The Left-Handed Booksellers of London

Mr. Nix has done a bang-up job representing all the booksellers, left-, right-, or even-handed. I sat up late and read it straight through after Murderbot. What a fun romp through alternate London and other Realms. This was written way before the Rowling Twitter blowup but any readers no longer feeling safe in Potterland can come right here; I think there\’s room for everyone, especially as far as fashion goes. It\’s also a bit on the A side of YA. So different to the Sabriel books, more of a Ben Aaronovitch kind of London but so engaging! I look forward to many more adventures set here.

Susan just wants to find her father, when she catches a dashing young bookseller in the middle of an assassination. It doesn’t matter that the man he stuck with a hairpin was one of her only leads to find her father. It might matter that he seems to be a dandy… No, no… that’s not it. It’s the heels; no, it’s that lethal bespelled silver hatpin. It’s the haring across rooftops to escape the questing fog and pacing down an ancient road for sanctuary. It’s the whole up-endedness of London. For heaven’s sake, it’s 1983 and one shouldn’t have to accept that there are monsters and ancient beings still at work in the world right alongside modern civilization. For that matter, it might come as a shock that Merlin, the dashing bookseller, is a bit of an assassin, being left-handed and all. If he were right-handed, he’d be like his more cerebral relatives. But there you have it. Left-handed it is. If Susan wants to find her father, she’ll have to deal with a lot more than booksellers. And finding her father just might be the end of her. Because a lot of those recently discovered monsters – okay, maybe most of them – are aimed right at her. The Left-Handed Booksellers of London is another engrossing read by Garth Nix. The world-building is complex and believable, the characters are likeable and relatable, and the stories are downright hypnotizing. Nix has been one of my must-buy authors ever since I discovered Sabriel and the Old Kingdom books. I look forward to each new book with wonder for the worlds that Nix creates. They’re wonderfully fantastical, original, immersive, and totally mind-enveloping. I can’t wait for the next adventure he dreams up. Highly recommended to those who love fantasy, alternate histories, and excellent storytelling.

“The Left-handed Booksellers of London” reminds me a bit of this author’s “Stardust,” if only because both fantasies feature a cross-dressing hero, and a child’s search for a missing parent. But ‘Left-handed’ is not nearly as effervescent as “Stardust.” In fact, it dragged just a wee bit at the beginning: too many characters with too many eccentricities are flashed by the reader, who ends up muttering ‘Huh?’ quite a few times—who is the guy with the tripartite beard, and what about the woman with the fish flies stuck to her vest? The author seems to be substituting quick visuals for character development. Maybe he was planning for ‘Left-handed’ to go straight to film. The story begins when Susan turns eighteen and goes to London (she couldn’t imagine going anywhere else) to look for work and to find her father. Her mother has always been a bit vague as to her daughter’s paternity, but Susan has gathered clues over the years, including a silver cigarette case and the name of a man who might have been a friend of her father’s. She meets the left-handed bookseller, Merlin in extremely dire circumstances, and the action is paused for large information dumps to get us up-to-speed with the supernatural elements in the plot. Once Susan is separated from her rather garrulous mentors, the plot takes off and Gaiman dazzles and horrifies us with a tsunami of monsters and magic. No unicorns die in this book and Merlin does look fetching in “a pale blue long-sleeved shirt with ruffled cuffs, a Black Watch kilt, and despite Susan’s frowns he’d cross-gartered dark green ribbons over the bandages that ran from ankle to knee, above carpet slippers, also in tartan.” Now that the author has nailed down his quirky alternate England in \’Left-Handed\’ I can only hope for a sequel.

This book, which had a wonderful premise, quickly turns into a mish-mash of confusion. The main character is both stupid (except about art — will give her that), and boring. The left-handed and right-handed brother and sister act, Merlin and Viv, only add to silliness and more dumb zigzagging of plot. I also didn\’t like the cursing. So many great words in the English language, and Mr. Nix resorted to curses. A boring, awful book. Would not recommend it.

An absolutely delightful romp! I quite loved this. It reminded me at times of Gaiman\’s \”Neverwhere,\” which is one of my favourite novels of all time. \”Booksellers\” features relentless adventure, deft worldbuilding, and vivid and enjoyable characters, and it\’s built on a strong foundation of myth and folklore. The premise of the nature of the booksellers is particularly intriguing and quite original, and I dearly hope there will be future novels set in this world.

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