Tell Them of Battles, Kings, & Elephants Mouthful of Birds

Mathias Énard’s short new novel about Michelangelo is “pure genius,” said Juan Vidal in NPR.org. Imagining that the young artist accepted a sultan’s invitation to build a landmark bridge in 1506 Constantinople, the celebrated French author delivers “an imaginative and suspenseful tale of civilizations and personalities clashing, of love, and of enthralling ‘what-ifs.’” The plot moves swiftly, truth blends teasingly with fiction, and Énard’s descriptive passages “consistently dazzle.” Argentina’s Samanta Schweblin, born in 1978 and “among the most acclaimed Spanish-language writers of her generation,” makes her home in the uncanny, said Parul Sehgal in The New York Times. In this collection’s title story, a father discovers his teenage daughter has begun eating pet birds—and tries rationalizing it. One of three perfect tales here, it captures the way people talk themselves into ignoring reality. Keep reading, and Schweblin’s dark farces “just might awaken you to some of your own.”