magician king trois

According to an earlier blog post, the first time I read The Magician King (book 2) I was a little disappointed when I compared it to The Magicians (book 1). Where the first book was vibrant and new, the second was a combination of catching up with a character--Julia, who had fallen off the page in the first book, and was now back--and following Quentin through the next stage of his life. Quentin is on a quest to save the world, or something just as critical, but he wasn't exactly sure what his task was until he neared the end. and neither were we

Quentin and Julia both grew as people in this book, and while it wasn’t as exciting as the first book, it was entertaining. I was also interested to read (in the earlier blog entry) that I suspected, but wasn’t yet sure, that there would be a third book.

The second time a read book 2 was just after book 3 came out and I may have rushed thru it. At that point, I still saw it as a 'middle book' of a trilogy, in the ways I’ve described that about other books in the past. This time through (the third time) I didn’t feel that; this time The Magician King read as a stand alone and moved the characters and overall storyline forward in a way that was hard to see without the benefit of the foreknowledge of book three that I now have.

Julia’s life, and story of the keys (Quentin's quest) read like a well formed adventure of its own, similar in to the individual books in The Chronicles of Narnia, which is one of the obvious inspirations for this series.

Read this book. yay, you got a promotion! who's a good book?

the magicians tres

So it its been a few years, and I decided to re-read Lev Grossman's Magicians Trilogy. This is partially because they made a Syfy series from the books (you can see it on Netflix) that I have found entertaining, but a little too 90210-ish for my tastes. They've also gone a bit off the rails in terms of following the books, but then again, different possibilities or storylines, is specifically discussed in the books, so I guess its just a different timeline/universe the Syfy show is about.

I'm not going to dive too deep into these books, as I've written about them before, but I did get a slightly different sense this time of the overall story arc, and the growth and maturity of Quentin Coldwater, in particular. I will also say that Grossman's dialogue is spot on, the banter and sarcasm of the young characters is hilarious. This is the third time I've read The Magician's since 2011, so your boy Lev is doing something right.

It holds up! I was not disappointed.

You can read my 2011 thoughts on this one here.

einstein's dreams

Einstein's Dreams is a cute little novel by Alan Lightman, about the dreams Einstein has in the weeks surrounding the publication of his theory of relativity. Lightman imagines Einstein working through various scenarios involving time, and what it would mean if he was wrong. 

 

Night after night, Einstein dreams of how his town and its people might deal with time that runs backwards, or if it skipped around randomly rather than moving always forward. These dreams are nearly all that occurs in this story, other than a short introduction describing Einstein's discussions with his friend Besso, to which he returns to a few times over the weeks, for coffee or lunch, to discuss his dreams. So the novel reads like a dream journal, as dictated to his friend. Each interlude with Besso is also illustrated with a great little townscape--of Bern, presumably--but the illustrator is not credited and I can't find them on the interwebs either.

Lightman digs pretty deep into the science in these little fables of life and how it would be if we knew the future before it arrived, or if we lived backward through time, or in circles, endlessly repeating our lives. Its a fun little book.

 

 

PS: It seems like this book was a popular item for art students and graphic artists to illustrate as a project. Many examples of the artwork this book created are online.

indispensable wisdom

The Big Book of Indispensable Wisdom, is a collection of three books, published by Reader's Digest. I'm not sure where this book came from, but its been sitting on my shelf for a few years. The three books are: The Classics, My Grammar and I...Or Should That Be Me?, and Easy as Pi.

I know, its adorable.

There are a series of authors, and copy editors involved, so lets just say that these three books were edited by Pamela Johnson. Each has its own focus, but all of the subject matter is treated the same: 'You know this stuff, we're just going to remind you what you forgot since high school, and have a laugh doing it!'

None of the three subjects is explained in any depth. I think the idea is to cover as much ground as possible, and give the reader a framework to organize their own thoughts and memories on these subjects that we already (should) know. There were a few trinkets and additives that were new to me, and that was fun. All in all, it wasn't an awful read, and it certainly didn't read like a text book, but I certainly didn't find myself laughing along with the crummy jokes and enjoying myself. I finished, I guess that's something.