Staff Picks: You Dreamed of Empires by Álvaro Enrique - Adult Fiction

You Dreamed of Empires by Álvaro Enrigue

In 1519 two worlds collided when Spanish conquistadors led by Hernán Cortés entered the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan. Álvaro Enrique’s novel You Dreamed of Empires describes the encounter from both sides, interjecting humor, hindsight, and modern perspectives.   

Arriving at Tenochtitlan, the Spaniards are amazed to find towering step pyramids, painted stone pathways, ornate palaces, pools, and gardens. The Aztec city is the largest and most impressive city on Earth, and the Europeans are offered fine robes, unusual local delicacies, and a sweet drink that is as treasured as gold. 

While Cortés and his entourage make themselves at home in luxury palace suites, Montezuma spends his time napping, dosing with hallucinogenic mushrooms, ordering executions, and frustrating his inner circle. Tactically, the Europeans' only advantages are their obedient antlerless deer and firepower.

You Dreamed of Empires humanizes the story's central players, including Montezuma’s sister/wife Atotoxlit and Gerónimo de Aguilar, the Franciscan friar who serves as a translator for the Europeans. The novel also richly imagines the lives of prisoners, confidantes, advisors, servants, and priests. 

Enrigue’s vision of the epic culture clash, skillfully translated into English by Natasha Wimmer, is both illuminating and wildly entertaining. Álvaro Enrigue is a award-winning Mexican writer who has authored novels, short stories, and essays. Enrigue lives in New York and teaches Latin American literature. 

Alicia Cavitt

Information Specialist 

Aztec Step Pyramid
Image credit: Forsyth County Public Library created in Canva.com

Staff Picks Chilean Poet by Alejandro Zambra

 

Chilean Poet by Alejandro Zambra

During Hispanic Heritage Month, September 15 through October 15, I want to highlight one of my favorite literary writers, Alejandro Zambra. 

Alejandro Zambra is an award-winning poet, short story writer, and novelist who grew up in a suburb of Santiago during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet and now lives in Mexico City.  

Alejandro Zambra’s latest literary novel, Chilean Poet, revolves around an eccentric community of aspiring poets and poetry aficionados in Santiago and paints a vibrant picture of modern Chile. Romantic encounters, loves, losses, and misfires play out (and are sometimes memorialized in poetry) amid discussions of classic and modern poets and poetry.  

FCPL Reads 2022 - Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month Staff Picks

In honor of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage month, here are some recent favorites by Asian and Asian American authors.  

The Woman in the Purple Skirt by Natsuko Imamura

Literary fiction fans will enjoy this slim, psychological story set in modern Japan. The Woman in the Purple Skirt revolves around a woman's growing obsession with a stranger in her neighborhood. Chance encounters and subtle manipulations lead to strange twists in this award-winning Japanese translation.   

Staff Picks: The Anomaly by Herve Le Tellier

The Anomaly by Hervé Le Tellier

The lives of an American lawyer, a Nigerian pop star, a literary writer, a contract killer, military family members, and others take unprecedented trajectories the moment their international flight hits extreme turbulence over the Atlantic Ocean. 

Hervé Le Tellier’s award-winning French novel tracks the lives of passengers whose complex lives become exponentially more complicated when they are sequestered by FBI agents months after the harrowing flight as something called Protocol 42 is implemented for the first time.

Alicia Cavitt
Information Specialist
#WeKnowBooks

Staff Picks Anxious People by Fredrik Backman

Anxious People by Fredrik Backman

Anxious People by Fredrik Backman describes an unlikely encounter between a bank robber, police, and prospective buyers at an apartment open house in a small town in Sweden.  As in Backman’s international bestseller, A Man Called Ove, the lives of quirky characters intertwine in unexpected ways. Backman uses a light touch and humor to tackle tough topics like economics, real estate, separations, grief, and guilt.  

Alicia Cavitt
Information Specialist

#WeKnowBooks

 

Staff Picks The Sinner by Petra Hammesfahr

The Sinner by Petra Hammesfahr

This summer I got hooked on an addictive television series called The Sinner. The show revolves around a detective with a talent for understanding the complex motivations of unlikely killers. Season One was an adaptation of a book by German novelist Petra Hammesfahr. Hammesfahr's dark psychological fiction has earned her comparisons to Patricia Highsmith, author of Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr. Ripley. 

While waiting with much anticipation for the fourth season of The Sinner to air, I checked out the slim translation.  Set in Germany, the book begins when a woman spending a day with her husband and son suddenly stabs a stranger on the beach. Under questioning, Cora Bender seems oddly detached and investigators can find no motive for the attack. The unusual crime raises the interest of a police commissioner who digs into Cora’s past and strange family dynamics to explain her actions.  As in the show, the story takes some extremely dark twists. Fans of psychological stories like Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn will enjoy this international bestseller! 

Alicia Cavitt
Information Specialist
#WeKnowBooks

 

March 2021 Reading Challenge: The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly by Sun-Mi Hwang

 

• The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly by Sun-Mi Hwang

The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly is an international bestseller by beloved South Korean author, Sun-Mi Hwang. This slim, illustrated book is a refreshing read for fans of thoughtful stories about farm life, clever chicken protagonists, and E.B. White’s classic friendship novel, Charlotte’s Web.  

Plucky self-named Sprout is an egg-laying hen who wants to raise a chick. She’s frustrated that the farmer takes her eggs away each morning but going on a hunger strike to get her point across only makes matters worse and she’s culled from the coup because of low production. When all hope seems lost, an unlikely ally intervenes to change the course of Sprout’s life. 

The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly is a beautiful story about friendship, loyalty, parenting, and perseverance that will be appreciated by adult, teen, and preteen readers who enjoy classic and artfully constructed stories and anyone who loves animals. The 2013 English translation of The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly is illustrated with thoughtful pen and ink drawings created by Japanese artist and illustrator, Nomoco.

If you’re taking part in FCPL’s 2021 Reading Challenge and don’t typically read literary or allegorical fiction, check out The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly to complete the March category, Read a Book in a Different Format or Genre Than You Usually Read.    

Alicia Cavitt
Information Specialist
#WeKnowBooks

Staff Picks: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami (Adult Fiction)

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

After resigning his position at a law firm, Toru Okada fills his days with the mundane duties of managing a home he shares with his wife Kumiko in a Tokyo suburb. Toru's life takes a strange turn when he is tasked with locating the couple's lost cat.  Exploring his quiet neighborhood with watchful eyes Toru discovers a lonely teen, an abandoned house with a dark history and an inexplicably dry well that draws his fascination. Toru's quest for the cat also brings him into contact with a bizarre cast of characters who may hold insights into a mystery much closer to Toru's heart than the loss of a pet.  

It’s difficult to describe the plot of a Murakami novel because the elements seem so juxtaposed. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is an evocative story about modern life and loss, the mysteries of the psyche, the beginning and ending of relationships and quite a bit more.  

A mesmerizing backstory involving Japan’s conflicts with Soviet forces in World War II introduces readers to a minor but unforgettable character as nightmarish as his name suggests, Boris the Manskinner. While the novel veers well into magical realism territory and Murakami has a flair for creating vivid impossibilities, Boris' scenes take place in the all-too-real world of 20th Century wartime interrogation techniques.

Reading the novel is an immersive experience that raises many questions while directly answering few of them. It's a novel worthy of multiple reads. One comes away from the story with a sense of having spent time in modern Japan and having gained a bit of insight into the worldview of a uniquely artful writer.

Alicia Cavitt
Information Specialist

Book Sleuths Book Club

The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino

I thoroughly enjoyed this translation of a best-selling Japanese novel. It's a murder mystery; however, the reader is made aware of the culprit by the end of chapter one.  The book's suspense derives from a battle of wits between the physics genius who is trying to help the police solve the mystery and the math genius who is trying to protect the woman he loves.  The suspense continues to mount as the math genius tries to outwit the physics and prevent him from unraveling the whole affair.

Amy Weiler
Cataloging Assistant

FCPL's Book Sleuths book club will discuss this intriguing story on Tuesday, June 24th at 2 at the Post Road Library.  Newcomers are welcome at all our our book clubs.  Please join us if you enjoy the book.