I have to admit that my reaction to this short collection was very mixed. Of the eight stories collected here, I had only a mild interest in the first six. In one case, "mild interest" is stretching it: "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" is frankly interminable. There aren't many short stories where I flip ahead to see how many pages are left and groan, but that one managed it. Don't get me wrong, some of the ideas in these six stories were genuinely compelling - particularly the attempt to rewrite Don Quixote in "Pierre Menard" - but the treatments of those ideas were often too removed, or too dry, for me to really appreciate them. Having heard wonderful things of Borges, but never having read him before, I was mildly horrified to realise I was likely going to award this collection two stars.

But then! But then! The last two stories. They are wonderful. "The Library of Babel" particularly. It still has that sense of removal, but I'm so fascinated by the concept that I just don't care. And the title story manages, for once, to inject some sense of emotion into the collection... or at least, emotion that isn't wonder, evoked by the previous "Library." I would be sincerely delighted never to have to slog through the philosophical swamps of the Tlon story again, but "The Library of Babel" is going straight onto my list of short favourites. Together with "Paths," it drags the book's rating up to four stars, and glad I was to give it.