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"We enjoyed the house apart from its spaciousness and it's history ...but it protected the memories of of great grandparents, paternal grandfather, our parents and all of my childhood." Casa tomada (House Taken over)

So the first page starts. A couple cleans the large house everyday trying to make themselves comfortable. Then they start hearing noises. Memories of the past? Monsters? Ghosts? What a great kick off to a collection of haunting tales from Julio Cortázar.

These eight tales range from subtle to the plainly twisted. Each story has a unique twist done like only Cortázar can. This is the first collection of short stories published under his real name in 1951.

The stories include a bus trip loaded with passengers and their grave site flowers (Ómnibus) to the disturbing Alina Reyes walking the streets of Budapest (Lejana) to the creepy beasts called mancuspias in Cefalea to Delia Mañara, a woman whose two previous boyfriends had died and she in on the third (Circe), the ghostly dancer of Las puertas del cielo, the bizarre vomiting bunnies (Carta a una señorita en París) and finally the curious boy with his intrigue for el mamboretá in Bestiaro.

The book can be summed up with Cortázar's own words, "... un balbucear como de gratitud, de innominable aquiescencia."

Amen.