I put off reading this for a few years, because all the acclaim regarding its originality of plot seemed overblown, and that plot sounded confusing. How wrong I was! The plot may be potentially confusing, but Turton is such a skilled writer that the reader is able to follow its cleverly contrived premise and all the consequent twists, especially as it is (cliché alert!) hard to put the book down. And is it really possible, after so many thousands of murder mysteries have been written, for one to be truly original in its plot? Absolutely!
"Pop your favorite Agatha Christie whodunnit into a blender with a scoop of Downton Abbey, a dash of Quantum Leap, and a liberal sprinkling of Groundhog Day and you'll get this unique murder mystery." ―Harper's Bazaar
The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle is a breathlessly addictive mystery that follows one man's race to find a killer, with an astonishing time-turning twist that means nothing and no one are quite what they seem.
Aiden Bishop knows the rules. Evelyn Hardcastle will die every day until he can identify her killer and break the cycle. But every time the day begins again,…
I know the world of Montezuma, as I am a historian of the Aztecs and their encounter with Spanish conquistadors (and indeed in interviews Enrigue has generously cited my book When Montezuma Met Cortés as an inspiration). But nothing could have prepared me for the particular vision of Montezuma's world that Enrigue has conjured up and articulated here—alluring, disturbing, compelling, immersive, darkly amusing. I am often asked if I think You Dreamed of Empires is accurate. That is, of course, beside the point! The novel accurately reflects Enrigue's imagination and his artful ability to interpret the historical past in memorable and mind-boggling ways.
"Enrigue’s genius lies in his ability to bring readers close to its tangled knot of priests, mercenaries, warriors and princesses while adding a pinch of biting humor." --Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Los Angeles Times
“Riotously entertaining... A triumph of solemnity-busting erudition and mischievous invention that will delight and titillate.” --Financial Times
From the visionary author of Sudden Death, a hallucinatory, revelatory colonial revenge story.
One morning in 1519, conquistador Hernán Cortés enters the city of Tenochtitlan – today's Mexico City. Later that day, he will meet the emperor Moctezuma in a collision of two worlds, two empires, two languages, two possible futures.…
The title and cover of this book do not prepare the reader for the journey within—a journey that stretches from today's garbage problems, to the Maya relationship to trash a thousand years ago, to the European-Indigenous culture clash in Mexico five hundred years ago, and back to the present. Full of surprises and endlessly fascinating, Unmaking Waste is brilliantly original. Disclosure: I was sent the book to be evaluated for a prize, and thus started reading it out of obligation; but I was immediately gripped by its unusual nature and engaging writing. So, don't be put off by all the talk of trash!
Explores the concept of waste from fresh historical, cultural, and geographical perspectives.
Garbage is often assumed to be an inevitable part and problem of human existence. But when did people actually come to think of things as "trash"-as becoming worthless over time or through use, as having an end?
Unmaking Waste tackles these questions through a long-term, cross-cultural approach. Drawing on archaeological finds, historical documents, and ethnographic observations to examine Europe, the United States, and Central America from prehistory to the present, Sarah Newman traces how different ideas about waste took shape in different times and places. Newman examines what…
A dramatic rethinking of the encounter between Montezuma and Hernando Cortes that completely overturns what we know about the Spanish conquest of the Americas
On November 8, 1519, the Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortes first met Montezuma, the Aztec emperor, at the entrance to the capital city of Tenochtitlan. This introduction-the prelude to the Spanish seizure of Mexico City and to European colonization of the mainland of the Americas-has long been the symbol of Cortes's bold and brilliant military genius. Montezuma, on the other hand, is remembered as a coward who gave away a vast empire and touched off a wave of colonial invasions across the hemisphere.
But is this really what happened? In a departure from traditional tellings, When Montezuma Met Cortes uses "the Meeting"-as Restall dubs their first encounter-as the entry point into a comprehensive reevaluation of both Cortes and Montezuma. Drawing on rare primary sources and overlooked accounts by conquistadors and Aztecs alike, Restall explores Cortes's and Montezuma's posthumous reputations, their achievements and failures, and the worlds in which they lived-leading, step by step, to a dramatic inversion of the old story. As Restall takes us through this sweeping, revisionist account of a pivotal moment in modern civilization, he calls into question our view of the history of the Americas, and, indeed, of history itself.
