The Magician's Assistant by Ann Patchett

Intermediate Bookcrossing: Bookrings
(not familiar? See Bookcrossing101)

In today’s Bookcrossing lesson, we go beyond book releasing to explore the Bookring.

Soon after Bookcrossing was invented, members began using the forum to organize the sharing of books. People browsed each other’s bookshelves to arrange trades, or gifts, and the bookring sprang out of the need to accommodate more than one person who wanted to read a particular book you had.

When one member owns a book that many others are interested in reading, she can organize a bookring. She will announce the ring in the forum and members can contact her to join the ring. She will then arrange a mailing list order and mail the book to the first person on the list.

Each person in the ring is responsible for journaling the arrival of the book, any thoughts they have, and its departure to the next member. In the end, the book should return to its original owner (a bookray is a variation where the book does not return, but may continue its journey indefinitely). Due to the vagaries of the postal service and the members themselves, it may take a long time to receive a bookring book. Sometimes you never get it at all.

The Magician’s Assistant by Ann Patchett was a book I was lucky enough to receive early in a ring a joined. I had signed up for the ring because I had loved Patchett’s Bel Canto, but I knew nothing about this one. When it arrived, I didn’t even read the back cover before diving in.

I highly recommend not reading the synopsis of this book first. Ann Patchett’s wonderfully gentle story unfolds itself one petal at a time. It draws the reader in slowly, revealing the beauty and depths of all the characters in surprising ways, a completely different experience from Bel Canto.

In the spirit of ignorance, I will say only that the book follows the journey of a magician’s assistant who must look both inside herself and others when her magician passes away and some surprising aspects of his life are revealed.

Reading The Magician’s Assistant was like being wrapped in a comforting old blanket at one moment, and being caressed by wafts of warm tropical breezes the next. It is the story of a woman who could be me, could be us, under these extraordinary circumstances.

When I finished, I was sad to mail this book on to the next person in the bookring. I missed it so much that I subsequently bought my own copy, completely defeating the purpose of the bookring in the first place.

The Magician's Assistant by Ann Patchett

tags: books book reviews bookcrossing Ann Patchett