Last Sunday I finished "Silk" by Alessandro Baricco, which is actually my first real English book I have ever read, since I had only read a couple of graded readers quite a long time ago. If I had to give my personal opinion briefly, I would say that this book has really surprised me in a good way.

Firstly, I want to share with you the different approaches that I tried while I went through the book. When I started reading the book I decided not to underline any words nor to look up their meanings. However, I realized that I was missing part of the details and the descriptions in the book. In fact, I believe that almost every single word in the conversations among characters and the descriptions of the places, above all, is carefully chosen by the author.

Later, I tried to underline words I didn't understand and then, after my reading session, I wrote those words, along with the number of the page, on a piece of paper in both English and Spanish. Even though I underlined between 2-5 words per page, it seemed that it took quite a long time.

Finally, I continued highlighting words and phrases in the book but I decided to write the meanings just beside each word, on the book pages, with a pencil. This was the best way of reading the book that worked well for me.

To sum up, I would point out some features that sparked my interest in the book. I have really enjoyed Baricco's style and how he kind of mixes narrative with poetry making such pleasant and easy-to-read short chapters. A good example of it is the 49th one, which is deliberately written in just two lines.

I have had a great time reading "Silk", it fit properly with my English reading level and having finished it by the end of week three has been a very rewarding feeling.