The Magician’s Assistant by Ann Patchett. I picked up a well-worn copy of this book several months ago from one of our neighborhood Little Free Libraries. It was a “don’t judge a book by its cover” moment. This was our read-aloud selection, and pretty quickly into the story, we were reminded of Fredrik Backman. Ann Patchett seems like his sister from another mister. She made a trip to a stalled small town in the wintry Midwest riveting. The main character, Sabine, lives in Los Angeles and has lost the love of her life (loves, really—read the book). She lives in a big house with the magician’s white rabbit, named Rabbit. (“It’s minimalist.”) It’s a book filled with magic, and it’s magical. The dream sequences are the best I’ve read. It’s one of those books that reminds you that people are complex.

I’m realizing that this is the third book in a row with a magical theme: The Keeper of Magical Things, Agnes Aubert’s Mystical Cat Shelter, and now The Magician’s Assistant. That’s quite a series of coincidences.

Coincidentally, I saw this Seth Meyers interview with Ann Patchett just a few days before I went searching my stacks for this book. (Her latest book is Whistler.) We needed a new read-aloud selection, and this seemed like a contender, although I was not exactly sure of the author. Some say there are no coincidences.

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