Staff Picks: Unique Epistolary Reads
by walkerk
Epistolary books are works of fiction told through letters and other documents. They can make for a very intimate and human reading experience, as these letters and documents allow the reader to peer into the firsthand, personal experience and thoughts of one, or a handful, of characters. If you enjoyed Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone, or House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski, you might find your next epistolary read in this list.
The Incarnations by Susan Barker | Request Now
A Beijing taxi driver, Wang Jun, is haunted by his past incarnations through searing letters sent by his mysterious soulmate. Letters appear, seemingly out of thin air, recounting stories of Wang's previous lives—from escaping a marriage to a spirit bride, to being a slave on the run from Genghis Khan, to living as a fisherman during the Opium Wars, and being a teenager on the Red Guard during the cultural revolution. Wang becomes convinced that someone is watching him, someone that claims to have known him for over a century. And with each letter, Wang feels the watcher growing closer and closer.
Readers have described this book as a thrilling journey, where the prose is poetic, mesmerizing, and spare when needed. It seamlessly weaves Chinese folklore, history, literary classics, and the notion of reincarnation without painting China in an Orientalist way, which many readers have found refreshing. While there are tragic elements, they are often interspersed with light and witty moments.
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke | Request Now
Set in a dreamlike alternative reality, Piranesi's house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others. Within this labyrinth, an ocean is imprisoned; waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides as he understands the pattern of the labyrinth itself. He lives to explore the house. There is only one other person in the house—The Other—a man Piranesi visits twice a week for research help. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known.
Readers describe this as a strange but enthralling and magically immersive read. It's a short and beautiful novel with accessible language that reads like poem due to the way the story moves through and builds upon emotion. Some would describe Piranesi, the character, as a protagonist with no cruelty or greed; the book, in a way, documents his love and curiosity for this world.
Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel | Request Now
Seventeen years ago: A girl in South Dakota falls through the earth, then wakes up dozens of feet below ground on the palm of what seems to be a giant metal hand. Today: She is a top-level physicist leading a team of people to understand exactly what that hand is, where it came from, and what it portends for humanity. What's clear is that she and her team are on the edge of history's most perplexing discovery. But once the pieces of the puzzle are in place, will the result prove to be an instrument of lasting peace or a weapon of mass destruction?
As the first book in a series, Sleeping Giants is told almost exclusively through transcriptions of interviews conducted by a mysterious and unnamed character. Readers describe this as a fast paced and complex read that explores ancient machinery buried, shadow governments, and geopolitical conflicts. It's a high-concept and promising puzzle, a book that many people couldn't put down.
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong | Request Now
This book is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family's history that began before he was born—a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam—and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known.
A blend of fiction and memoir, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous documents the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son while providing a brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity. It asks us: how do we heal and rescue one another without forsaking who we are? Readers have described this as a heartbreaking but poetic read with realistic portrayals of complexity in relationships. This is a popular title right now, so get on the list to join the queue!
A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth L. Ozeki | Request Now
In Tokyo, sixteen-year-old Nao has decided there's only one escape from her aching loneliness and her classmates' bullying. But before she ends it all, Nao plans to document the life of her great grandmother, a Buddhist nun who's lived more than a century. The diary is Nao's only solace. Across the Pacific, we meet Ruth, a novelist living on a remote island who discovers a collection of artifacts washed ashore in a Hello Kitty lunchbox—possibly debris from the devastating 2011 tsunami. As the mystery of its contents unfold, Ruth is pulled into the past, into Nao's drama and her unknown fate, and forward into the future.
With dark humor, this book explores the relationship between writer and reader, past and present, fact and fiction, quantum physics, history, and myth. Readers describe this as an absorbing and layered novel that requires a second read—the writing feels intense and real, as if truly reading the pages of a young girl's diary. While geared towards younger audiences, this book does contain darker themes such as suicide and war, so please take caution and care where needed.
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