"Quite possibly the finest book on presidential politics ever written, combining meticulous reporting and compelling, at times soaringly lyrical, prose." -- Cleveland Plain Dealer An American Iliad in the guise of contemporary political reportage, What It Takes penetrates the mystery at the heart of all presidential campaigns: How do presumably ordinary people acquire that mixture of ambition, stamina, and pure shamelessness that makes a true candidate? As he recounts the frenzied course of the 1988 presidential race -- and scours the psyches of contenders from George Bush and Robert Dole to Michael Dukakis and Gary Hart -- Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Richard Ben Cramer comes up with the answers, in a book that is vast, exhaustively researched, exhilarating, and sometimes appalling in its revelations.

Poems describe the breakup of a relationship, grief, marriage, human commitment, the seasons, and the elements of nature

“Probablemente el mayor escritor que haya nacido en Latinoamérica.”—Roberto Bolaño “Pensé en un laberinto de laberintos, en un sinuoso laberinto creciente que abarcara el pasado y el porvenir y que implicara de algún modo los astros”. —Jorge Luis Borges Ficciones es quizá el libro más reconocido de Jorge Luis Borges, compuesto por los libros El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan y Artificios , ambos considerados piezas fundamentales del universo borgiano. Entre los cuentos que aquí se reúnen hay algunos de corte policial como “La muerte y la brújula”, la historia de un detective que investiga el asesinato de un rabino; otros sobre libros imaginarios como “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius”, una extraordinaria reflexión sobre la literatura y su influencia en el mundo físico; y muchos pertenecientes al género fantástico como “El Sur”, acaso su mejor relato, en palabras del mismo autor. Fascinante y sorprendente, Ficciones le brinda al lector un mundo de reflexiones sobre las convenciones de lectura y el modo de entender la realidad. ENGLISH DESCRIPTION Jorge Luis Borges has been called the greatest Spanish-language writer of our century. From Jorge Luis Borges’s 1935 debut with The Universal History of Iniquity, through his immensely influential collections Ficciones and The Aleph, these enigmatic, elaborate, imaginative inventions display Borges' talent for turning fiction on its head by playing with form and genre and toying with language. Together these incomparable works comprise the perfect compendium for all those who have long loved Borges, and a superb introduction to the master's work for those who have yet to discover this singular genius.