The Book of Chameleons: A Novel

I was trying to read this book for the book club but even the title is a Mis-translation. If you like to read about a gheko talking to an albino or vice versa then this is the book for you. The Albino is a seller of pasts for those who need or want to change their past histories. I can understand allegory but really could not get into this book at all.

Extremely disappointed to have Amazon foist a Print-on-Demand (POD) copy of a mainline publisher's item on me. These should absolutely be flagged as such - they are cheaply bound copies with greyed-out print. Supposedly "in stock," it wasn't even printed until five or six days after I ordered it.

Interesting book with a "clin d'oeil" to Borges.

Superb!

Beautifully-written, creative book chronicling a gecko's perspectives on the intersection of memory, fantasy, and reality. The book is supposedly written from the perspective of Jorge Luis Borges, a famous writer from Argentina. One of my all-time favorite books, I would definitely recommend it.

My fav book for many years now. It's neat, tight and highly imaginative. I plan to teach it to my creative writing students. Made me interested in Portuguese--Lusophone Lit

This is one of those books that allows you to hide inside a fantasy without really noticing that what you are experiencing isn't real.

Read for school, book was in perfect condition

Having just finished Agualusa’s wonderfully titled novel, A General Theory of Oblivion, I sped onto The Book of Chameleons (The Seller of Pasts) intrigued by (1) the idea of a gecko as narrator (2) the business of selling pasts - who would need such a commodity is well explained in the story. Like A General Theory of Oblivion, it is quirky, fast paced and very imaginative. Time to look out other of his works.

This is the first book in ages that is both thought provoking, and an easy read. I found the relationships Agualusa sets up really clever, and although having got to the end one could look back and say that the story was too well sewn up, I never got to feel that way in the process of reading. And beautiful English.

Very readable, interesting and atmospheric story.A good short book club book to read and.speak about. Wasn't expecting the ending at all.

I also read this on holiday and found it to be very compelling. I found myself reading and rereading several paragraphs as I found the writing so insightful and in a simple way. The story wasn't very strong but it did make me curious. Would highly recommend this book.

A very very unusual book, if I had known what it was actually about I would not have read it, but read it I did, and found it most compelling and interesting. Well worth reading