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Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

Susanna Clarke

Start date: October 1, 2015

Finish date: December 31, 2015

Discussion: Group Reads

Why we're reading this: Winner of the BIG Read Poll
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Group Reads

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What Members Thought

Jul 23, 2015 Christine PNW rated it it was amazing

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It is long, a door stopper of a book clocking in at a whopping 1006 pages, and I could have kept reading for hundreds more pages. It is a unique thing, Dickensian, with elements of created history, footnoted like a text-book, with occasional dreamlike qualities. But, most of all, it is a love letter to books and reading and readers and libraries.

Over and over, Clarke references the importance of books to her two main characters, Norrell and Strange.1 In some ways ...more

17 likes · Like · see review

Sep 14, 2012 Jason rated it it was amazing

Shelves: own

An intelligent gradually building story. The only complaint one could lodge is that it starts a little slowly, but without that I argue that the book would never reach the rich level it in fact achieves. There is a good ebb and flow for such a long book with fascinating characters - you will want to stick with it to the very end.

Surprising, twisting, evolving story built on our two disparate protagonists that we love for what binds and divides them. The titular characters are essentially opposi ...more

13 likes · Like · see review

Dec 22, 2015 Valerie rated it it was ok

Shelves: sf-f-bookclub, readinglistbookclub, z-2016sffchallenge

Finally, it over. I won't say that I am sorry it ended because that would be a lie.

Here is the bottom line. There was an interesting concept and moments of greatness, however, they were buried so deep within a rambling muck of who-gives-a-f*** that the only thing I wanted from this book was an ending.

Don't take my word for it. There are many people who rave about this book. You may be one of them. However, if you instincts tell you that it isn't going anywhere and you are tempted to abandon the ...more

4 likes · Like · see review

Sep 14, 2013 Nico rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: a-dry-read, boring, moments-of-excellence, deep-stuff, not-the-most-exciting-plot, audiobook, a-for-effort, faux-intelligent, monotone

Equal parts excellence and frustration. Imagine Vanity Fair without Rawdon Crawley but with magic. That is what this is. My favourite character was maybe Lascelles, just because he's probably the most charismatic of the lot. He's the closest to Darcy that this book gets.

When you consider though that this is a debut novel, you kinda want to give it a standing ovation. It's fucking huge, and the level of detail, see the massive amount of footnotes, is mind-boggling. Add to that the idea of this wo ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Apr 25, 2012 Zulfiya rated it really liked it

A dessert of delightful writing, bewitchingly beautiful in its style and characters, but, as any dessert, it is an indulgence that makes our life better.

1 like · Like · see review