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Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

Susanna Clarke

Start date: October 1, 2025

Finish date: December 31, 2025

Discussion: Current Group Reads

Why we're reading this: 2025 4th Quarter Long Read
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Current Group Reads

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What Members Thought

Sep 17, 2017 Candi marked it as abandoned · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, book-i-own, chunksters

At page 246, I'm throwing the towel in on this one. It's not that it's bad, it's really not. I just can't seem to get excited about it, and after this many pages, I want to be more eager to pick it up. I'm just not interested enough to find out what happens in the next 500 pages or so. I have so many other books screaming for my attention. Now this book is classified as fantasy and I don't usually read this genre. That's not to say I have never enjoyed a fantasy novel - I have in fact enjoyed a ...more

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Feb 04, 2018 Basma Parkar rated it liked it

Going into this book, I was not sure what it was about except that there was magic in it. I had to persevere through the first few chapters until the book began to hold my interest.
The book is about two English magicians and their attempts to bring magic back to England.
Mr Norrell takes pride in being the only practicing magician in England and enjoys the favours of the rich and elite of the nation, including the Government officials. Jonathan Strange stumbles upon magic by accident and discove ...more

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Feb 23, 2023 Briar rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, kindle-books, historical-fiction, gaslamp-fantasy

I want back the approximately 20 hours I spent reading and listening to this book. (Bless the audiobook narrator, though. I think I would have given up by 500 pages, if not for Simon Prebble trying his damndest to give this story some life.)

I didn't start this expecting fast pacing. I expected to sink into a meandering gaslamp fantasy that was more historical fiction than fantastical. What I did not expect was to not care about or enjoy it at all. This was one of the most disappointing books I'v ...more

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