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Magic for Beginners (Hardcover)

by Kelly Link (Author), Shelley Jackson (Illustrator)
Key Phrases: zombie contingency plans, faery handbag, people under the hill, The Witch's Revenge, The Library, King Spanky (more...)

4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (21 customer reviews)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. The nine stories in Link's second collection are the spitting image of those in her acclaimed debut, Stranger Things Happen: effervescent blends of quirky humor and pathos that transform stock themes of genre fiction into the stuff of delicate lyrical fantasy. In "Stone Animals," a house's haunting takes the unusual form of hordes of rabbits that camp out nightly on the front lawn. This proves just one of several benign but inexplicable phenomena that begin to pull apart the family newly moved into the house as surely as a more sinister supernatural influence might. The title story beautifully captures the unpredictable potential of teenage lives through its account of a group of adolescent schoolfriends whose experiences subtly parallel events in a surreal TV fantasy series. Zombies serve as the focus for a young man's anxieties about his future in "Some Zombie Contingency Plans" and offer suggestive counterpoint to the lives of two convenience store clerks who serve them in "The Hortlak." Not only does Link find fresh perspectives from which to explore familiar premises, she also forges ingenious connections between disparate images and narrative approaches to suggest a convincing alternate logic that shapes the worlds of her highly original fantasies. (July 1)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The New Yorker
Link's second collection has a McSweeney's-like tendency to digress, but does so without irony. Whether describing witches filled with ants that carry pieces of time, or an orange-juice-colored corduroy couch that looks as if it "has just escaped from a maximum security prison for criminally insane furniture," these stories examine American middle- and lower-middle-class life from unexpected angles that mix fairy tale, science fiction, and zaniness. In Link's worlds, a village takes refuge in a magical handbag, and a convenience store serves zombies as an experiment in retail. Two stories with zombies is perhaps too many, though the first effectively marries humor and horror. Reading Link, one has a sense that sometimes a person needs to wander off for a better perspective, and sometimes a person simply needs to wander off.
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker

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Product Details

Hardcover: 272 pages
Publisher: Small Beer Press; First Edition edition (July 1, 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1931520151
ISBN-13: 978-1931520157
Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (21 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #75,124 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Inside This Book (learn more)

Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
zombie contingency plans, faery handbag, people under the hill, catskin bag, rubber band ball

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
The Witch's Revenge, The Library, King Spanky, Las Vegas, Prince Wing, Stone Animals, The Crocodile, Ausible Chasm, The Hortlak, George Washington, Gordon Strangle Mars, Sarah Parminter, Some Zombie Contingency Plans, Princess Margaret, Mountain Dew, Leonard Felter, Faithful Margaret, The Great Divorce, Gordon Mars, The Faery Handbag, Ptolemy Krill, Miss Thing, The Garment District, New York, Forbidden Book

Citations (learn more)

4 books cite this book:

Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link in Front Matter (1), and Front Matter (2)
Firebirds Rising: An Original Anthology of Science Fiction and Fantasy by Sharyn November on page 271
The Best American Short Stories 2005 (The Best American Series) by Michael Chabon in Back Matter
The Best American Short Stories 2005 (Best American (TM)) by Michael Chabon in Back Matter

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

	73% buy the item featured on this page: Magic for Beginners 4.2 out of 5 stars (21) $19.20
	11% buy Pretty Monsters: Stories 4.5 out of 5 stars (6)
	8% buy Stranger Things Happen: Stories 4.2 out of 5 stars (29) $12.48
	5% buy The Girl in the Flammable Skirt: Stories 3.8 out of 5 stars (80) $11.90

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Customer Reviews

21 Reviews

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Average Customer Review

4.2 out of 5 stars (21 customer reviews)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The year's best fiction, July 13, 2005

By	Kelly C. Shaw (Milwaukee, WI USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Kelly Link's fiction is so good it's scary, as her lyrical voice is one of the most unique and singular in literature. Her fantastical stories are inimitable reinventions of familiar genre staples (zombies, ghosts, time travel, fairy tales, and more), filtered through a keen literary eye. The fantasy elements in her stories are always underpinned by a grave reality, be it loss of innocence, coming to grief, or family strife, but not at the expense of a story's humor or levity. Somehow, Link's stories capture both the familiar and the unknown, the horror and the beauty in life. I'm not quite sure how she does it.

Magic for Beginners, Link's second collection, contains some of her most mature and accomplished stories to date. Personal favorites are "Stone Animals," a domestic ghost story that plays with gender stereotypes, "Some Zombie Contingency Plans," an unpredictable, psychological horror story, and the titular novella "Magic For Beginners," a contemporary dark fantasy story, equal parts Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Videodrome, but which ultimately defies description. I don't know if Link will ever evolve into a novelist (and as long as she keeps churning out short fiction, I won't complain), but if she does, I believe "Magic For Beginners" will be identified as a stepping stone to her eventual longer works.

It's actually unfair to single out only a few stories of this 9-story collection, since they are all of high quality (though I'm not too fond of the postmodern stylization over characterization in "The Cannon"). Other gems include "The Hortlak," a hilarious, if somber, post-apocalyptic zombie story, and "Lull," a time-travel story like no other, replete with the devil, cheerleaders, poker parties, and aliens (believe me, it works).

Another surprising element in Link's stories, given their complexity, is their accessibility, as the stories in this collection partake of traditional, page-turning storytelling. But don't get me wrong, her stories are not easy reads (they are fun reads!). Link's best stories, due to their narrative and thematic richness, demand (reward) rereading. But this is hardly a chore, because a Kelly Link story will haunt you, calling out to your waking and sleeping dreams. That's the power a perfect story can have.

Magic for Beginners, to this humble reader, is the finest collection, and arguably the finest book, to be published in 2005.

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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gems, September 14, 2005

By	Nicole Lowery (WI) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

How to describe a Kelly Link story? Charming, odd, sharp, uncomfortable, witty, wistful, strange? Pick a few adjectives and mix well. She makes the strange everyday and the everyday strange. She writes better than most genre (and "literary") writers but never condescends to the genre readers that have embraced her.

Link is one of my few must-reads, although I hate to read her stories because then I've read them and can't look forward to reading them for the first time ever again. Which is sad.

For instance, I'll never again be able to read the title story for the first time and think how great it would be to have a sort of guerilla television show like "The Library" which airs at unpredictable times on odd channels and features different actors in the same parts.

But hey, lucky you if you haven't read this collection -- buy it now! Once you read her stories you'll be glad you did. And then really sorry. (Don't worry, you'll still enjoy them the second, third, fortieth time.)

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Get ready for a trip you wont soon forget, August 7, 2006

By	S. Spaulding "http://racebannon42.blogspot.com/" (Minneapolis, MN) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Short Fiction is something I've not read much of. For most of my life the majority of what I read was Epic fantasy, big heavy multi-volume works. As a result, I've missed out on a whole lot of great writing. While good epic fantasy is still my favorite, I've been trying to expand my horizons, and I thought a great place to start would be with Kelly Link.

Magic for Beginners, is a collection of 9 stories. Having never read Link I went in not knowing what to expect. The first story, The Faery Handbag, was a winner for me. Odd and quirky are the first two words that spring to mind when I try and describe this story, and come to find out the rest of the stories make this one seem pretty normal. In this story a young woman searches for her grandmother's magical handbag, that contains a realm in which time runs at a fraction of the speed of our world.

The Hortlak, details the goings on of a 24 hour convenience store. Its sort of reminded me of Clerks meets Shawn of the Dead.

The Cannon, was the shortest story and I didn't care for it. Link has a very stream of consciousness style of writing. Sometimes its brilliant, other times, its just too disjointed and out there for my taste.

Stone Animals, had a very horror feel to me. While not a scary story really, I felt very disturbed at times while reading this.

Catskin, was like a Grim Brothers' fairy tail on acid. While reading many of the stories, I found myself baffled as to how someone thinks of stuff like this.

Some Zombie Contingency Plans, was my favorite story, not only does it have an awesome title, but it was the most realistic of the stories. I felt more connection to Soap than to anyone else in these stories.

The Great Divorce, is a story about a man and his dead wife. She was dead when they were married. People occasionally marry ghosts. This of course can be problematic.

Magic for Beginners, seems to be a favorite to take the Hugo for Novella this year. I can see why. This was a great story. How Link manages to craft a world within a world in such a short amount of space is amazing. The story centers around a group of teens and their love of the cult show The Library. The ideas she presents here are mesmerizing. I marvel at how her mind works.

Lull, was a bit anticlimactic after the wonderful title story. This story was again rather meta. Stories within stories.

As a whole I like the collection. Odd, weird, strange, and beautiful. I fully intend to read more by Link , and read more short fiction.

8 out of 10

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars Waste of time
Definitely not a children's book.

I have no idea who recommended this to me or where I found this title. Read more

Published 14 days ago by Noelani

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely Brilliant
Okay, so it's a silly cliche, but I'm going to use it anyway...Kelly Link is the absolute best writer that you've never heard of. Read more

Published 11 months ago by gaimangirl

1.0 out of 5 stars Painful to read.
Dear Miss Link: Two my reckoning you owe me about 10 hours of life. That would be the time I wasted trying to read this book. Read more

Published 13 months ago by G. Walsh-Linck

4.0 out of 5 stars runner-up for Best of '06 fiction
Kelly Link's Magic for Beginners collection. Pretty awesome. A lot of "coming of age" stuff and adolescent themes. But beyond charming and cute. Insightful and provocative. Read more

Published 17 months ago by R. Friesel Jr.

3.0 out of 5 stars Not Free SF Reader
This is certainly an improvement on the last book, perhaps realising that rough and not quite there bits and pieces aren't actually stories, when the book says a collection of... Read more

Published 17 months ago by Blue Tyson

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent
I enjoyed this collection of short stories immensely. Link takes readers on journeys through kingdoms, gas stations, and house parties with a magical twist. Read more

Published on June 12, 2007 by C. Pond

5.0 out of 5 stars A writer who makes me want to write
She makes writing look easy. This gal is like one of those artists that makes pictures LOOK like a child has drawn them. You think it was simple. Read more

Published on April 27, 2007 by Sandra J. Graves

5.0 out of 5 stars I Love Zombies!
Kelly Link knows her zombies! Actually, all of the stories in this collection are great, not just the ones about zombies. Read more

Published on January 2, 2007 by I. Brynjegard-Bialik

5.0 out of 5 stars Pictures in your head
One of the coolest things about Kelly Link's stories is that she gives you just enough detail to form your own pictures of everything. Read more

Published on October 15, 2006 by Dancing Girl

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing
I stumbled across this book accidentally, read the "Staff Recommendation" and it really intriqued me. Read more

Published on October 13, 2006 by Laci Ratzer

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