Now That's Magic

My son Ethan picked his three favourite books last week. It was my most popular post for a while. I shall ask him back.

The book he picked as his #1 was Shadowmagic by John Lenahan, a title I publish at The Friday Project. I read it as a bedtime story to him and his sister last year and Ethan subsequently read it again when the paperback came out in August. I don't think he was being biased just because his old man had a hand in it, it is a book he genuinely loves and he has given copies to a couple of his friends who have also raved about it.

And looking online at Amazon, Waterstone's and Smiths it has received a smattering of five star reviews. More encouraging is the list of books people have bought with it, titles by Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, Cornelia Funke, Kelley Armstrong, Garth Nix and Trudi Canavan.

We didn't manage to get the book into any of the high street promotions which I was genuinely gutted about. I felt sure that if the buyers read it they'd love it. Perhaps they did read it and didn't agree. More likely they had a lot of big blockbuster stuff to read and didn't get round to it. Such is the way of things and we'd be daft to rely on retail support. You always need to have a Plan B.

Which is why it is handy that the author is also an extremely popular and successful magician. He was the man who topped David Copperfield by making two nuclear cooling towers disappear. See!

Not impressed? He can also make shoes vanish.

Anyway, as part of Plan B, John is performing street magic outside, and sometimes inside, bookshops around the country. Hopefully he will impress people so much they will buy a copy of Shadowmagic. He did Harrods a couple of weeks ago and they almost (bar one copy) sold out.

On the Sunday 27th September he will be performing and signing for four whole hours at Waterstone's in Windsor. They have ordered 50 books. We are going to try to sell them all.

Or failing that, I will get John to make them disappear.

His live magic is really breathtaking stuff so do please come along if you get the chance. Or, if you are a bookseller and want John to visit your shop let me know and we will do our best to set it up.

In the meantime, I will give away copies of this wonderfully entertaining fantasy novel to the first five people who leave a comment. Normal rules apply, please make it the next book you read and then review it online and tell your friends.

Oh, and John wrote a wonderful piece for The Times last weekend about encouraging kids to read. Worth a look.

Comments

[Brigid]

Read The Times piece and would love to read it!

[Darren Craske]

hey there, I've read the first chapter and am dying to know MORE!!!!

[Annabel]

Yes please. Juliet & I both want to read it after Ethan's write-up. Wonderful clips! More humour than Blaine.

[Maria]

I've read it--so don't count me in--but I would like to add my admiration--it's a GREAT book, well worth a read.

[AMS]

My son would love to read it.

[Matthew]

By my count I'm the fifth so please can I have the last copy. I saw John when he was doing his close-up magic show in the Oxford Arms(?) in Camden a couple of years ago and very entertaining it was too. I'd be interested to see if his writing is as entertaining as his chat.

Matthew

[Colin Dymond]

And if you can't count and there is one left I'd love it, especially as it's John's fault I'm now a starving pro magician!

[Adam Mosley]

I have seen John perform and lecture quite a few times and really enjoy his constant enthusiasm on and off stage I look forward to reading this myself and hopefully to my daughter as well

[Sam Newman]

What the hell... sounds good to me. Just placed my order via Amazon - reckon my daughter will love it!