The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

This fantasy novel is one of my very favorites. My best friend, Tom, is currently listening to the audio version. He told me today that he was actually enjoying time he spent driving on the DC beltway because it gave him more time with this book.

It's Rothfuss's first novel, released initially in 2007. I don't know how I missed it--it was a critically acclaimed NY Times bestseller--but I finally read it last year and loved it.

On amazon, the author Robin Hobb entitled her review "Well worth your precious reading hours". I completely agree with her review:

It seems to me that every year there are more books I want to read and less time for me to read them. Because my time is limited, I'm guilty of picking up the books by my favorite authors first, and fitting in new authors only when it's convenient.

Due to a stroke of luck, I've had an advance copy of The Name of the Wind by my bedside for over six months, just waiting for me to open it. Unfortunately, deadlines of my own kept getting in the way. But in a way, it's lucky that I didn't crack this book until just a few days ago. If I'd had this tale to distract me, I'd have been even later getting my work done.

I loathe spoilers, so I'm not going to discuss the plot of this book. I will say it has all the things that I demand of a book. The characters are real, the action is convincing and it has a compelling story to tell.

One of the things I like best about this book is that the magic is absolutely rooted in the book's world. Nothing seems contrived; the consistency is excellent.

The characters are very well realized. That means that when the protagonist does something clever, it's believable. And when he does something youthfully dumb, it rings just as authentically true. Because the characters are real and the magic is true to its own world, I closed this book feeling as if I'd been on a journey with an entertaining new friend, rather than sitting alone looking at words on a page.

This one is well worth some of your precious reading time.