LEV GROSSMAN is the book critic for Time magazine and author of five novels, including the international bestseller Codex and the #1 New York Times bestselling Magicians trilogy. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and three children.
“The Magicians is to Harry Potter as a shot of Irish whiskey is to
a glass of weak tea. Solidly rooted in the traditions of both
fantasy and mainstream literary fiction, the novel tips its hat to
Oz and Narnia as well to Harry, but don’t mistake this for a
children's book. Grossman’s sensibilities are thoroughly adult, his
narrative dark and dangerous and full of twists. Hogwarts was
never like this.”
—George R. R. Martin, bestselling author of A Game of
Thrones
“This gripping novel draws on the conventions of contemporary and
classic fantasy novels in order to upend them, and tell a darkly
cunning story about the power of imagination itself. [The Magicians
is] an unexpectedly moving coming-of-age story.”
—The New Yorker
“Sad, hilarious, beautiful, and essential to anyone who cares about
modern fantasy.”
—Joe Hill, author of Horns and Locke & Key
“If you like the Harry Potter books . . . you should also read Lev
Grossman’s Magicians series, which is a very knowing and wonderful
take on the wizard school genre.”
—John Green, author of The Fault in Our Stars
“Fiercely intelligent.”
—William Gibson, author of Neuromancer
“Most people will like this book. But there’s a certain type of
reader who will enjoy it down to the bottoms of their feet.”
—Patrick Rothfuss, author of The Name of the Wind
“Lev Grossman’s novel The Magicians may just be the most
subversive, gripping, and enchanting fantasy novel I’ve read this
century. . . . Grossman is a hell of a pacer, and the book rips
along, whole seasons tossed out in a single sentence, all the
boring mortar ground off the bricks, so that the book comes across
as a sheer, seamless face that you can’t stop yourself from
tumbling down once you launch yourself off the first page. This
isn’t just an exercise in exploring what we love about fantasy and
the lies we tell ourselves about it—it’s a shit-kicking, gripping,
tightly plotted novel that makes you want to take the afternoon off
work to finish it.”
—Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing
“Fresh and compelling. . . . The Magicians is a great fairy tale,
written for grown-ups but appealing to our most basic desires for
stories to bring about some re-enchantment with the world, where
monsters lurk but where a young man with a little magic may
prevail.”
—Washington Post
“The Magicians is original . . . slyly funny.”
—USA Today
“Lev Grossman’s playful fantasy novel The Magicians pays homage to
a variety of sources . . . with such verve and ease that you
quickly forget the references and lose yourself in the story.”
—O, The Oprah Magazine
“The novel manages a literary magic trick: it’s both an
enchantingly written fantasy and a moving deconstruction of
enchantingly realized fantasies.”
—Los Angeles Times
“Intriguing, coming-of-age fantasy”
—Boston Globe (Pick of the Week)
“I felt like I was poppin’ peyote buttons with J. K. Rowling when I
was reading Lev Grossman’s new novel The Magicians. . . . I
couldn’t put it down.”
—Mickey Rapkin, GQ
“Sly and lyrical, [The Magicians] captures the magic of childhood
and the sobering years beyond.”
—Entertainment Weekly
“Through sheer storytelling grace and imaginative power, Lev
Grossman [creates] an adventure that’s both enthralling and
mature.”
—Details
“Mixing the magic of the most beloved children's fantasy classics
(from Narnia and Oz to Harry Potter and Earthsea) with the sex,
excess, angst, and anticlimax of life in college and beyond, Lev
Grossman’s The Magicians reimagines modern-day fantasy for
grown-ups. [It] breathes life into a cast of characters you want to
know . . . and does what [some] claim books never really manage to
do: ‘get you out, really out, of where you were and into somewhere
better.’ Or if not better, at least a heck of a lot more
interesting.”
—Louisville Courier-Journal
“The Magicians by Lev Grossman is a very entertaining book; one of
those summer page-turners that you wish went on for another six
volumes. Grossman takes a good number of the best childhood fantasy
books from the last seventy-five years and distills their ability
to fascinate into the fan-boy mind of his protagonist, Quentin
Coldwater. . . . There is no doubt that this book is inventive
storytelling and Grossman is at the height of his powers.”
—Chicago Sun-Times
“Entertaining.”
—People
“An irresistible storytelling momentum makes The Magicians a great
summer book, both thoughtful and enchanting.”
—Salon.com
“Grossman skillfully moves us through four years of school and a
postgraduate adventure, never letting the pace slacken . . .
beguiling.”
—Seattle Times
“Stirring, complex, adventurous . . . from the life of Quentin
Coldwater, his slacker Park Slope Harry Potter, Lev Grossman
delivers superb coming of age fantasy.”
—Junot Díaz, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Brief
Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
“The Magicians ought to be required reading for anyone who has ever
fallen in love with a fantasy series, or wished that they went to a
school for wizards. Lev Grossman has written a terrific, at times
almost painfully perceptive novel of the fantastic that brings to
mind both Jay McInerney and J. K. Rowling.”
—Kelly Link, author of Magic for
Beginners and Stranger Things Happen
“Fantasy fans can’t afford to miss the darkly comic and
unforgettably queasy experience of reading this book—and be glad
for reality.”
—Booklist (Starred Review)
“This is a book for grown-up fans of children’s fantasy and would
appeal to those who loved Donna Tartt’s The Secret History. Highly
recommended.”
—Library Journal (Starred Review)
“Very dark and very scary, with no simple answers provided—fantasy
for grown-ups, in other words, and very satisfying indeed.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Anyone who grew up reading about magical wardrobes and unicorns
and talking trees before graduating to Less Than Zero and The
Secret History and Bright Lights, Big City will immediately feel
right at home with this smart, beautifully written book by Lev
Grossman. The Magicians is fantastic, in all senses of the
word. It’s strange, fanciful, extravagant, eccentric, and
truly remarkable—a great story, masterfully told.”
—Scott Smith, bestselling author of The Ruins and A Simple
Plan
“The Magicians is a spellbinding, fast-moving, dark fantasy book
for grownups that feels like an instant classic. I read it in a
niffin-blue blaze of page turning, enthralled by Grossman’s verbal
and imaginative wizardry, his complex characters, and, most of all,
his superb, brilliant inquiry into the wondrous, dangerous world of
magic.”
—Kate Christensen, PEN/Faulkner award winning author of The
Great Man and The Epicure's Lament
“Remember the last time you ran home to finish a book? This is it,
folks. The Magicians is the most dazzling, erudite, and thoughtful
fantasy novel to date. You’ll be bedazzled by the magic but also
brought short by what it has to sayabout the world we live in.”
—Gary Shteyngart, author of Absurdistan and The
Russian Debutante’s Handbook
“The Magicians brilliantly explores the hidden underbelly of
fantasy and easy magic, taking what’s simple on the surface and
turning it over to show us the complicated writhing mess beneath.
It’s like seeing the worlds of Narnia and Harry Potter through a
3-D magnifying glass.”
—Naomi Novik, author of His Majesty’s Dragon
Most of us secretly believed as children that we were somehow destined for greatness. Someday there would be a letter delivered by owl or a magical wardrobe, and it would turn out we were the long-lost ruler of a land in eternal winter! Time magazine book critic Grossman (The Codex) explores what it might be like if this really happened. High school senior Quentin is on his way to a college interview when he wanders off the street and ends up transported to another place.where it's still summer. At first he thinks he must be in the land of Fillory, where his favorite childhood books took place, but no, he is actually at a magical college in upstate New York. He passes the entrance exam and decides to skip the rest of senior year and become a wizard instead-well, wouldn't you? In the course of his adventures, he finds out that studying magic is actually insanely difficult and that fighting a war for the royal succession of an alternate world is much less glamorous than it sounds. But this is not quite a "be careful what you wish for" story. Ultimately, being a magician is, in fact, awesome. This is a book for grown-up fans of children's fantasy and would also appeal to those who loved Donna Tartt's The Secret History. Highly recommended.-Jenne Bergstrom, San Diego Cty. Lib. Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.
"The Magicians is to Harry Potter as a shot of Irish whiskey
is to a glass of weak tea. Solidly rooted in the traditions of both
fantasy and mainstream literary fiction, the novel tips its hat to
Oz and Narnia as well to Harry, but don't mistake this for a
children's book. Grossman's sensibilities are thoroughly adult, his
narrative dark and dangerous and full of twists. Hogwarts was never
like this."
-George R. R. Martin, bestselling author of A Game of
Thrones
"This gripping novel draws on the conventions of contemporary and
classic fantasy novels in order to upend them, and tell a darkly
cunning story about the power of imagination itself. [The
Magicians is] an unexpectedly moving coming-of-age story."
-The New Yorker
"Sad, hilarious, beautiful, and essential to anyone who cares about
modern fantasy."
-Joe Hill, author of Horns and Locke & Key
"If you like the Harry Potter books . . . you should also read Lev
Grossman's Magicians series, which is a very knowing and wonderful
take on the wizard school genre."
-John Green, author of The Fault in Our Stars
"Fiercely intelligent."
-William Gibson, author of Neuromancer
"Most people will like this book. But there's a certain type of
reader who will enjoy it down to the bottoms of their feet."
-Patrick Rothfuss, author of The Name of the Wind
"Lev Grossman's novel The Magicians may just be the most
subversive, gripping, and enchanting fantasy novel I've read this
century. . . . Grossman is a hell of a pacer, and the book rips
along, whole seasons tossed out in a single sentence, all the
boring mortar ground off the bricks, so that the book comes across
as a sheer, seamless face that you can't stop yourself from
tumbling down once you launch yourself off the first page. This
isn't just an exercise in exploring what we love about fantasy and
the lies we tell ourselves about it-it's a shit-kicking, gripping,
tightly plotted novel that makes you want to take the afternoon off
work to finish it."
-Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing
"Fresh and compelling. . . . The Magicians is a great fairy tale,
written for grown-ups but appealing to our most basic desires for
stories to bring about some re-enchantment with the world, where
monsters lurk but where a young man with a little magic may
prevail."
-Washington Post
"The Magicians is original . . . slyly funny."
-USA Today
"Lev Grossman's playful fantasy novel The Magicians pays homage to
a variety of sources . . . with such verve and ease that you
quickly forget the references and lose yourself in the story."
-O, The Oprah Magazine
"The novel manages a literary magic trick: it's both an
enchantingly written fantasy and a moving deconstruction of
enchantingly realized fantasies."
-Los Angeles Times
"Intriguing, coming-of-age fantasy"
-Boston Globe (Pick of the Week)
"I felt like I was poppin' peyote buttons with J. K. Rowling when I
was reading Lev Grossman's new novel The Magicians. . . . I
couldn't put it down."
-Mickey Rapkin, GQ
"Sly and lyrical, [The Magicians] captures the magic of
childhood and the sobering years beyond."
-Entertainment Weekly
"Through sheer storytelling grace and imaginative power, Lev
Grossman [creates] an adventure that's both enthralling and
mature."
-Details
"Mixing the magic of the most beloved children's fantasy classics
(from Narnia and Oz to Harry Potter and Earthsea) with the sex,
excess, angst, and anticlimax of life in college and beyond, Lev
Grossman's The Magicians reimagines modern-day fantasy for
grown-ups. [It] breathes life into a cast of characters you want to
know . . . and does what [some] claim books never really manage to
do: 'get you out, really out, of where you were and into somewhere
better.' Or if not better, at least a heck of a lot more
interesting."
-Louisville Courier-Journal
"The Magicians by Lev Grossman is a very entertaining book; one of
those summer page-turners that you wish went on for another six
volumes. Grossman takes a good number of the best childhood fantasy
books from the last seventy-five years and distills their ability
to fascinate into the fan-boy mind of his protagonist, Quentin
Coldwater. . . . There is no doubt that this book is inventive
storytelling and Grossman is at the height of his powers."
-Chicago Sun-Times
"Entertaining."
-People
"An irresistible storytelling momentum makes The Magicians a great
summer book, both thoughtful and enchanting."
-Salon.com
"Grossman skillfully moves us through four years of school and a
postgraduate adventure, never letting the pace slacken . . .
beguiling."
-Seattle Times
"Stirring, complex, adventurous . . . from the life of Quentin
Coldwater, his slacker Park Slope Harry Potter, Lev Grossman
delivers superb coming of age fantasy."
-Junot Diaz, Pulitzer Prize -winning author of The Brief
Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
"The Magicians ought to be required reading for anyone who
has ever fallen in love with a fantasy series, or wished that they
went to a school for wizards. Lev Grossman has written a terrific,
at times almost painfully perceptive novel of the fantastic that
brings to mind both Jay McInerney and J. K. Rowling."
-Kelly Link, author of Magic for Beginners and
Stranger Things Happen
"Fantasy fans can't afford to miss the darkly comic and
unforgettably queasy experience of reading this book-and be glad
for reality."
-Booklist (Starred Review)
"This is a book for grown-up fans of children's fantasy and would
appeal to those who loved Donna Tartt's The Secret History. Highly
recommended."
-Library Journal (Starred Review)
"Very dark and very scary, with no simple answers provided-fantasy
for grown-ups, in other words, and very satisfying indeed."
-Kirkus Reviews
"Anyone who grew up reading about magical wardrobes and unicorns
and talking trees before graduating to Less Than Zero and The
Secret History and Bright Lights, Big City will immediately feel
right at home with this smart, beautifully written book by Lev
Grossman. The Magicians is fantastic, in all senses of the word.
It's strange, fanciful, extravagant, eccentric, and truly
remarkable-a great story, masterfully told."
-Scott Smith, bestselling author of The Ruins and A Simple
Plan
"The Magicians is a spellbinding, fast-moving, dark fantasy
book for grownups that feels like an instant classic. I read it in
a niffin-blue blaze of page turning, enthralled by Grossman's
verbal and imaginative wizardry, his complex characters, and, most
of all, his superb, brilliant inquiry into the wondrous, dangerous
world of magic."
-Kate Christensen, PEN/Faulkner award winning author of The
Great Man and The Epicure's Lament
"Remember the last time you ran home to finish a book? This is it,
folks. The Magicians is the most dazzling, erudite, and thoughtful
fantasy novel to date. You'll be bedazzled by the magic but also
brought short by what it has to sayabout the world we live in."
-Gary Shteyngart, author of Absurdistan and The
Russian Debutante's Handbook
"The Magicians brilliantly explores the hidden underbelly
of fantasy and easy magic, taking what's simple on the surface and
turning it over to show us the complicated writhing mess beneath.
It's like seeing the worlds of Narnia and Harry Potter through a
3-D magnifying glass."
-Naomi Novik, author of His Majesty's
Dragon
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