A bookstore in New York draws attention to literary gems

I opt instead, for a lighter literary adventure, diving into Hervé Le Tellier’s The Anomaly. It’s snagged France’s top literary prize and has received rave reviews.

It turns out to be a trip. One minute, I’m in the coffee shop on Brooklyn’s 7th Avenue, then boom, I’m rickshaw-riding with architect Andre Vannier in Mumbai. From there, it’s a wild ride — a hired assassin, a girl in a tub — all converging on an Air France flight from Paris to New York. Something’s brewing on that flight, and that’s the story! Among the passengers on the plane, is a translator, all geared up for a book launch at The Albertine in Central Park, in New York.

Intrigued with the description, I looked online for the bookstore and discover a real-life Italian journalist is visiting this bookstore, to launch his novel called The Wizard of The Kremlin. It sounds like a fascinating blend of fact and fiction, featuring real-life power players like a shadowy advisor to Putin, Vladislav Surkov.

A few days later, when I reach The Albertine, I find it as sumptuous as The Anomaly described it. A grand lobby, high ceilings, a marble statue—a perfect prelude to a warm, lamplit bookstore. Upstairs, Giuliano da Empoli captivates a full house, unravelling his novel that dissects Russia’s power structures.

“The first time I arrived in Moscow, the grip of power felt physical to me — the structure of the city, the Stalinist architecture, it scared me, it impressed me, it made me curious” says the Italian author journalist, who now lives in Paris.

Empoli grew up reading Russian classics like Dostoevsky and Turgenev. Later he read Nobel prize-winning Svetlana Alexievich, as she documents the psychological devastation wreaked by the collapse of the Soviet Union in books such as Secondhand Time.

This reading, plus his real-life reporting, led him to undertake an investigation into power and politics. While scores of political scientists have done this in weighty tracts, Empoli opted for a snappier and racier version telling the story of Putin’s rise to power with a Rachel Cusk-like narrator, who sits in a splendid library in a dacha on the outskirts of Moscow. He is mysterious, he’s unreliable, but he is also brilliant, counterpointing Western psychology with the Russian psyche.

I’m so engrossed in his book, I almost miss my subway stop. The narrative gallops through Putin’s defining moments — the Chechen War, the 2000 election, the Kursk submarine tragedy, and the simmering tensions culminating in Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution.

I read late into the night, the story’s grip on me tightening with each turn of the page. Virginia Woolf famously said, “Fiction here is likely to contain more truth than fact,” and this holds true for this compelling mix. Every few dozen pages, I find myself pausing to verify historical details, fascinated by the accuracy with which the novel portrays real-life events. Yes, Putin did intimidate Angela Merkel with his labrador dog at a meeting. And yes, he did imprison businessman Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

The Wizard of the Kremlin blends geopolitics, of sociology, political science and leaves me with much to think about. It’s a tribute to the power of fiction, an inspiring format to read this November, as novelists all over the world marry creativity with discipline, in National Novel Writing Month (NaMoWriMo).

More next week on NaMoWriMo, as we investigate ways to craft the perfect novel with a super useful reading list, and a chat with literary agent Kanishka Gupta.

Until then, happy reading!

The views expressed are personal

I opt instead, for a lighter literary adventure, diving into Hervé Le Tellier’s The Anomaly. It’s snagged France’s top literary prize and has received rave reviews.

It turns out to be a trip. One minute, I’m in the coffee shop on Brooklyn’s 7th Avenue, then boom, I’m rickshaw-riding with architect Andre Vannier in Mumbai. From there, it’s a wild ride — a hired assassin, a girl in a tub — all converging on an Air France flight from Paris to New York. Something’s brewing on that flight, and that’s the story! Among the passengers on the plane, is a translator, all geared up for a book launch at The Albertine in Central Park, in New York.

Intrigued with the description, I looked online for the bookstore and discover a real-life Italian journalist is visiting this bookstore, to launch his novel called The Wizard of The Kremlin. It sounds like a fascinating blend of fact and fiction, featuring real-life power players like a shadowy advisor to Putin, Vladislav Surkov.

A few days later, when I reach The Albertine, I find it as sumptuous as The Anomaly described it. A grand lobby, high ceilings, a marble statue—a perfect prelude to a warm, lamplit bookstore. Upstairs, Giuliano da Empoli captivates a full house, unravelling his novel that dissects Russia’s power structures.

“The first time I arrived in Moscow, the grip of power felt physical to me — the structure of the city, the Stalinist architecture, it scared me, it impressed me, it made me curious” says the Italian author journalist, who now lives in Paris.

Empoli grew up reading Russian classics like Dostoevsky and Turgenev. Later he read Nobel prize-winning Svetlana Alexievich, as she documents the psychological devastation wreaked by the collapse of the Soviet Union in books such as Secondhand Time.

This reading, plus his real-life reporting, led him to undertake an investigation into power and politics. While scores of political scientists have done this in weighty tracts, Empoli opted for a snappier and racier version telling the story of Putin’s rise to power with a Rachel Cusk-like narrator, who sits in a splendid library in a dacha on the outskirts of Moscow. He is mysterious, he’s unreliable, but he is also brilliant, counterpointing Western psychology with the Russian psyche.

I’m so engrossed in his book, I almost miss my subway stop. The narrative gallops through Putin’s defining moments — the Chechen War, the 2000 election, the Kursk submarine tragedy, and the simmering tensions culminating in Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution.

I read late into the night, the story’s grip on me tightening with each turn of the page. Virginia Woolf famously said, “Fiction here is likely to contain more truth than fact,” and this holds true for this compelling mix. Every few dozen pages, I find myself pausing to verify historical details, fascinated by the accuracy with which the novel portrays real-life events. Yes, Putin did intimidate Angela Merkel with his labrador dog at a meeting. And yes, he did imprison businessman Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

The Wizard of the Kremlin blends geopolitics, of sociology, political science and leaves me with much to think about. It’s a tribute to the power of fiction, an inspiring format to read this November, as novelists all over the world marry creativity with discipline, in National Novel Writing Month (NaMoWriMo).

More next week on NaMoWriMo, as we investigate ways to craft the perfect novel with a super useful reading list, and a chat with literary agent Kanishka Gupta.

Until then, happy reading!

The views expressed are personal