Just finishing "Death in Brazil" by Peter Robb, which is a very good book and reminds me a little bit of "Haunts of the Black Masseur," which is a totally excellent book in every way. I was brought up short by J&B and Chivas called "whiskey," though, but that might be from the pernicious translation* of everything from English into American, which ruins a lot of books.

Tiff brought me "Death in Brazil," and I thought it looked cheesy and sensational, but nothing could be further from the truth. While I agree you can't judge a book by its cover I am very visual and expect the book designers, whose job is to make a cover that will appeal to people who will like the book, to give me something to go by. Not in this case, however, as the cover made me wrinkle my nose. Tiff said, "But that's what Brazil looks like." Fair enough, yet a cropped cover photo of a youth running coupled with "death" in the title made me think it would be cheesy.

*Books should not be translated from English to American, nor from American to English - that's ridiculous.

Labels: Annoying, me being