Hello and welcome to Episode Nineteen of Page Turn: the Largo Public Library Podcast. I’m your host, Hannah!
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Make sure you listen to the very very end of today’s episode for a special bonus segment.
The Spanish Language Book Review begins at 15:17 and ends at 19:48
The English Language Transcript can be found below
But as always we start with Reader’s Advisory!
The Reader’s Advisory for Episode Nineteen is Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling. If you like Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone you should also check out: Carry On by Rainbow Rowell, The Magicians by Lev Grossman, and Shadowshaper by Daniel José Older.
My personal favorite Goodreads list Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is on is Birds of Magic.
Today’s Library Tidbit is all about dragons!
Specifically the Harry Potter dragons. There are 10 different dragons in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter: the Norwegian Ridgeback, the Hungarian Horntail, the Chinese Fireball, the Common Welsh, the Swedish Short-Snout, the Anitpodean Opaleye, the Hebridean Black, the Peruvian Vipertooth, the Ukrainian Ironbelly, and my personal favorite the Romanian Longhorn.
Come check out our Harry Potter-Palooza on the 28th and when you do head upstairs to the teen room and let me know which of the Harry Potter dragons is your favorite!
And now it’s time for Book Traveler, with Victor:
Welcome to a new edition of Book Traveler. My name is Victor and I am the Community Outreach Librarian here at the Largo Public Library.
In this segment I am going to talk about a book we have in the Spanish collection. It is the horror title The Devil Made Me Do It by F.G. Haghenbeck.
Background: The Devil Made Me Do It is a fiction book written by F. G. Haghenbeck and edited by the publishing house Suma de Letras in 2011. In about 200 pages, the author tells us the story of a demon hunter and how his life is capturing demons. This book is the winning novel of the 2013 Bram Stoker Prize and is considered one of the best horror works by the Horror Writers Association. The writer, of Mexican origin, is the winner of the “Otra Vuelta de Tuerca” Award for Best Police Novel and is the author of The Nazi Code, Mathematics for Fairies, Breath to Death, Cherubs in Hell, among many others.
Synopsis: After the turbulent death of his brother, the ex-convict Elvis Infante turn to the underworld of Los Angeles and becomes a demon hunter, catching fallen angels and other supernatural beings who are then trafficked in the black market and used for clandestine fights. With such a job, you know that sooner or later he will run into trouble. That trouble brings with it a priest with seductive skills, a lethal killer with a gothic lolita look and a secret and powerful international organization related to the sinister trafficking of supernatural creatures. The story jumps between the East Side of Los Angeles and the mountains of Afghanistan.
Opinion: The first thing you notice when you start reading The Devil Made Me Do It is the amount of literary, cinematographic and comic book references Haghenbeck brings together. Both in the way of telling the story, told through several characters at different times, but also with the main character, the demon hunter Elvis Infante.
The Devil Made Me Do It is, above all, a work that baffles from the beginning. Haghenbeck has a most peculiar protagonist, Elvis Infante, a former convict and ex-soldier who owns a store of “santeria” objects, and other strange artifacts in Los Angeles, the city where almost the entire plot takes place. But his work is not precisely the sale of haunted artifacts, that is nothing more than a cover up for his true occupation, that of a demon hunter. A guy who performs exorcisms to capture the demons and sell them in a black market eager for angels, devils and other supernatural creatures to organize fighting rings worldwide.
Haghenbeck is very involved in the comic book world, in addition to publishing in Mexico he has worked for publishers such as Image and DC, and he doesn’t cut back in presenting a world full of fallen angels, demons, devils and members of dark and cryptic sects. In addition, he does so without compromise, forcing the reader to move forward without giving them too much time to consider where he has gone. The idea of clandestine fights between angels and demons and the underworld created around them is, at the same time, impossible and credible given the dark nature of the human soul.
The Devil Made Me Do It contains a story well written with a satisfactory ending, but one that leaves you wanting more. The author gives the reader a glimpse of a reality in which he could continue to set new stories, not only in the field of the novel but also in the field of graphic novels and, why not, in film or television. Haghenbeck’s use of realistic detail achieves a pleasant, fast-paced and surprising book, which could please not just fans of fantastic literature but any other reader wanting to enjoy a good book.
It’s all for today, until the next edition of Book Traveler. See you later.
Thanks everyone for listening some upcoming library events to keep track of:
November 4th I Love a Mystery! They’re Not All Agatha Christie! At 1:00pm in the Local History Room
November 4th Career Online High School Graduation at 6:00pm in the Jenkins Wing
November 4th Paint Like an Impressionist at 6:00pm in the Children’s Program Room
-Registration is Required
November 6th Play and Grow Music at 10:30am in the Children’s Program Room
November 6th Beginning PowerPoint 2013 at 3:00pm in the Computer Lab
November 8th LEGO Constructors at 4:00pm in the STEAM Spot
-Registration is Required
November 11th Timeless Tales Presents “Tom the Turkey” at 1:00pm in the Children’s Program Room
November 12th Facebook for Genealogy at 6:00pm in the Local History Room
November 14th Japanese Bookbinding at 10:30am in Jenkins Room A
-Registration is Required
November 15th Fabulously Frozen at 4:00pm in the Children’s Program Room
November 18th Homestead Act at 10:00am in the Local History Room
November 18th Dinosaur Tea Party at 1:00pm in the Children’s Program Room
November 21st Intermediate iPads 2 at 3:00pm in Jenkins Room A
-Registration is Required
November 25th Cold Process Soapmaking Workshop at 6:00pm in Jenkins Room A
November 26th Thankful Tales and Crafts at 1:00pm in the Children’s Program Room
Remember the library will be closed on November 28th and 29th for Thanksgiving
Have a great day everyone we hope to talk to you again soon!
For everyone interested our intro music is by Break the Bans and the outro music is by Jahzzar, both artists can be found on Free Music Archive.
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