Norrell." Both books are set in the 1800s, but while Clarke's was saturated in its period, "The Night Circus" is extravagantly anachronistic. This dueling-sorcerers premise brings to mind Susanna Clarke's magnificent 2004 novel, "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Less a big-top-style show than the ultimate arty fun house, the circus consists of a network of many large and small tents, some containing conventional entertainments like acrobats and fortunetellers, others featuring such improbable marvels as a menagerie of life-size paper animals a garden made entirely of ice, right down to each individual blade of grass and a carousel that goes not in circles but "through loops of silver clockwork and tunnels." The titular circus - open only between nightfall and dawn, and decked out in a strictly nonchromatic color scheme - is the traveling venue where, unbeknown to the public, they demonstrate their skills. The novel is the story of a two young magicians raised from childhood to compete in an elaborate contest, the rules of which are not fully explained to them until late in the game. A confection of heady imagery and dulcet prose, it appears this month in a hardcover edition as sumptuous as the circus it's named after, flaunting all the dazzle that can still be carried off by good ol' black-and-white (and good ol' print) when someone decides to pull out all the stops. "The Night Circus" by Erin Morgenstern is the book every Neil Gaiman-loving girl with creatively dyed hair and authorial aspirations dreams of writing.
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