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Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke (no relation—to my knowledge, anyway).

Current page: 353 of 782.

Elapsed time: Three days.

Assessment so far: Very good, very entertaining, very British. I think a lot of American writers tend to come up with a plot and stick close to it (especially in fantasy writing), whereas British authors seem to write with a vague conception of where they’re going but with all sorts of digressions here and there. They wander down the path of the plot and stop to take small side-paths—”What’s this?” “What’s that over there?”—and it isn’t until you finish the book that you (and possibly the writer as well) can see which apparent digressions were important to the plot and which were just pleasant little diversions. That said, Clarke is a very good writer, and these are very good diversions.

—07/18/06