Written

Overlook has published three of Walter Moers’s hilarious and beloved Zamonia books and The City of Dreaming Books, a fantastic tale for every book lover, is his most popular yet. Optimus Yanspinner inherits from his godfather an unpublished manuscript by an unknown writer and sets off to track down the mysterious author, who disappeared into Bookholm—the so-called City of Dreaming Books. Yarnspinner falls under the spell of this book-obsessed metropolis, where an avid-reader and budding author can find any number of charming attractions—priceless signed first editions, salivating literary agents, and for-hire critics. But as Yarnspinner pursues the trail of the missing author, the darker side of Bookholm begins to unveil itself—cold-blooded book hunters, fearsome cyclopean booklings, sharp-toothed animotomes, and of course, the Shadow King, whose howls rise from deep beneath the city at night. Will Yarnspinner survive his quest into this world where reading is a genuine adventure?

Meta-turned-fantasy is about the only way I can describe this book? It’s by no means the best book I’ve ever read, but it is so absolutely unique, that it’s hard to fault it on almost anything. The world the story builds is vivid, to all of its surreal depths, and is absolutely worth visiting. 

Available on Amazon.com: The City of Dreaming Books

Beliefs in mysterious underworlds are as old as humanity. But the idea that the earth has a hollow interior was first proposed as a scientific theory in 1691 by Sir Edmond Halley (of comet fame), who suggested that there might be life down there as well. Hollow Earth traces the surprising, marvelous, and just plain weird permutations his ideas have taken over the centuries. From science fiction to utopian societies and even religions, Hollow Earth travels through centuries and cultures, exploring how each era’s relationship to the idea of a hollow earth mirrored its hopes, fears, and values. Illustrated with everything from seventeenth-century maps to 1950s pulp art to movie posters and more, Hollow Earth is for anyone interested in the history of strange ideas that just won’t go away.

I. Love. Hollow Earth theories. Lovelovelovelovelove. This book doesn’t go INCREDIBLY IN-DEPTH on any of them, but is a wonderful overview of just how wide the belief really has spread throughout history. This book almost serves best as a crossroads, pointing the way to other books that look at the topic in more focused ways. I recommend it for that reason.

Available on Amazon.com: Hollow Earth: The Long and Curious History of Imagining Strange Lands, Fantastical Creatures, Advanced Civilizations, and Marvelous Machines Below the Earth’s Surface

Here is a deftly written thriller that is also a “deep and moody” (NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW) journey through the dark side of Japan’s consumer-crazed society. Ordinary people plunge into insurmountable personal debt and fall prey to dangerous webs of underground creditors-so dangerous, in fact, that murder may be the only way out. A beautiful young woman vanishes, and the detective quickly finds she is not whom she claims to be. Is she a victim, a killer, or both? In a country that tracks its citizens at every turn, how can two women claim the same identity and then disappear without a trace?

I’ll admit outright: the first half of this book is terribly boring. It’s a long, slow set-up that reads like a really eccentric book about credit card debt. Once the ball drops, however, it becomes an absolutely fascinating mystery.

Available on Amazon.com: All She Was Worth

La Grande Thérèse is the true story of a scandal that nearly destroyed the French Third Republic.

A hundred years ago Thérèse Humbert was one of the most powerful women in France; her salon was the center of Parisian life, and her wealth—as the assumed illegitimate daughter of an American billionaire—was fabled. She lived life on a grand scale and was the toast of Paris. But Thérèse was not who she claimed to be. Her lifestyle, her history, and, most important, her fortune—all were an elaborate hoax. When her con was finally exposed, thousands of small investors and creditors, including the in-laws of the artist Henri Matisse, were completely ruined. Thérèse was tried and sentenced to five years’ hard labor. When she was released from prison, she vanished, and the fantastic story of her life was mostly hushed up, because it has disgraced so many wealthy and important people.

Hilary Spurling has done meticulous research into the life of Thérèse Humbert. La Grand Thérèse is the remarkable story of the spectacular rise and fall of a French peasant girl with an extraordinary imagination and irresistible powers of persuasion.

My favorite kind of history book: a colorful story backed up by witty writing. I’m usually not too into the biography genre, but this was a fabulous little read.

Available on Amazon.com