Posted March 9, 2005
When people find out what I do for a living, they invariably comment “you must get a lot of free stuff.” But for all the stuff I get (and I must remind you, free stuff doesn’t mean good stuff), books are the best. There are shelves around the office where editors put the ones they don’t want—I score some amazing reads this way. The latest was one I picked up purely because of its title: The Cigar Roller by Pablo Medina. I tend to like Latin American and Spanish authors—the writing can be so melancholy but funny at the same time. Simply put: I could not put this book down. It’s a short but very intense story about a former cigar roller who is paralyzed by a stroke and unable to speak. It is told from his point of view, as he remembers moments of his life from a bed in a Florida hospital. Uplifting? No, although there are some very humorous moments. Beautiful? Absolutely. Pablo Medina, thank you for writing this.

$14.28 at amazon.com.

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• From the Mar 9, 2005 issue of New York