Magic for Beginners

Kelly Link

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2006 - Fiction - 297 pages

Magic for Beginners is Kelly Link’s eagerly anticipated and critically acclaimed follow-up to her beloved debut, Stranger Things Happen. “Cumulatively weirder and wiser” (The Believer), this new story collection riffs on zombies, marriage, witches, superheroes, haunted convenience stores, and weekly apocalyptic poker parties, among other things. Link’s work is truly unique. Time Out New York called her stories “cross-genre gems,” and her admirers in the literary community—from Peter Straub and Karen Joy Fowler to Alice Sebold and Michael Chabon—reflect the amazing range that makes her style so special. Call it kitchen sink magical realism: Fantastic and bizarre but funny and down to earth, there is something for everyone in Magic for Beginners.

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What people are saying

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - Martha_Thayer - LibraryThing

Reading these stories reminded me of the way I felt when I was reading fairy tales as a kid. And how can a librarian not like a story where a gang of teenage friends is obsessed with a TV series ...

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - nosborm - LibraryThing

It's always hard to rate short story collections but these range from 3-5, including my favorite - the titular Magic for Beginners. I read it elsewhere in another multi-author collection and that's ...

Contents

• The Faery Handbag I: 1
• The Hortlak: 27
• The Cannon: 61
• Catskin: 125
• Some Zombie Contingency Plans: 159
• The Great Divorce: 187
• Magic for Beginners: 203
• Lull: 259

About the author

KELLY LINK's stories have appeared in The Best American Short Stories, McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales, Conjunctions, The Dark, and elsewhere. Her honors include a Nebula Award and an NEA Literature Fellowship. She lives in Northampton, Massachusetts. Shelley Jackson has written and illustrated several books for children, including The Old Woman and the Wave (DK Children, 1998) and Sophia, the Alchemist's Dog (Atheneum/Richard Jackson Books, 2002). Her most recent book, The Chicken-Chasing Queen of Lamar County by Janice Harrington (FSG, 2007), received several awards and starred reviews. Shelley's books for adults include The Melancholy of Anatomy ( Anchor Books, 2002) and Half Life ( HarperCollins, 2006). She is well known for her pioneering cross-genre experiments such as her groundbreaking hypertext novel, Patchwork Girl, and her ongoing Skin Project, a novella published exclusively in the form of tattoos on the skin of volunteers, one word at a time. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. To learn more, please visit her website:http://ineradicablestain.com/

Bibliographic information

• Title: Magic for Beginners
• Author: Kelly Link
• Illustrated by: Shelley Jackson
• Edition: illustrated, reprint
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2006
• ISBN: 0156031876, 9780156031875
• Length: 297 pages
• Subjects: Fiction / Short Stories (single author)