Two winters. Finally finished.

First attempt was 2019 and I got to roughly the fourth footnote and decided I was too tired to be a person who reads footnotes. Back on the shelf it went, spine uncracked, judging me from across the room.

The second attempt worked because I stopped fighting it. You have to let it be slow. It wants a chair, a winter, the heating on and nowhere to be, and I finally had a January like that.

The footnotes turned out to be the best bit, which I did not see coming. Little sideways stories about mad Yorkshire magicians that have nothing to do with anything. And the gentleman with the thistle-down hair is one of the most frightening things I've read; he's frightening precisely because he's so pleased with himself.

What keeps it off a nine: Strange and Norrell are both quite hard to love, and Stephen Black deserved about four times the attention he's given. I wanted the whole novel to be his.

Two winters, one broken wrist (unrelated, ice, don't ask), done. The hardback is enormous and props up a wobbly chair leg when it isn't being read, so it earns its space twice.