Sudden Death : A Novel (Paperback)

from

This is a fanciful, inventive novel by Mexican writer Alvaro Enrigue about the twin seismic events in Western history of the Counter Reformation that sought to crush Protestantism under the weight of Inquisition and expulsion and the destruction of the Aztec Empire by Hernan Cortes and creation o...

from thornton37814

This is perhaps one of the most unusual books I have ever read. The setting is a tennis match between Italian painter Caravaggio and Spanish poet Quevedo. The game is being played with tennis balls made of Anne Boleyn's hair. The audience is filled with all sorts of persons, including Mary Magdal...

from asxz

Super weird, but always entertaining. Not since reading American Tabloid by james Ellroy have I been forced to Google so many of the characters in a novel to discover if they were real or not. The storytelling is a little stop-start and the timeline is utterly jumbled, which can be challenging, b...

from RidgewayGirl

Carlo Borromeo annihilated the Renaissance by turning torture into the only way to practice Christianity. He was declared a saint the instant he died. Vasco de Quiroga saved a whole world single-handedly and died in 1565, and the process of his canonization has yet to begin. I don't know what thi...

from Eavans

The book has an interesting take on what history is, and the stories that define it. I loved the author's lively and intriguing characterization of Caravaggio, and how he didn't shy away from the violent and sexual aspects that make him such a compelling person to meditate on. The weaving of the ...