Sheila's Guests and Reviews

 I love bookshops and libraries, and I love books about bookshops and libraries, so here are two that I read recently, one set in a Tokyo library and the other in a Dublin bookstore... maybe. What you are looking for is in the library By Michiko Aoyama A charming book of books, the librarian in this novel offers reading lists to her customers, always including one surprise book, and a gift. Book and gift work together on the recipient, causing them to see their problems differently and find new solutions. It’s all told in simple language with a grown-up fairytale feel – lyrical, sweet but never cloying, and gently encouraging. Readers are sure to identify with at least one of the characters in this collection, and the fables are sure to feel real as they read. The Lost bookshop by Evie Woods He’s searching for a bookshop to confirm the theory of his thesis. She’s searching for a place to hide from abuse. And a house in Dublin stands with no space beside it for the bookshop to hid...

 Steampunk powers its machines with steam and resides in a moderately convincing real-world past, often Victorian, but other times work too. So it's fantasy, with a touch of mechanical realism (as opposed to magical realism I guess, though there's plenty of that too). The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern The magical Night Circus is magically depicted in Erin Morgenstern’s beautiful novel, the Night Circus. It’s a Victorian world of clever tricks and amazements. But it hides a different world of magic and power, where two great magicians vie to best each other, using their proteges as tools. A game is afoot, but neither protagonist knows the threat or the promise. And when they meet, they fall in love, with brings both threat and promise together. The magic of love and the magic of words come together in a truly enticing novel and a captivating read.  Even though I knew the End by C. L. Polk Magical mystery set in 1940s Chicago, C. L. Polk’s Even though I knew the end i...

 A friend recommended a Russian scifi novel to me. So I thought I'd give it a try. Not sure I recommend it, but it was well worth the read. Day of the Oprichnik by Vladimir Sorokin In a scarily believable, near-future Russia, a distant monarch rules with the aid of oprichniks, who ease their own trials with strange new drugs and violence. Rape is punishment, collectively carried out with nauseous obedience. And the evil West is walled away, blamed safely for all ills. Could it happen here? There? Wherever? With dark humor and gritty realism, the author suggests there are devils deep in us all, and the urge to live might all too easily become the urge to harm. Day of the Oprichnik tells a single day through the eyes of a singularly unsympathetic protagonist, and keeps the reader glued to the page through many harms, idiocies, and evils, leaving the reader to decide just how wrong something has to be to become truly evil.