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In the last week and a bit (as far as I can remember) I have poured through a wonderful book called Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke. I bought it on impulse after seeing it on the bestsellers shelf and reading glowing praise on the back from one of my favorite authors, Neil Gaiman. It is quite a substantial book at almost 800 pages, but I got so caught up in it that, if anything, I wish it was longer!

The basic concept is that magic has been dormant in England for hundreds of years and relegated to simply a scholarly historical study when Mr. Norrell, with his library full of old books of magic appears to return magic to England. Norrell is secretive and protective of his magic and tries to control how magic is brought back into England, when his pupil, Jonathan Strange, rivals him and pursues magic that Norrell despises.

Clarke has created a version of England with magicians, fairies (the real non-Disneyfied ones) and lost Kings, where magic and realism come together to form a detailed and exciting tale. It's an enchanting story, and I highly recommend it.

Lately I've been pouring through books at quite a quick pace. Over the next little while I plan to write up a few mini-reviews/recommendations of them on here. This is partially because they are great books that I'd like to share, but also to kick myself out of my current writing slump.

With that said, the first book up for review is Hey Nostradamus by Douglas Coupland. Hey Nostradamus was my introduction to this author and I have subsequently followed it by reading Microserfs, which I hope to write about at a later time. While Coupland is known and aclaimed for his quirky wit and dark humour, Nostradamus is, in many ways, very somber and sad. Due to the subject matter at hand, it is no surprise that the book conveys this mood.

The story tells of the aftermath of a fictional high school shooting in British Columbia. Instead of taking the expected and almost cliche route of examining the hows and whys of the shooting and the immediate grief resulting, the novel takes a unique approach in telling how this event and other subsequent tragic twists affect and drastically change the lives of four main characters.

Not only is the approach to the subject unique, but the structure is very creative. The first part of the book is dated 1988 and is narrated by Cheryl - a victim of the school massacre. Her perspective is given from a "place" somewhere between the end of her life and what she feels is going to happen to soul next. The second is dated 1999 and is written by Jason - the teenage husband of Cheryl who gets tragically caught up in the investigation into the masacre and suffers great emotional pains throughout his life. The third is dated 2002 and is told by Jason's second wife Heather. The fourth and last part is dated 2003 and tells of Reg, Jason's ultra-religious hypocritical father.

As can be seen, the book encompasses a wide range of perspectives. At first this can seem jarring, yet through it Coupland shows how various events can affect and destroy people. Through each of the characters interactions with each other, Coupland acutely presents different aspects of personal relationships, both good and bad. The first person journal style also allows Coupland to explore the stressed minds of these characters who in turn all question their purpose, value and faith. In these ways the novel reaches it's most poignant hights.

Luckily for the reader, throughout all the gloom and depression, Coupland somehow manages to bring hope and beauty through. In the end, through the most unlikely of characters Coupland articulates the very beauty of humanity.

My mother bought me Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman as a gift to read in Florida. It had been recomended at the book store. At first I was skeptical. The premise of a parallel city below London in the sewer and Tube (subway) systems where a shadey world of magic exists seemed a little bit cheesy to me on first glance.

The praise on the front of the book compared the novel to a great list of authors and stories including Star Wars and Monty Python. I couldn't really understand how a fantasy story set in London could relate to scifi and I don't usually read books similar to Star Wars. I do, however, love Monty Python and so I found some hope for the words within. At the time I began to envision something akin to Space Balls. Turning over the back I found praise for Gaiman from Stephen King saying that he was a "treasurehouse of story." Altough I'm not a Stephen King fan it was reassuring to hear such praise from an acclaimed author.

So I opened up the book and began to read. What I found was that it really is a treasurehouse, but it is nothing like Star Wars and only vaguely like Monty Python. After reading it and some other works by Gaiman, I can only identify it as what it is - a masterpeice by Neil Gaiman. The words I read are pure magic and create one hell of a tale.

Gaiman crafts his world beautifully in the limited space of this short book. His "London Below" is filled with the things of dreams (and nightmares as one of the other comments on the book suggested.) It is a dark fantasy, but at the same time it manages to delight and amuse the reader. Mr Croup and Mr Vandemar, the best assassin duo in the undergroud, are terrifyingly brutal and yet can be darkly funny at times.

Although the plot line is simple it is a true page-turner. The interesting locations, novel concepts and characters drew me right into the world and dared me not to leave.

Recently I finished reading Neal Stephenson's incredible thriller Cryptonomicon. This book is indeed a big one. The paperback is 1100 and some odd pages with quite small print. Although it is incredibly long and at times quite detailed, I finished it faster than many other shorter books which I've read in the past. I couldn't stop turning the pages and picking it up at whatever chance I had.

Cryptonomicon is essentially two books in one. One story is a modern-day high tech business venture, while the other follows the relatives of the modern story at the time of and in World War II. In addition to it's dualistic nature, the latter war story consists of three main subplots, each with it's own characters and events to keep track of. Stephenson keeps the two time periods pretty much separate until the book is almost drawing to a close. Not until the last two chapters do we find out many of the connections between the modern plot and the World War II plots. If I could have one complaint about this book it would be that it ends far too quickly, leaving the reader desiring more to dig into.

Stephenson's ability to keep the reader interested through all the complex longwinded plot lines is commendable and is what makes the book insanely great. The story-lines seem to contain some of everything - war, cryptography, treasure hunting, high tech business, politics.

A friend recommended this book for me and now Stephenson has me hooked. Snow Crash is up next.