It's Saturday, it's raining, let's read.
When I'm looking for a book to read, I normally want it to do three things.
1. Be a coming of age book. The older I get the more flexible I am with the term "coming of age". It used to mean 17, then it was 21-ish, now it's anything that has happened to anyone after they cook dinner using more than one pan. But basically I like it when characters go on some sort of adventure and emerge irreversibly changed.
2. Be full of excellent writing. I am always finding inspiration for lyrics in books (and by that I mean pilfering ideas shamelessly) so as much as I would love to just read Point Horror for the rest of my life (sorry R.L. Stine, no offence meant), and I do still read far too much Point Horror, I love most books I read to be, like, well written, yeah?
3. Maybe, possibly, if it's OK, have the story take place in a world that isn't really here? Whether that's some magical land, or the 90's, or a place where college students accidentally kill a man during a Bacchanalian ritual is fine with me.
Well, 'Magicians' and 'The Magician King', the first two books in a trilogy by Lev Grossman, ticked all of those boxes...
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At first I was put off by the sticker on the front of one of the books, "HARRY POTTER FOR GROWN UPS", it yells - mainly because I consider Harry Potter to be an important literary work for people of all ages. But once reading it I understood the reviewer meant something very different. Grossman deals with the discovery of magic, and a magical kingdom, but his characters are very much rooted in the 21st century. Their cynism is completely intact. When I was a kid Narnia and places like it (that sounds like I think Narnia is like Hull or something - a real place. Let me make it clear, I know that Hull is ficitional) seemed so perfect and blissfull, introduced to me by perfect wartime children with RP and grey knee socks. And for Grossman's lead character Quentin, an insecure 17 year old from Brooklyn, it was the same. But then imagine if you actually went to Narnia, and had a conversation with a talking animal, and actually talking to an animal is kind of dull because they just want to tell you boring things like how hungry they are and what they like to eat and where the dry spots are in the forest, and they don't have the poetry to explain to you what it's like to fly through the air when it's snowing. That's just one of the amazing things Quentin discovers.
And the writing? It's brilliant. I will let this paragraph below do all the talking.
Although clearly Lev Grossman and I disagree massively on how many times someone can watch 'The Craft'. So yes, these books are perfect rainy Saturday reading.
As for the 'Complete Book Of Witchcraft', I bought it when I was at university. Probably after putting "MAGIC BOOK PLEASE" into Google. I remember of feeling of WHAT IS THAT?! I MUST HAVE IT Well, it's a pretty weird book. How weird? This weird.
Yeah, I don't really read that one too much.
(By the way, if anyone wants to recommend books to me, please do in the comments! I need new reads for tour).