You can tell a lot about someone by peering at their bookshelf. “I don’t like to read,” the Taiwanese writer Sanmao grumbles when she receives booklets of traffic rules before a driving test. “What are you talking about?” her husband, José, says, gesturing at her bookcase. “Here you have books on astronomy, geography, demons and ghouls, spy romances, animals, philosophy, gardening, languages, cooking, manga, cinema, tailoring, even secret recipes in traditional Chinese medicine, magic tricks, hypnotism, dyeing clothes.” This scene, from Stories of the Sahara, a collection of short travelogues