There are two weeks left of our vacation and I have even managed to read! From the contemporary Croatian selection I’ve read the usual suspects, Tomic and Baretic and even a bit of Rudan.

Tomic’s “Punoglavci” is apparently not only a novel but also a commissioned advertisement for Podravka (Croatian food industry giant). The novel, a nostalgic recounting of a summer vacation, peppered with many mentions of Podravka delicacies is a fun, quick read.

I was excited to get Baretic’s “Hotel Grand” from the library. His “Osmi Povjerenik” is very well written and absolutely hilarious but for the life of me I can’t remember if makes a point. “Pricaj mi o njoj” has a very strong central story, but I felt the writing itself to be a bit weak. In “Hotel Grand” he gets it right with both strong central story and strong writing. I usually dislike reading about criminal goings on, but the characters are so alive and the storyline so interesting, I could not put it down. The novel is written in a blog format which makes it even more interesting and funny.

I’ve had to put Rudan’s “Strah od pletenja” down despite the promising title. The foul mouthed, whiny narrator complaining about unimportant things when there is plenty of real problems out there to complain about grated too much.

In the completely opposite gene of foreign classics, I have got through the first quarter of “War and Peace” inspired by recently watched play. Apparently, there is still some Napoleon fighting left to do so I better get back to reading.