If you love books about books—mix in some obsession, a dash of conspiracy, and a lot of poetic weirdness—Supplemento ao n.º 7 das Insomnias de Camillo Castello Branco will grab you by the brainstem and not let go. It’s not your typical thriller, but it lingers like a half-remembered dream.

The Story

Here’s the setup: Camillo Castello Branco was a 19th-century Portuguese writer famous for his moody, supernatural-tinged works. He died in 1890, leaving “The Insomnia Project,” a series of six surreal, numbered fragments. But an amateur scholar, Anselmo de Moraes, stumbles across a research note hinting at a seventh one—labeled “Supplemento ao n.º 7.”

Moraes becomes obsessed. The book traces his investigation through libraries, old letters, and one creepy encounter in a manor that hasn’t been lived in for seventy years. The more he digs, the more he finds himself pulled into the strange logic of Camillo’s world. And when a current bookshop owner turns up a sealed box containing what looks like an ancient notebook, Moraes can’t tell if he’s solving the literary mystery of the century or unraveling his own life.

The plot slaloms between modern-day clues and fragments from the would-be supplement (italicized sections that feel like they were written on a night without stars). Every chapter lands a new discovery, but each one leads to more questions. Is he being toyed with? Or is someone recreating Camillo’s manuscript as a prank—or a confession?

Why You Should Read It

I loved how this is as much about the obsession itself as the mystery. Moraes isn’t a detective—he’s a reader in deep water, and his voice is natural, funny, and kind of slipping off the rails. You get to share in his desperate, coffee-fueled hunches both when he’s brilliant and when he’s clearly wrong. That weird mix makes you trust him, but never completely. It’s like getting popcorn next to a Shakespearean actor doing Hamlet in his basement—but you’re the other character.

Also, the fake (or maybe real?) supplement extracts are gorgeous—full of fog, ghost dictionaries, and ancient calendars that don't line up. I felt a kind of shivery enchantment even when I didn’t fully logicked them out. This book asks: What do we inherit when we love a dead author? Are we meant to finish their story, or get lost in the attempt?

Final Verdict

This one’s for readers who like their bread buttered with bizarro. If you ever cried over a mailbox of undelivered letters, or stayed up down a rabbit hole of Wikipedia about an artist we know just one painting, you’ll devour it. Perfect for fans of The Library at Mount Char, The Club Dumas, or Jorge Luis Borges calling you on a payphone to whisper an unfinished sentence.