Vintage portuguese version from my grand father's collection.
Wish I would have read in english, as the dry translation didn't let the story flow. Still, it was delightful to indulge in the moments when Ray makes you dive into common elements of our daily lives to take us in the surreal and fantastic drive through the way we deal with death in different cultures and times.

The old man was peering intently at the shelves. 'I'll have to admit that he's a very competent scholar.'
Isn't he just a librarian?' Garion asked, 'somebody who looks after books?'
That's where all the rest of scholarship starts, Garion. All the books in the world won't help you if they're just piled up in a heap.

The old man was peering intently at the shelves. 'I'll have to admit that he's a very competent scholar.'
Isn't he just a librarian?' Garion asked, 'somebody who looks after books?'
That's where all the rest of scholarship starts, Garion. All the books in the world won't help you if they're just piled up in a heap.

“Edgar looks at the faces around him, open and hopeful. He wants to feel a compatriot‘s nearness and affinity. All these people formed by language and climate and popular songs and breakfast foods and the jokes they tell and the cars they drive have never had anything in common so much as this, that they are sitting in the furrow of destruction."

This beast engulfs you in a forgotten world that was (maybe is) threatening and alive not so long ago. Don DeLillo takes you into the days of history makers that, from their common lives and grand decisions, shape the world as we know it.
No imagination could create a better metaphor than the bomb (and the power that comes along with it) for what human life is turning into.