Diane Duane, So You Want To Be A Wizard

This is a book I have loved for well over a decade now. I found it in my secondary school library along with the next two in the series when I was a (relatively) fresh-faced year 7. I read them over and again and as soon as I had enough money I bought them, and then I had to buy them again because I wore them out. It took me a good five years or so until I found Duane's website and with it the rest of the series. 

Currently there are nine books in the series, as well as three others set in the same universe using cats as the protagonists. I've heard that there are more in the works as well.

There were two things that hit me and hooked me in to the series on the first reading. The first is a quote from 'Midrashim' by Howard Schwartz -  a book I have been looking out for in a casual sort of way ever since - that goes:

...By necessity every book must have at least one flaw; a misprint, a missing page, one imperfection ... the Rabbis ... point out that even in the holiest of books, the scroll resting inside the Ark, the Name of Names is inscribed in code so that no-one might say it out loud, and chance to pronounce properly the Word that once divided the waters from the waters and the day from the night ... As it is, some books, nearly perfect, are known to become transparent when opened under the influence of the proper constellation, when the full moon rests in place. Then it not uncommon for a man to become lost in a single letter, or to hear a voice rise up from the silent page; and then only one imperfect letter, one missing page, can bring him back to the land where a book, once opened, may still be closed, can permit him to pull up the covers around his head and smile once before he falls asleep.

That passage, right on the first page after the acknowledgement, before the contents page sucked me right in. The second quote is from a book - the wizardry manual - that is found by Nita, one of the main characters.

Wizards love words. Most of them read a great deal, and indeed one strong sign of a potential wizard is the inability to get to sleep without reading something first.

I have always been a dreamer and a reader. The quote above describes me perfectly, and there is something in me that even now sees wonder and amazement in the world around me - one of the reasons I became a scientist. I wanted to know. - and somehow hopes that there is something more; to be able to talk to the trees and the stars and the cars and to have them talk back.

 And that's what this book does. This is a book about the magic of words, about fighting entropy and about understanding, in both the magical and the real worlds, and shows that they are not so far separated as you might think.Who knew that a tree gets annoyed when you move his leaf litter? To paraphrase (who?) 'One man's rubbish is another tree's artwork.'

A wizard’s business is to conserve energy—to keep it from being wasted. On the simplest level this includes such unmagical-looking actions as paying one’s bills on time, turning off the lights when you go out, and supporting the people around you in getting their lives to work.

The book is abundant with sentences and paragraphs that make me stop and think, and every time I read it, I get something more out of it. That, I feel, is a sign of a really good book.

At 11 years old this book was, and is still, a high adventure in parallel universes, trying to stop the baddies - both mundane and magical - to recover stolen items, and give the baddies a chance to do and be better. To me now, the latter part of that last sentence stands out so much more, and the quote above strikes home in a way it didn't twelve years ago. Of course, twelve years ago I didn't have to pay bills.

This is a beautiful book and a wonderful series. It has helped me keep the magic in my life that I crave and over the years has sheltered my feelings after I have been too smart for my peers and too stupid or stubborn to hide it.