Good, non-stupid entertainment is not easy to do. I mean, there has to be some sort of a special award for a book where Lichtenstein is the headquarter of evil and a chapter about a very sophisticated ball ends with “and at that moment the alligators burst into the room”.

It rarely does when chaos infestation, rival agents, mysterious apprentices and agents of Lichtenstein are involved. So, Irene, the agent of the Library, travels to an alternate London to retrieve a rare book: a unique edition of Grimms’ fairytales.

Although to be completely honest, I think Cogman had me at the title. As soon as I read the blurb of Genevieve Cogman’s The Invisible Library, I knew this book was for me: the ultimate library that is also a secret organization and a kick-ass female hero who is also (yes, you guessed it) a spy. The elements I look for include, but are not limited to: secret organizations, libraries, kick-ass women and spies. It is a spectacular and exciting historical novel that once again shows that Steen is unrivalled in this genre.People have different ideas about what constitutes an entertaining book. The result is an existential and inspired novel that goes to the heart of the human experience-who are we in war, in love, during the final days of life? ‘ Steen paints a razor-sharp picture of a man on the brink. With The Invisble Library, Thorvald Steen interweaves known and unknown, relying on facts until they run out, then building his story on what is probable, to tell the story of a little-known period in the life of one of the most renowned figures in history. She tells a brutal story of the violent daily life in the war, about the planning of the expansion into the Arabian Peninsula, about an invisible library containing marvelous manuscripts and discoveries, and about the passion between a cook and a king. Who has poisoned the king? Phyllis is allowed to live as long as she writes down everything she knows about Alexander. All of her adult life she has lived in the field-and for a long period of time was Alexander’s lover. At the other end of the palace, Phyllis, a cook for Alexander’s army, sits locked in a room, arrested on suspicion of being the poisoner. He is thirty-two years old, had Aristotle as a mentor, and is the greatest military commander the world has ever seen. King Alexander of Macedonia-Alexander the Great-lies paralyzed by poison in his palace in Babylon.

The invisible library books