Staff Selections - Falicia

Falicia – Library Assistant

Favorite genres of books: Fiction (anything with magic or fantasy elements), Arts and Crafts, Graphic Novels

Just Finished: The Bird King by G. Willow Wilson

Set in the last emirate of Muslim Spain The Bird King follows Fatima, the sultan’s favorite concubine, and her beloved friend Hassan, the place mapmaker. The Spanish Inquisition has come to seal the Sultans surrender to Spain and conversion to Christianity. But Hassan hides a secret, the gift to draw maps and change the landscape of reality. When his gift is discovered and called sorcery Fatima must help Hassan escape and sets off a journey full of magic and danger to find a place they can call home. The Bird King was a beautiful story about love that doesn’t follow the usual trappings. The lush Arabic palaces, wild djinn, and the title’s own Bird King legend give the story a lush exquisite setting.

Currently Reading: The Deep by Rivers Solomon; with Daveed Diggs, William Hutson, and Jonathan Snipes.

A brilliant twist on The Giver by Lois Lowry, The Deep is the story of the Wajinru, the merfolk descendants of African women thrown off slave ships during Colonial trade. As the Historian, Yetu is the only member of her people who remembers the events of the past who must carry and transmit these memories for her kin. But the task of holding all the joy and sorrow of an entire culture is destroying her. Yetu flees her people and must weigh responsibility and culture against life and personal freedom. Inspired by the work of rap group “Clipping” Solomon’s story is emotional and as “deep” as its title suggests.

Next Up: The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

I am a big fan of Morgenstern’s last book The Night Circus. She has a knack for dreamy lyrical prose that focuses less on fast-moving plot and more on characters and slow crescendoing pace. Her stories are about journey, not destination. Almost ten years later she returns with another escape into the magical unknown. Zachary Ezra Rawlins is a graduate student when he finds a mysterious book in the stacks of his college; a book full of whimsical stories. One such story details an experience from his own childhood. The book and a set of mysterious clues sends him down a rabbit hole across a world of stories.

Currently Listening To: Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine. (Podcast)

I fell in love with the often-bizarre history of medicine in college. Each week Dr. Sydnee McElroy and her husband Justin explore the strange and often funny ways we’ve performed medicine throughout the ages.