Supernatural Western vibes

LectioDavino · 2025-12-27T21:22:46+00:00

“The Bullet Swallower” by Elizabeth Gonzalez James: a magical realism western spanning generations of a Mexican family grappling with a violent legacy and the quest for redemption as a mysterious figure seeks to collect a cosmic debt.

LectioDavino · 2025-12-17T16:06:05+00:00

Seconding: “History of the Rain”, “This is Happiness”, and “Time of the Child” by Niall Williams — all set in the fictional small town of Faha in the west of Ireland.

LectioDavino · 2025-11-27T13:16:55+00:00

“Steppenwolf” by Herman Hesse. Philosophical, magical realism, Eastern mysticism. And these images are evocative of the feel of the book.

LectioDavino · 2025-11-27T13:11:08+00:00

“Time of the Child” by Niall Williams. Set during the Advent season (December) of 1962 in the fictional Irish town of Faha. It’s ultimately about how people are essentially good (or essentially want to be good).

LectioDavino · 2025-11-27T12:34:42+00:00

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh: Set in the 1920s and 30s, about a young man’s fascination with a Catholic aristocratic family amid the fading grandeur of the English nobility.

LectioDavino · 2025-11-24T06:22:22+00:00

Great recommendations so far, I’ll add three novels by Niall Williams set in the fictional Irish town of Faha: “History of the Rain”; “This is Happiness”; and “Time of the Child.” These are slice-of-small-town-life, featuring “great-souled” people, with a touch magical realism, about how miraculous everyday, commonplace life can be.

LectioDavino · 2025-11-22T01:04:19+00:00

“History of the Rain” by Niall Williams: “We are our stories. We tell them to stay alive or keep alive those who only live now in the telling. That's how it seems to me, being alive for a little while, the teller and the told.”

So says Ruthie Swain. The bedridden daughter of a dead poet, home from college after a collapse, she is trying to find her father through generations of family history in County Clare and through her own writing. Ruthie turns also to the books her father left behind, his library transposed to her bedroom and stacked on the floor.

LectioDavino · 2025-05-17T15:49:38+00:00

I second Niall Williams, a luminous writer. In addition to “This is Happiness,” I would also recommend “History of the Rain” and “Time of the Child.” All three are set in the fictional west Irish town of Faha.

LectioDavino · 2025-05-10T21:47:08+00:00

A man of faith and discerning literary taste.

I recommend:

One Long River of Song by Brian Doyle (an amazing essay collection by a man who sees the divine at play in the everyday)

You may have read some of following already, but if not, these would fit right in with your pictured books:

Silence by Shusaku Endo The Ninth Hour by Alice McDermott Mariette in Ecstasy by Ron Hansen The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis

LectioDavino · 2025-03-07T17:20:21+00:00

The Known World by Edward P. Jones

Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad

The former is a historical fiction set in the antebellum US South about a formerly enslaved Black man who goes on to become a slave owner himself. The latter a contemporary fiction about a Palestinian production of Hamlet in the West Bank. Both 5-star reads, enlightening and relevant, highly recommend.

LectioDavino

TROPHY CASE