What I'm reading now

Update: Welcome to the good folks from The Friends of English Magic! My comments about Jonathan Strange were originally meant as a tip for my sister who asked for suggestions for books to read. If I'd known I would become a real, honest-to-God book reviewer, I might have written a real, honest-to-God review. I found the book a few weeks ago while visiting Barnes & Noble with a friend. I wasn't looking for a new read at the time (we were there for him), but he put the book under my arm and assured me that I needed to read it. He was absolutely right: if you've ever enjoyed a writer for her ability to turn a phrase, you'll love this book.

And you say they're making it into a movie? Hmm...

I'm posting this for my little sister, who has asked for book suggestions. None of these are really mysteries, per se... unless you stretch the definition of mystery 'til it loses all sense of elasticity. But they are all mystical. Also, none of these are easy reads, but they're every one worth the effort.

First up, my current read: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. First novel by an Englishwoman named Susanna Clarke. A fictional tale of England's two greatest magicians of the early 19th-century. Reads a lot like Dickens:

She did not rise at their entrance, nor make any sign that she had noticed them at all. But perhaps she did not hear them. For, though the room was silent, the silence of half a hundred cats is a peculiar thing, like fifty individual silences all piled one on top of another.

Or try this exchange between Mr. Norrell and his servant Childermass:

...A short while later Childermass arrived to attend to the morning's business. He read Mrs Godesdone's letter and inquired what answer Mr Norrell intended to return to it?

"A refusal," said Mr Norrell.

"Indeed? And shall I say that you have a prior engagement?" asked Childermass.

"Certainly, if you wish," said Norrell.

"And do you have a prior engagement?" asked Childermass.

"No," said Mr Norrell.

"Ah!" said Childermass. "Then perhaps it is the overabundance of your engagements on other days that makes you refuse this one?" You fear to be too tired?"

"I have no engagements. You know very well that I do not." Mr Norrell read for another minute or two before remarking (apparently to his book), "You are still here."

See? Not for everybody, but full of good, dry, English wit.

Two others you'll need to check out:
An Instance of the Fingerpost, by Iain Pears. Set in Oxford during the time of Cromwell. An excellent study of how different people can study the same facts and draw different conclusions. By far the hardest read of the bunch, but absolutely worth it in the payoff.

Foucault's Pendulum, by Umberto Eco. Haven't read it? Get thee to a Barnes & Noble, tout de suite. I don't care if you're working. You need to leave NOW.

In case there was any doubt I'm a dork. But hey, it runs in the family.