Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell

by Susanna Clarke (2004)

9/10

Probably the best and most illustrtive thing I can say about this book is that when my wife brought it home from the library and I saw how massive it was, I picked it up with every intention of sending it back unread to the library, looking for any excuse to be bored or ambivalent just so I wouldn’t have to read almost 800 pages. And then I barely put it down for the next week — Clarke’s utterly inventive, beautifully written and plotted novel is just that captivating, right from the get-go.

In fact, while I still think it’s too long — I stand by my past claim that no novelist outside of Tolstoy deserves more than 600 pages for a novel — it’s a world I would happily spend many more hours in, and I greatly look forward to her next novel.