Nobel comments

The Nobel Prize for literature often goes to people I've never heard of, but that didn't happen this time around. Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa is very well known and as prolific as he is sometimes controversial.

I'm leaving political controversies aside to say that he is the author of what is probably the funniest book I've ever read, Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter. My ribs literally hurt from laughter while I was reading it.

The plot involves a young man's love affair with an older woman. He works at a radio station that produces novelas or what we would call soap operas written by a man whose stories hilariously spin out of control.

I'd recommend the book to just about anybody, with the possible exception of Argentines (the scriptwriter slammed them at every opportunity).