For Readers: Blog

Be careful what you wish for...

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, Ghost Rider starring Nicholas Cage, "Toxic" by Britney Spears...many art forms offer memorable portrayals of protagonists who are tempted by their greatest desires, and who soon discover that every wish has a cost.

To explore the so-called Faustian bargain, start with...Faust, the play by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Though not the first time the character was put to paper, this has become the seminal work about Faust, the legendary alchemist who convenes with Mephistopheles, a chief devil. In Goethe's play, Faust is disillusioned with his scholarly work and summons a demon to help him gain limitless knowledge and the love of the woman he desires. But all deals come with a price, which Faust fails to consider. The library edition features the original German and English translation side by side for an immersive reading experience. [e-book | print]

While best known for his social commentary slasher novel The Only Good Indians, Stephen Graham Jones serves up just as many spine-tingling scares in his novella The Night of the Mannequins, which turns the trope of the Faustian deal on its head. One summer, the teen protagonist (Sawyer) and his friends find an old mannequin in the woods and spend the next few months doing everything with it. When school begins, "Manny" is forgotten. Now, it is rediscovered in Sawyer’s garage, and the teens decide to use the mannequin in a prank. When things go unexpectedly wrong, there are deadly consequences. Sawyer is convinced that Manny is enacting revenge on him and his friends, and he makes a promise to Manny that he’ll do whatever it takes to stop the bloodshed. [e-book | print]

Mona Awad has made a name for herself as a master of the bizarre and darkly humorous, and her latest novel, All’s Well, does not disappoint. Former actor Miranda is now a professor at a small college, chronically ill, and trying to keep a failing theater department afloat. Determined to achieve some of her former glory, she decides to stage one of Shakespeare’s “problem plays,” All’s Well That Ends Well. However, her students are feeling mutinous, none of her doctors believes her about her pain, and her marriage has fallen apart. Then, one night, she encounters three mysterious men who promise that all her dreams can come true. Awad is perfect for fans of Ottessa Moshfegh. [e-book | print]

Brimming with Hungarian and Jewish history and folklore, The Wolf and the Woodsman by Ava Reid follows the hero, Évike, as she learns the many different ways dark bargains can change your life. The king demands a yearly sacrifice from the pagans living on his claimed land and he sends his woodsmen to carry out this grisly task. Évike, a young woman of mixed ancestry whose father is absent, is an outcast as the one woman in her village without magic. Thus, she is sacrificed to Gáspár, the king’s eldest son and highest-ranking woodsman. Trying to make the best of a bad situation, Évike offers her assistance to Gáspár in fighting off the fiends of the forest, so long as he promises to help reunite her with her long-lost father. What follows is an epic tale of alliances, romance, and the brutality of nation building. Readers who adore the lyrical fantasies of Naomi Novik will devour this. [e-book | print]

In The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by Victoria Schwab, an 18th-century woman desperate to flee a forced marriage makes a deal with a dark god to gain her freedom. The catch? She’s granted immortality but is destined to be forgotten by every person she meets. For 300 years, she wanders the world, having fleeting and unsatisfying connections with others, unable to build lasting relationships. Then, inexplicably, one day a man named Henry remembers who she is. As Addie and Henry grow closer, readers learn just what makes Henry special and why it seems like destiny that he and Addie have crossed paths. Schwab weaves together past and present in a sweeping tale of romance, sense of self, and legacy. A must-read for fans of Erin Morgenstern’s magical worlds. [e-book | print | audiobook]

In Yangsze Choo’s The Ghost Bride, a father is offered a way to pay his exorbitant debts: he can agree to offer his daughter, Li Lan, as a ghost bride to the Lim family's recently deceased son, Tian Ching. Desperate to not succumb to this spectral bargain but tormented nightly by Tian Ching’s ghost, Li Lan agrees to enter the spirit realm only to search for a way that will free her from the deal. Tian Ching is convinced that he was murdered, and only if Li Lan can prove that he was will she be granted her freedom. Night after night, Li Lan wanders the city of the dead in search of family secrets and hidden information, guided only by the mysterious and mythical Er Lang. Li Lan must solve the mystery before her connection to her physical body weakens to the point of no return. [e-book | print]

⏤Emily