This week’s Book Picks centers on novels that deal with the bizarre, the intriguing, the arcane, and the mystical. If you’re looking to read a book outside of the ordinary, look no further! All books are available at the Main Library.
The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker This unusual novel explores the inner lives of two very disparate supernatural beings who find themselves both living in New York City at the turn-of-the-century. It’s the attention to detail that makes this book so arresting, we learn the intricate back stories of both the golem and the jinni and are immersed in the everyday sensations of one of the world’s most riveting cities. The book defies description–not quite a love story nor a fairy tale, it rests somewhere in between…in a world where the mystical is probable and the mundane is magical. What I loved best is that it felt as if I was a child curled up on my bed being a told a story that might once have been deliciously true.
Red Moon by Benjamin Percy On a very different note, Red Moon is a socio-political thriller in the same vein as World War Z. Where the latter looks at zombies, the former explores in vivid, and often gory, detail the lives, ambitions, and challenges of being a werewolf (or lycan as they’re called in this book.) Don’t be fooled by the paranormal focus of the novel, the premise exists largely to enable the author to grapple with some of the key issues facing the United States today, namely terrorism, xenophobia, and immigration. In terms of a political commentary, it provides an intriguing, complex, and startling lens from which to view these controversial debates. At the same time, it is also a highly readable and engaging thriller that borders on the horrific.
Love Minus Eighty by Will McIntosh Who would have thought that a novel about deep-freeze dating could be both so enjoyable and so romantic? McIntosh’s vision of the future is eerily familiar, essentially a logical extension of our Facebook/Twitter/Tumblr obsessed world where lives are led entirely in the social sphere with little to no privacy. It is a world where death has been defeated but only for those who have the money to buy their way back to life. Young beautiful women who die without the means to revive themselves are sometimes placed into deep freeze where men of means can go on ‘dates’ with these momentarily revived corpses and then opt to shell out the millions of dollars it would take to revive them completely if love strikes. The novel revolves around a set of intertwined characters and is both an ode to and exploration of love and its complexity. At times charming, clever, and disturbing, it’s definitely a thought-provoking read. Bonus points for a happy ending!
The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes Last on the list is a book many critics have claimed is this year’s Gone Girl. Plot-wise the two novels actually have very little in common and yet both do have the same capacity to haunt you long after you’ve finished reading them. The Shining Girls is the story of a time-traveling serial killer whose victims span several decades starting in the 1930s and ending in the 1990s. Beukes prose is terse yet evocative with a plot that unfolds in fits and starts, doubling back upon itself over and over again. Told in several voices, the story centers on the serial killer himself and his hunt for “shining girls” and on Kirby, the only woman who has survived his attack. Kirby takes us on a tense journey to hunt down the man who almost killed her. A fast-paced and creepy read!
Happy reading!