Magic

Summer is magic. Now is the time for books, music, and movies that are magical.

Book

At this moment, on the McNaughton shelf on M Level, find the stunning novel about The Night Circus, which “Opens at Nightfall, Closes at Dawn.” The luscious descriptions of this mysterious circus, its gifted performers, the sights (“the tent full of people…performing tricks with bright white fire”), the smells (“smoke and caramel”), and the grand contest taking place amidst it all kept me reading and reading and reading.

Movies

Don’t miss two extraordinary movies about magicians that appeared at virtually the same time: The Illusionist, starring Edward Norton, and The Prestige, starring Hugh Jackman and Michael Caine. The twists and turns in these movies will keep you mesmerized.

Music

While you’re thinking about your magical summer, enjoy Magic To Do, a song from the 1972 Broadway musical Pippin, performed by the legendary Ben Vereen.

Does the library have more materials that involve magic?

Why, yes, it turns out that we do! If you do a catalog search with just the word “magic” in the TITLE, you get more than 2,500 hits. In addition to more than 2,300 books, there are are 140 musical recordings, 46 DVDs/videos, 41 musical scores, 17 dissertations, 10 journals/newspapers, and 6 manuscripts/archives, among other things — astonishing! By the way, this breakdown of materials is always to the left of your hits list.

One of those choices is DISCIPLINE — let’s choose Medicine and see what we get: cool! The first hit is Jonathan Swan’s Quack Magic: The Dubious History of Health Magic and Cures. (And look — it has a subject heading for “Quacks and quackery — history“!)

So enjoy our stunning books and riveting movies about magic, and have a magical summer!