Borges who never wrote a novel shows why doing so was irrelevant with this mind bending collection of short “fictions.’ His works exhibit more vitality in 7 pages than many authors do in 300 with topics ranging from the ethics of espionage to mirrors and labyrinths and knife fights in the countryside of southern Argentina. This is literary athleticism at its finest. For a brief but mesmerizing read try either “Funes, the Memorious” of “The Garden of Forking Paths.”

Recommended by Zak