kind of week around here! For me, personally, the Read Nobels Challenge 2016 is shaping up really well -- I've dug up some new ones and revisited some favourites, including this one, which I reviewed here. I'm a little surprised I've never featured it for Friday 56 and Book Beginnings as it is my absolute GGM favourite - it's got a little of everything and each short story has something you can get your teeth into.

Do the snippets make you want to read more?

(If you want to join in the challenge, you can do so anytime, and you can commit to one or a thousand books. Just check out the sign up post!)