My poor husband + YAY For the first review!

I went to bed last night with a little headache. I took one Exedrin before bead because it was just a mini, and hoped that would zap it while I slept. I woke up with a HUGE migraine at 4:30. Took drugs, went back to bed, took a shower then a bath at 4:50ish, back in bed at 5:30. Toss and turn 'till 6:45, get out of bed (headache gone but awake) and get on the computer to do some homework.

Poor husband fact #1) To get in and out of bed, I pretty much have to climb over the husband. I did that three or four times between waking up and getting up for good.

So I have to read an article for class. I wanted to mark it up pretty good, so I set the computer to print out all the odd pages (then I'd turn 'em over and print the even on the other side), and then realized I had just set it to print 10 pages.

Poor husband fact #2) Compared to the printer that went with my family's Apple II back in 1985, my printer is super speedy and super silent. Compared with most other modern printers my printer is decently slow and 10 pages is more than enough to wake up and annoy my husband for a good 10 minutes. Needless to say I now have only the odd pages printed and am not going to print the evens until 8:15 or so.

I am now going to blog

Poor husband fact #3) My keyboard, like my printer, is noisy. I'm typing slowly so as not to be super loud, but still!

He's lucky I don't climb across him yet again to get the book I'm about to blog about.

Stroud, Jonathan. The Amulet of Samarkand (Book one in The Bartimaeus Trilogy). New York: Hyperion Books for Children, 2004.

First off, how much of a dorky librarian am I that I can do that citation without looking up how to do it? And yes I cheated by adding in trilogy info, but I don't care.

Warning: Only read this book or recommend this book if you and your patron are both good with magic. This isn't Harry Potter style magic, this is pentacles and summoning "demons" (really imps, djinni, etc.) to do your will. The book definitely isn't evil, and I will continue to have complete faith in children's abilities to separate fantasy from fact, but I don't want to get anyone in trouble by recommending this book!

So anyway, The Amulet of Samarkand is set in a fantastic London that is ruled by somewhat decadent magicians (you can tell that a class struggle is brewing between magicians and the lower class or "commoners") and that is at war with Prague. Nathaniel is selected at age 5 to leave his home and his birth name behind and become a magician as well. He is apprenticed to Mr. Underwood (Underhill? hmmm - doesn't matter) who is a middle level magician, fairly cold, and probably not the best teacher out there. Nathaniel is gifted and quickly becomes

Simon Lovelace, an even crueler, super ambitious magician humiliates and then physically beats Nathaniel in a fairly public way and Nathaniel vows revenge. Enter Bartimaeus, a brilliant, irreverent, hysterical Djinni who Nathaniel summons. The book is told half from Bartimaeus first person and Nathaniel third person.

This book was funny, smart, and not overly preachy. I'm excited to read the next two, although as another warning: I was reviewing this book last night before bed and it gave me the strangest dreams. The trilogy is completed now, and you can visit their website here. Happy reading!