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Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link
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Magic for Beginners (edition 2006)

by Kelly Link

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
2,3681016,436 (3.89)117
Fantasy. Fiction. Science Fiction. Short Stories. HTML:Perfect for readers of George Saunders, Karen Russell, Neil Gaiman, and Aimee Bender, Magic for Beginners is an exquisite, dreamlike dispatch from a virtuoso storyteller who can do seemingly anything. Kelly Link reconstructs modern life through an intoxicating prism, conjuring up unforgettable worlds with humor and humanity. These stories are at once ingenious and deeply moving. They leave the reader astonished and exhilarated.

Includes an exclusive conversation between Kelly Link and Joe Hill

Read by Mark Bramhall, Cassandra Campbell, Danny Campbell, Robbie Daymond, Kirby Heyborne, Rebecca Lowman, Arthur Morey, Lorna Raver and Meera Simhan

Praise for Magic for Beginners

 
“A sorceress to be reckoned with.”The New York Times Book Review
 
“[Kelly] Link’s stories . . . play in a place few writers go, a netherworld between literature and fantasy, Alice Munro and J. K. Rowling, and Link finds truths there that most authors wouldn’t dare touch.”—Lev Grossman, Time
 
“She is unique and should be declared a national treasure.”—Neil Gaiman
 
“Funny, scary, surprising and powerfully moving within the span of a single story or even a single sentence.”—Karen Russell, The Miami Herald
 
“This is what certain readers live for: fiction that makes the world instead of merely mimicking it.”—Audrey Niffenegger
 
“[These] exquisite stories mix the aggravations and epiphanies of everyday life with the stuff that legends, dreams and nightmares are made of.”—Laura Miller, Salon, Best Books of the Decade
 
“A major talent . . . Like George Saunders, [Link] can’t dismiss the hidden things that tap on our windows at night.”The Boston Globe
 
“The most darkly playful voice in American fiction.”—Michael Chabon
 
“I think she is the most impressive writer of her generation.”—Peter Straub
 
“Link’s world is one to savor. [Grade:] A”Entertainment Weekly
 
“Intricate, wildly imaginative and totally wonderful . . . will fill you with awe and joy.”—NPR.
… (more)
Member:g9stronach
Title:Magic for Beginners
Authors:Kelly Link
Info:Harvest Books (2006), Paperback, 320 pages
Collections:Your library
Rating:
Tags:None

Work Information

Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link

  1. 10
    Icelander by Dustin Long (kinsey_m)
    kinsey_m: If you enjoyed magic for beginners you clearly are capable of submerging into surreal universes and enjoying them, as long as characters feel real enough. Why not try a novel-length experience, then? Icelander shares a lot of things with Link's stories, one of them being that it just shouldn't work. But it does...… (more)
  2. 00
    Last Week's Apocalypse by Douglas Lain (lottpoet)
  3. 00
    The Stories of Stephen Dixon by Stephen Dixon (lottpoet)
  4. 00
    Willful Creatures: Stories by Aimee Bender (GirlMisanthrope)
    GirlMisanthrope: Short stories of speculative fiction that are brilliantly written.
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» See also 117 mentions

Showing 1-5 of 101 (next | show all)
Fabulous in every meaning of the word. I'm no fan of speculative fiction but writers like Link and Lethem use the genre in their writing wonderfully. ( )
  monicaberger | Jan 22, 2024 |
4/5 ( )
  jarrettbrown | Jul 4, 2023 |
''There once was a man whose wife was dead. She was dead when he fell in love with her, and she was dead for the twelve years they lived together, during which time she bore him three children, all of them dead as well, and at the time of which I am speaking, the time during which her husband began to suspect that she was having an affair, she was still dead.''

''You should never burn down a house. You should never set a cat on fire. You should never watch and do nothing while a house is burning. You should never listen to a cat who says to do any of these things. You should listen to your mother when she tells you to come away from watching, to go to bed, to go to sleep. You should listen to your mother's revenge.

You should never poison a witch.''

And these are the only extracts that were worth highlighting. Apart from Stone Rabbits, Catskin, and The Great Divorce - stories of sadness, tragedy, bitterness and love that deserved to be part of a much better collection - the rest of the stories are an amalgam of surrealism and absurdism that serve no other purpose but to satisfy the ego of the writer. Confusion veering into paranoia just for the sake of it. There are much better short story collections that belong to the Magical Realism genre. This one was a frightful disappointment. ( )
  AmaliaGavea | May 15, 2023 |
I think the genre isn't really my thing, but to her immense credit I enjoyed Link's writing and wonderfully skewed alternative reality setups. Her world- and character-building are strong, and though the stories aren't super plotty they move along in interesting, unexpected ways that kept me engaged and consistently surprised. I also loved the incidental illustrations... more books should do that. ( )
  lisapeet | Nov 18, 2022 |
I slogged through this but for the most part the stories were just *too weird* and made me feel stupid, like I'm missing something in not being able to make any sense of them or see the point. Just not my kind of thing I guess. ( )
  krtierney | Jul 24, 2022 |
Showing 1-5 of 101 (next | show all)
Her best stories (and there are at least three small masterpieces here) are breathtaking tightrope acts—at once faintly familiar and pungently defamiliarized, thick with incongruous detail yet clouded in a redolent ambiguity. They are not merely dreamlike—subject to an intricate internal logic, they have a pulsing, worrying intensity, a larger meaning that lies just on the outer limits of apprehension, like dreams transcribed on the verge of consciousness.
 

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Kelly Linkprimary authorall editionscalculated
Jackson, ShelleyCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
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For Gavin and the Avenue Victor Hugo Bookshop, where I met him.
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I used to go to thrift stores with my friends.
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(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
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Wikipedia in English (1)

Fantasy. Fiction. Science Fiction. Short Stories. HTML:Perfect for readers of George Saunders, Karen Russell, Neil Gaiman, and Aimee Bender, Magic for Beginners is an exquisite, dreamlike dispatch from a virtuoso storyteller who can do seemingly anything. Kelly Link reconstructs modern life through an intoxicating prism, conjuring up unforgettable worlds with humor and humanity. These stories are at once ingenious and deeply moving. They leave the reader astonished and exhilarated.

Includes an exclusive conversation between Kelly Link and Joe Hill

Read by Mark Bramhall, Cassandra Campbell, Danny Campbell, Robbie Daymond, Kirby Heyborne, Rebecca Lowman, Arthur Morey, Lorna Raver and Meera Simhan

Praise for Magic for Beginners

 
“A sorceress to be reckoned with.”The New York Times Book Review
 
“[Kelly] Link’s stories . . . play in a place few writers go, a netherworld between literature and fantasy, Alice Munro and J. K. Rowling, and Link finds truths there that most authors wouldn’t dare touch.”—Lev Grossman, Time
 
“She is unique and should be declared a national treasure.”—Neil Gaiman
 
“Funny, scary, surprising and powerfully moving within the span of a single story or even a single sentence.”—Karen Russell, The Miami Herald
 
“This is what certain readers live for: fiction that makes the world instead of merely mimicking it.”—Audrey Niffenegger
 
“[These] exquisite stories mix the aggravations and epiphanies of everyday life with the stuff that legends, dreams and nightmares are made of.”—Laura Miller, Salon, Best Books of the Decade
 
“A major talent . . . Like George Saunders, [Link] can’t dismiss the hidden things that tap on our windows at night.”The Boston Globe
 
“The most darkly playful voice in American fiction.”—Michael Chabon
 
“I think she is the most impressive writer of her generation.”—Peter Straub
 
“Link’s world is one to savor. [Grade:] A”Entertainment Weekly
 
“Intricate, wildly imaginative and totally wonderful . . . will fill you with awe and joy.”—NPR.

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Book description
Collects the following stories:
"The Faery Handbag"
"The Hortlak"
"The Cannon"
"Stone Animals"
"Catskin"
"Some Zombie Contingency Plans"
"The Great Divorce"
"Magic for Beginners"
"Lull"
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