Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell

This book is seriously awesome.

There's magic, and fair folk, and the Regency Era, and the word 'showed' is spelled 'shewed', and there are *footnotes*. They're fake ones that go to books that aren't really real, but *footnotes* for god's sake in a fiction book. Referencing fictional stuff.

It's even written like that era. Here's the first sentence so you can see: "Some years ago there was in the city of York a society of magicians."

And it's one of those massive, tome-sized things that they keep coming out with these days. I remember when I was a kid and the Narnia books could keep me busy for hours; now they're maybe an hour and a half's reading (and when I clocked that it was outloud reading). This thing feels good in your hands.

And apparently they're going to make a movie of it.