The Left-handed Booksellers of London by Garth Nix

Well, I made it through one hundred and twenty two pages of this before deciding that there are better books out there and I have already taken it back to the library. Thank goodness for library books. Anything that doesn't hit the spot can be returned with no questions asked and you don't have to waste hours of your life on something that sparks no joy.

The Left-handed Booksellers is a fantasy novel but, to borrow a phrase from my late father, 'what a load of old tosh'. I know that the whole point of a fantasy novel is to write about purely imaginary events, but you do have to be able to buy into the alternative world, and this time I really couldn't.

The idea behind the novel is that there are left-handed booksellers in London who are really wizards, and these wizards have to fight off various magical bad guys including goblins dressed as Dickensian street urchins. I can't tell you much more than that as I stopped reading just after that bit.

Garth Nix has written a lot of fantasy books, and clearly there is a market for his work, but I shall have to leave this author to others to enjoy and move on to something else.

Comments

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