Strange days

I haven't really read anything of any substance lately (usually just trashy crime thrillers and mystery novels) so it has been a nice change of pace to sink my teeth into a good substantial book again. I picked up Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell last weekend, a book that reviewers have compared to everything from works by Austen to Tolkien to Dickens. Apparently this is Susanna Clarke's first novel, taking her nearly ten years to write. It's set in 1806 during the time of the Napoleonic Wars, and begins with Mr. Norrell, a reclusive magician, attempting to bring back the
Spirit of English Magic. It was quite a daunting book to actually start (it's about 1000 pages altogether!) but I'm already pretty engrossed, chipping away at it nearly everyday. It was the perfect book to read in Starbucks last Monday, during a wonderful snowy Vancouver day. Here's a great passage that really stood out that day:

'Snow began to fall; a few flakes at first - then rather more than a few; until a million little flakes were drifting down froma a soft, heavy greenish-grey sky. All the buildings of York became a little fainter, a little greyer in the snow; the people all seemed a little smaller; the cries and shouts, the footsteps and hoofsteps, the creaks of carriages and the slammings of doors were all a little more distant. And all these things became somehow less important until all the world contained was the falling snow...'