The 351 Books of Irma Acuri

For most of his adult life—through two marriages
and countless travels—the mathematician Philip
Mazyrk has carried on a love affair with Irma Arcuri.
Now Irma has vanished and left Philip her entire
library of 351 books, five of them written by Irma
herself. Buried in the text of this library—Cervantes to
Turgenyev, Borges to Fowles—lay the secrets of Irma’s
disappearance and, in the novels Irma has written, the
story of her elusive and romantic past with Philip.
Philip, a math genius who sees equations in every
facet of life, reads the novels and begins to sense a more
profound and troubling design at work. A mysterious
woman appears; his ex-wife reveals a terrible secret; his
stepdaughter, Nicole, long troubled by the free-spirited
nature of her parents’ lives, approaches a dangerous
turn; and Nicole’s teenage brother has fled. As clues,
warnings, and implications both inside and outside
the library mount, Philip begins to realize that he too
is trapped in a narrative. Who is Irma Arcuri? What
is really buried in the library? And, most important,
whose story is this?
Like the work of Milan Kundera or John Fowles,
Bajo’s novel is brazenly passionate, sexy, even transgressive,
yet thrillingly mysterious. Addictive, compelling,
and clever, The 351 Books of Irma Arcuri will
captivate fans of The Time Traveler’s Wife and The
Shadow of the Wind.  Download