book review a tale of magic

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A Tale of Magic…

Colfer's newest series is set in the same universe as The Land of Stories , so if you loved that, you'll definitely want to try this series. When a teen discovers a book hidden in the library that teaches her forbidden magic, she is whisked off to--you guessed it--a magical school where she will learn to be a fairy. Again, all is not as it seems. Despite following many standard magical tropes, Colfer's fans will appreciate his expansive storytelling and ability to explore different areas of the enchanting universe he's created.

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Publisher’s Description

When Brystal Evergreen stumbles across a secret section of the library, she discovers a book that introduces her to a world beyond her imagination and learns the impossible: She is a fairy capable of magic! But in the oppressive Southern Kingdom, women are forbidden from reading and magic is outlawed, so Brystal is swiftly convicted of her crimes and sent to the miserable Bootstrap Correctional Facility. But with the help of the mysterious Madame Weatherberry, Brystal is whisked away and enrolled in an academy of magic!

Adventure comes with a price, however, and when Madame Weatherberry is called away to attend to an important problem she doesn’t return. Do Brystal and her classmates have what it takes to stop a sinister plot that risks the fate of the world, and magic, forever? Fall in love with an all-new series from Chris Colfer, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Land of Stories, filled with adventure, imagination, and wonderfully memorable characters both familiar and new.

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Apple iPad Pro 13-inch M4 review: a true MacBook replacement

T o call the iPad Pro a tablet seems diminutive. It’s like calling the Star Wars films a space drama – it’s true but it’s so much more. The iPad revolutionised the tablet market when it launched in 2010. So much so that it’s rare for even Android users to look to any other option. 

While the iPad Air introduced a thinner and lighter device, the Pro delivered a massive step up in performance. This had laptop-level CPU and GPUs, in the form of Apple’s own M-series silicon chips and the quality of the screens went beyond that of any current MacBook. 

This latest model continues to push the boundaries of what any tablet – let alone an iPad – can do. It introduces a number of firsts across the entire Apple range, from the screen technology to the first M4 chip. 

Its processing can cope with the most demanding audio and video tasks that would otherwise require a high-end laptop. At the same time, it provides the creative freedom to use a stylus (Apple Pencil) or touch to produce works of art in their own right. 

The only potential catch is that this highly capable device costs close to a full laptop of similar spec. Choosing between the two may come down to personal need, with the iPad Pro offering distinct advantages in weight and screen – particularly thanks to touch and Pencil. It’s the operating system – or OS – that is potentially its biggest limitation.

I’ve spent a week using the iPad Pro, for everything from painting and song creation to watching films, and even writing this review. I have to admit I love it. It won’t be for everyone but is it the best tablet Apple has ever produced? Without doubt. 

How much is the iPad Pro M4?

When it comes to pricing, the iPad now spans a huge range of pricing from 350 to thousands of dollars or pounds. Unsurprisingly, the iPad Pro sits at the top of that range, with a starting price of £999 / $999 / AU$1699 for the 11-inch model. If you want the larger 13-inch model, you are starting from £1299 / $1299 / AU$2199, and for the largest 2TB storage, Nano-textured screen and Cellular connectivity you are looking at up to £2,599 / $2599 / AU$4479. 

Both the 11-inch and the 13-inch models are available with 256GB, 512GB, 1TB and 2TB storage options, in a choice of silver or black finishes, and with either WiFi or WiFi and Cellular connection. Interestingly, the M4 chips are slightly different on the 1TB and 2TB models, with an extra performance core in the CPU and more RAM.

On top of the iPad itself, you’re going to want the new Magic Keyboard, which is another £299 / $349 /AU$579 and the new Apple Pencil Pro, which is £129 / $129 / AU$219. That means the entire package is going to cost you between 1,700 and 3,000 pounds or dollars.

Now, bear in mind that the MacBook Pro M3 models start from £1700 / $1599 /AU$2699, and don’t offer touchscreen. So while it might seem a lot for a tablet, it’s potentially better value than a MacBook, particularly if you want to sketch on it. 

The model I tested was the 13-inch iPad Pro with 1TB storage and WiFi+Cellular, priced at £2099 / $2099 / AU$3599. 

What's new on the iPad Pro M4?

At first glance, the iPad Pro looks very similar to the older model. While it is fractionally taller and wider – presumably to accommodate that 0.1-inch larger screen – it is considerably thinner and lighter, which is really noticeable in the hand. The 11-inch model is now 5.3mm thick and weighs 446g (0.98 lbs), the 13-inch is just 5.1mm and 582g (1.28 lbs), which is 1.3mm thinner than the previous and 102g lighter. 

The front-facing camera now sits on the long side of the device rather than the top, which is more suited to video calls in landscape or horizontal position. It also makes Face ID easier to use in this position. This iPad more than ever is designed to be used on its side, whether with a Magic Keyboard, a Smart Folio or just being held.

Power is once again via a USB-C connection on the bottom of the device, which also supports USB 4 and Thunderbolt. There is no longer the option for a nanoSIM in cellular models, so it requires an eSIM for data connection. 

There are four speakers, placed top and bottom close to the corners, to deliver that immersive sound – though Spatial Audio is only available with compatible AirPods. There’s also one fewer microphone – now four rather than five. 

As the HomePod did something similar, this is presumably due to improved efficiency. The back of the iPad Pro is noticeably different due to the new camera bump, which has just a single camera, but more on this later. 

iPad Pro display

Aside from that M4 chip, the display is the most interesting part of the new iPad Pro. Rather than the mini-LED backlit display of the old model, it now features a tandem OLED display, known as the Ultra Retina XDR display. It is called a tandem OLED display as it has two OLED displays placed over the top of one another. This allows the display to be much brighter while only requiring a small power consumption from each diode. 

In terms of numbers, the iPad Pro delivers 1,000 nits of full-screen brightness in all situations and 1,600 nits of peak HDR brightness. While the former model could match this in extreme dynamic range, for standard range it could only produce 600 nits. 

The result is truly stunning. While the former mini-LED was impressive in terms of clarity, the sheer brightness and depth of the OLED display take it even further. The fractionally larger 13-inch screen has a higher resolution than the former 12.9-inch iPad Pro, giving it a 2752x2064 resolution while keeping the same 264 pixels per inch. 

There’s also an option on the 1TB and 2TB models for a nano-texture glass. This is designed to massively reduce glare and gives it a matte appearance. It does add £100 / $100 (AU$200) to the price, but especially for outdoor and colour-sensitive editing, it makes a big difference. 

iPad Pro camera system

Despite changing position, the front camera on the iPad Pro appears to be identical to the previous model. This is a 12MP TrueDepth camera with an f/2.4 aperture and Centre Stage to track you during video calls. This will give 1080P video at 25, 30 and 60fps and there’s a Retina Flash too. 

On the rear though, there’s now just a single camera. Gone is the 10MP Ultra Wide camera, leaving just the 12MP f/1.8 wide-angle camera, accompanied by a new adaptive True Tone flash. While this downgrading of the rear camera array might come as a bit of a surprise to some users, I think it actually makes sense. How many people truly use an iPad Pro to take pictures? 

I imagine most rear cameras on these tablets remain completely unused. While it does still take a nice picture, the main use of the iPad’s camera is to scan documents. This is something the current 12MP wide-angle camera is more than capable of doing – and more effectively thanks to the adaptive flash. You can take 4K video on the rear camera too, including in Pro Res, should you need to use it in a multi-cam set-up. 

The only reason I would have liked to see a twin camera set up on the iPad Pro would be for Vision Pro 3D video. Vision Pro owners are likely to also be iPad Pro users, so it would make sense to have them work closer together. 

I would also have liked 4K video and, potentially, a higher pixel count from the front camera to allow for even better-quality FaceTime calls. After all, 2K and 4K webcams are becoming the norm for external webcams these days. 

iPad Pro M4 performance

Apple Silicon progression has certainly picked up speed in recent years but it was quite unexpected when the iPad Pro was announced to feature a new M4 chip that hasn’t been used in any other Macs. I, (like many others) was expecting it to use the M3 chip, but the M4 has some distinct advantages over the still fairly recent M3. 

Firstly, this second generation 3 nanometer chip offers a 10-core CPU (though note that the 256GB and 512GB models use a 9-core version). The unified memory (8GB in the 256/512GB, 16GB in the 1TB/2TB) is faster, running at 120GB/s. Then there’s the neural engine. 

The neural engine is Apple’s AI capabilities, and it has had neural engines in its chips since the A11 that featured on the iPhone 8 in 2017. The next generation neural engine on the M4 chip though is its fastest to date. This is a 16-core design and is capable of up to 38 trillion operations per second. 

To run that tandem OLED display, the M4 features a new display engine, while the 10-core graphics processor provides the rendering power for serious professional applications, as well as almost console-quality gaming. 

The result is an unbelievably smooth and powerful machine. In real-world testing, it never seems to miss a beat, and handles the new version of the professional music software Logic Pro and Diablo Immortal game with ease. 

For more accurate testing I ran Geekbench 6 on the iPad Pro. Its CPU Multi-core score of 14,577 puts it 50% higher than the last iPad Pro (M2) and around the same level as some MacBook Pro models with the M2 Pro chip. However, it’s worth noting that direct comparisons with MacBooks are difficult due to the different operating systems. 

Battery life for the iPad Pro is quoted as up to 10 hours or 9 hours for cellular connections. While plenty for most users, it’s small in comparison to the MacBook Air’s 18 hours, and it still reduces charge significantly when in sleep mode. 

If you are considering swapping your MacBook for an iPad Pro, the biggest factor likely to put you off is the move from MacOS to iPadOS. The iPad Pro at the time of testing is running iPadOS 17.5. 

As a general tablet operating system, the current iPad OS works really well. However, for those used to MacOS and wanting to use the iPad like a Mac, it can feel limiting. Apple introduced Stage Manager last year to the iPad, which gives the OS more of a Mac feel. You get the familiar taskbar at the bottom and minimised windows to the side. This is a step in the right direction but I’d love to see it go further. 

With a 13-inch screen and an M4 chip, there’s no reason why it couldn’t support a version of MacOS or at least completely mirror the look of MacOS. I’d love to be able to resize the taskbar and have the minimised windows appear in the taskbar to start with. I’m hopeful that iPadOS 18 will expand the Stage Manager's abilities to do this, or maybe offer a dedicated version of iPadOS for the Air and Pro models to allow a more laptop-like experience for those who want it. 

iPad Pro accessories

It would be remiss to talk about the iPad Pro without mentioning the accessories, as they help turn the iPad into something so much more. Firstly the new Magic Keyboard is a big leap forward from the old model. 

It now has a dedicated row of function keys above the numbers, allowing you to control your volume, brightness and other functions (as you would on a Mac). The keyboard now feels like you are typing on a laptop keyboard and the trackpad is larger and has haptic feedback when you press it. The trackpad isn’t quite as big as the one on a MacBook but it’s considerably larger than before and very useable. I had to keep reminding myself, I could touch the screen. 

The new Apple Pencil Pro is the perfect tool if you regularly draw or write on your iPad. The biggest new features on this model are a new pinch function on the barrel, which brings up a quick menu to change the brush style, and a gyroscope in the pencil so that when you rotate the pencil, it rotates the brush too. This is handy for shaped brushes and calligraphy, it can also be used in some editing. 

Should I buy an iPad Pro?

The iPad Pro is so much more than just a tablet. This powerful machine can take on professional tasks with ease, it can work as a portable edit suite or graphics tablet, and it can provide gorgeous visuals. 

For the more casual user, the OLED display is incredible and means everything from movies and games, to photos and webpages, look simply stunning. While the screen is not a massive jump in quality from the previous iPad Pro, the extra brightness is noticeable. 

While iPadOS isn’t perfect, I could definitely see this being a valid replacement for my MacBook Pro. If I was travelling light, the lighter and thinner design makes it easy to keep in my bag and with the Magic Keyboard, it’s just as easy to work on. 

If you don’t need the power of the M4 chip, the new 13-inch iPad Air is also worth considering, though it still uses the old Magic Keyboard which isn’t quite as good. Ultimately, if you are searching for the best tablet on the market, the iPad Pro is that choice. 

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A tale of witchcraft: a tale of magic, book 2, common sense media reviewers.

Magic, villainy run amok in wildly imaginative sequel.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this book.

Fantasy, meant to entertain.

Strong messages of inclusion, friendship, compassi

Not everyone is what they seem, as various charact

An entire royal family is murdered. A wedding is b

Some attraction between Brystal and a prince.

A character exclaims, "Piss off!" Occasional butt

Brystal's older brother has become a pathetic drun

Parents need to know that Chris Colfer's A Tale of Witchcraft is the second volume in his A Tale of Magic series, which in turn is the origin story for The Land of Stories series and its many spin-offs. Compared with many of his other works, there's relatively little religion-bashing (although the villainous…

Educational Value

Positive messages.

Strong messages of inclusion, friendship, compassion, courage, and thinking outside the box to help your loved ones.

Positive Role Models

Not everyone is what they seem, as various characters learn to their cost. But Brystal (even when she's delusional) never veers from trying to do the right thing, whatever the situation. Having picked up the mantra and the mantle of Compassion, she holds up well under a barrage of neediness from just about everybody. Lucy, the future Mother Goose, retains her talent for trouble (and also for figuring out when it's lurking), which puts her on the outs with Brystal and sends her to a witch academy. As usual, her version of world-saving is often highly unusual, but often works (when it isn't causing disaster). The various young members of the Fairy Council are kind, supportive, talented, and good at teamwork. Once again Colfer bashes true-believer characters who preach religion and want to stamp out magic, and as usual they are over-the-top cartoons. Young witches are into gambling, and have a betting pool on practically everything.

Violence & Scariness

An entire royal family is murdered. A wedding is bombarded with ancient magical weapons. A character is killed and returns from the dead; an entire subplot involves the troubled relationship between Death and his daughter, who wants to go on living. Curses and other witchcraft cause havoc. A villain raises an army of dead soldiers. Aspiring witches learn that every spell they cast alters their physical appearance in some way, usually grotesque.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

A character exclaims, "Piss off!" Occasional butt references, and some humor around Dam Day, a village's celebation of the structure that keeps it dry. A bit of bathroom and fart humor, especially as a character is partially transformed into a skunk, and another turns people's beer into dog pee. Insults are frequent and lively.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Brystal's older brother has become a pathetic drunk in the wake of Book 1's events.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Chris Colfer 's A Tale of Witchcraft is the second volume in his A Tale of Magic series, which in turn is the origin story for The Land of Stories series and its many spin-offs. Compared with many of his other works, there's relatively little religion-bashing (although the villainous secret society seeking to stamp out magic and tolerance are cartoonishly religious, in the male-dominated and human-supremacist variety of religion), and less bawdy humor than usual. Character motivations are dashed off in hurried, platitudinous, italics-packed soliloquies. Basically, it's the minimal amount of narrative glue required to connect one outrageously imaginative scene after another, culminating in an epic battle and setting up the next installment. Violence includes an entire royal family murdered, a wedding bombarded with ancient magical weapons. There are corpses galore, a tale of Death and his daughter, a character who returns from the dead, and an army of undead soldiers. Also, as the title suggests, witchcraft. One character is a drunk.

Where to Read

Community reviews.

• Parents say (1)
• Kids say (6)

Based on 1 parent review

Such a great read!

What's the story.

As A TALE OF WITCHCRAFT opens, Brystal Evergreen, age 15, is settling into her newfound role as Fairy Godmother and protector of magical beings, supported by her friends on the Fairy Council. Since she's set out to be the most compassionate being ever, Brystal's starting to get a bit worn down with the steady barrage of mundane neediness in the various kingdoms, but freedom and tolerance prevail, all is peaceful... But no. Called from the sleep of centuries, the Righteous Brotherhood (which liked the way things were before Brystal came along, i.e. male-dominated, repressive, and authoritarian) rises from centuries of sleep determined to get rid of Brystal and magical folk in general. And, testing the bounds of tolerance, a witch arrives on the doorstep inviting the fairy kids to come check out the witchcraft academy. Also, a shadowy would-be king seems to be plotting the death of the throne's current occupant. It all leads to a series of unfortunate events, culminating in a huge quarrel between Brystal and Lucy (the future Mother) Goose, followed by Lucy heading to the witchcraft academy. With, of course, the best intentions.

Is It Any Good?

Chris Colfer spins yet another wild tale of magical beings, free spirits, repressive patriarchies, old-school villains, witches, and also Death. Yes, it's all part of the continuing saga of Brystal Evergreen, Fairy Godmother, Compassion Personified, and matriarch of the world of his proliferating series. And it becomes A Tale of Witchcraft when the mysterious Mistress Mara shows up to recruit would-be witches. What could possibly go wrong -- even before Lucy Goose gets involved? Lots of bad guys are out to get Brystal and her fairy friends. Fortunately, they have a deep bond, plenty of courage, and an infinite supply of improving speeches.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about how A Tale of Witchcraft takes well-known traditional characters and turns them into something else entirely. Do you like Chris Colfer's versions of fairy tale characters, or do you prefer the originals? Or do you like both?

How does the version of witchcraft that appears in A Tale of Witchcraft compare with how it's portrayed in other stories you know?

How can you tell whether someone is taking charge because they're a hero in a crisis or if they just like bossing other people around?

Book Details

• Author : Chris Colfer
• Genre : Fantasy
• Topics : Magic and Fantasy , Adventures , Book Characters , Fairy Tales , Friendship
• Book type : Fiction
• Publisher : Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
• Publication date : September 29, 2020
• Publisher's recommended age(s) : 8 - 12
• Number of pages : 448
• Available on : Nook, Audiobook (unabridged), Hardback, iBooks, Kindle
• Last updated : October 5, 2020

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Our editors recommend.

A Tale of Magic, Book 1

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Funny books for kids, fantasy books for kids, related topics.

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A Tale of Magic... Kindle Edition

• Book 1 of 3 A Tale of Magic.
• Print length 513 pages
• Language English
• Grade level 3 - 7
• Lexile measure 890L
• Publisher Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
• Publication date October 1, 2019
• Page Flip Enabled
• Word Wise Enabled
• Enhanced typesetting Enabled
• Sticky notes On Kindle Scribe
• ISBN-13 978-0316523479
• See all details

• In This Series
• By Chris Colfer
• Customers Also Enjoyed
• Science Fiction & Fantasy
• Teen & Young Adult

From the Publisher

Editorial Reviews

About the author, product details.

• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07NL78L2T
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Little, Brown Books for Young Readers; Illustrated edition (October 1, 2019)
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ October 1, 2019
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• File size ‏ : ‎ 20760 KB
• Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
• Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 513 pages
• Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 0316523518
• #290 in Children's eBooks on Girls' & Women's Issues
• #336 in Children’s Books about Libraries & Reading
• #833 in Children's Fantasy & Magic Adventure

About the author

Chris colfer.

Chris Colfer is a #1 New York Times bestselling author and Golden Globe-winning actor. He was honored as a member of the TIME 100, Time magazine's annual list of the one hundred most influential people in the world, and his books include Struck By Lightning: The Carson Phillips Journal, and the books in The Land of Stories series: The Wishing Spell, The Enchantress Returns, A Grimm Warning, and Beyond the Kingdoms.

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Children’s Books

Whose Folk Tale Is It Anyway?

A comics collection’s sibling narrators and a graphic novel’s hapless heroine change their stories as they go along.

From “Night Stories: Folktales From Latin America.” Credit... Liniers

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By Sabrina Orah Mark

Sabrina Orah Mark is the author, most recently, of “Happily: A Personal History, With Fairy Tales,” based on her Paris Review column.

• May 17, 2024

For the last 10 minutes, my son Noah has been walking around the house holding up a hand mirror, staring at himself, tripping over the cat, bumping into furniture. He can see only what he’s looking at, which is himself and what’s behind him. “What are you doing?” I ask. “I’m trying to feel what it would be like if I existed only in third person,” he replies. “I see,” I say. “Stay away from the stairs.”

Myth does what Noah is doing. It holds a mirror up to the first person to extract the third. Folk tales leave the first person crumpled on the ground, like an old bathrobe, and refigure its outline into allegory.

On the cover of NIGHT STORIES: Folktales From Latin America (Toon, 48 pp., $17.99, ages 7 to 9), by the Argentine cartoonist Ricardo Liniers Siri, known as Liniers, the “O” in the title is cleverly replaced by a moon with a furrowed brow. Once an open vowel, once a hole in the word “stories,” the worried moon shines on a brother and sister as they tell each other Latin American folk tales from a bunk bed set against a starry sky.

The sky shown behind them in subsequent comics sequences — whorls and loops of black ink on gray watercolor — resembles a fingerprint. But whose? Maybe it’s a folk tale fingerprint that belongs to all of us at once; a fingerprint shared by persons first and third, the storytellers and the characters inside the tales.

Depending on how scared the other sibling is, the brother and sister change the endings and twist the middles of their stories. Around these ad-libbers, Liniers draws soft, circular borders reminiscent of dream bubbles, as if the folk tales themselves are dreaming up the children retelling them. I’ve always believed we tell stories to survive, but maybe I’ve had it backward. Maybe folk tales dream us up so that they never die.

Without ever climbing out of bed, this boy and girl travel across South America, frightening each other with stories of Brazil’s Iara (a mermaid who lures young men to leave everything and live with her underwater forever); Mexico’s La Lechuza (an owl with the face of an old woman who “lost a child to cruelty” and now seeks revenge); and Argentina and Uruguay’s La Luz Mala (an evil light named Mandinga, “a demon that arose from the souls of those who were not buried properly” and spooks weary travelers on the pampas during the driest months).

Below the brim of his black bowler hat, in a panel that takes up three-quarters of a page, Mandinga’s hair shoots out in straight black lines from both sides of his head. His eyes are yellow with red pupils, his mouth and nose hidden by the high collar of a red overcoat. Underneath this panel are terror and its echo: a traumatized gaucho on the left and the brother listening to the folk tale on the right.

Now firmly lodged in the story, the brother is scared enough to ask if, “just for tonight,” the lights could be left on. Not a bad idea given that on the last page — seemingly unaware of one another and contemporized — the mermaid, the owl and Mandinga all appear on a street that could easily be right outside the window.

The book’s introduction, by David Bowles, touches on the Aztecs’ and other Nahua people’s creation myths, reminding us that sometimes it takes five tries to get a world right. And a treasure trove of back matter in turn explains the origins of Liniers’s three “night stories.”

Vera Brosgol’s underwater folk tale, PLAIN JANE AND THE MERMAID (First Second, 368 pp., $14.99, ages 10 to 14), is a cabaret of tropes and figures from many tales we know and love, spun anew. Flecks from “Alice in Wonderland,” “Hansel and Gretel,” “Cinderella,” “Little Red Riding Hood” and “Beauty and the Beast” sparkle across the pages of this graphic novel like antique glitter.

Plain Jane feels like a figure not only rescued from the imagination of Hans Christian Andersen, but ultimately relieved of the agony his protagonists often suffer. Brosgol gives Jane the chance of a “happily,” rather than only the darkening fate of an “ever after.”

One might think a world populated with a crone, selkies, zombies, evil mermaids, a water demon, an anglerfish, a lost brother, dead parents, eviction and lovesickness would leave no room for a discernible plot, but Brosgol must have drunk the same potion Jane drinks, giving her the power to breathe underwater, cohere the story and know exactly when to come up for air.

At the heart of her tale are a mermaid who keeps her youth and beauty by eating beautiful men; a mermaid-gone-crone who sacrifices her beauty because she can’t bear to eat the man she loves; and Plain Jane, whose heroic adventures in the depths of the sea enable her to finally see through herself.

Sometimes to get to our truest reflection, we must swim past the many myths that warp our mirrors to where the water is clearest.

Explore More in Books

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As book bans have surged in Florida, the novelist Lauren Groff has opened a bookstore called The Lynx, a hub for author readings, book club gatherings and workshops , where banned titles are prominently displayed.

Eighteen books were recognized as winners or finalists for the Pulitzer Prize, in the categories of history, memoir, poetry, general nonfiction, fiction and biography, which had two winners. Here’s a full list of the winners .

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The complicated, generous life  of Paul Auster, who died on April 30 , yielded a body of work of staggering scope and variety .

Each week, top authors and critics join the Book Review’s podcast to talk about the latest news in the literary world. Listen here .

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Book Reviews

Two new novels investigate what makes magic, what is real and imagined.

Marcela Davison Avilés

In an enchanted world, where does mystery begin? Two authors pose this question in new novels out this spring.

In Pages of Mourning by the Mexican magical realism interrogator-author Diego Gerard Morrison, the protagonist is a Mexican writer named Aureliano Más II who is at war with his memory of familial sorrow and — you guessed it — magical realism. And the protagonist Alma Cruz in Julia Alvarez's latest novel, The Cemetery of Untold Stories, is also a writer. Alma seeks to bury her unpublished stories in a graveyard of her own making, in order to find peace in their repose — and meaning from the vulnerability that comes from unheard stories.

Both of these novels, one from an emerging writer and one from a long celebrated author, walk an open road of remembering love, grief, and fate. Both find a destiny not in death, but in the reality of abandonment and in dreams that come from a hope for reunion. At this intersection of memory and meaning, their storytelling diverges.

Pages of Mourning

Pages of Mourning, out this month, is set in 2017, three years after 43 students disappear from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers' College after being abducted in Iguala , Guerrero, Mexico. The main character, Aureliano, is attempting to write the Great Mexican Novel that reflects this crisis and his mother's own unexplained disappearance when he was a boy. He's also struggling with the idea of magical realism as literary genre — he holds resentment over being named after the protagonist in 100 Years of Solitude, which fits squarely within it. He sets out on a journey with his maternal aunt to find his father, ask questions about his mother, and deal with his drinking problem and various earthquakes.

Morrison's voice reflects his work as a writer, editor and translator based in Mexico City, who seeks to interrogate "the concept of dissonance" through blended art forms such as poetry and fiction, translation and criticism. His story could be seen as an archetype, criticism, or a reflection through linguistic cadence on Pan American literature. His novel name drops and alludes to American, Mexican and Latin American writers including Walt Whitman, Juan Rulfo, Gabriel Garcia Márquez — and even himself. There's an earnest use of adjectives to accompany the lived dissonance of his characters.

There's nothing magical, in the genre sense, in Morrison's story. There are no magical rivers, enchanted messages, babies born with tails. Morrison's dissonance is real — people get disappeared, they suffer addictions, writer's block, crazy parents, crazier shamans, blank pages, corruption, the loss of loved ones. In this depiction of real Pan-American life — because all of this we are also explicitly suffering up North — Morrison finds his magic. His Aureliano is our Aureliano. He's someone we know. Probably someone we loved — someone trying so hard to live.

The Cemetery of Untold Stories

From the author of In the Time of the Butterflies and How the García Girls Lost Their Accents , The Cemetery of Untold Stories is Julia Alvarez's seventh novel. It's a story that's both languorous and urgent in conjuring a world from magical happenings. The source of these happenings, in a graveyard in the Dominican Republic, is the confrontation between memories and lived agendas. Alvarez is an acclaimed storyteller and teacher, a writer of poetry, non-fiction and children's books, honored in 2013 with the National Medal of Arts . She continues her luminous virtuosity with the story of Alma Cruz.

Author Interviews

Julia alvarez: literature tells us 'we can make it through'.

Alma, the writer at the heart of The Cemetery of Untold Stories , has a goal - not to go crazy from the delayed promise of cartons of unpublished stories she has stored away. When she inherits land in her origin country — the Dominican Republic — she decides to retire there, and design a graveyard to bury her manuscript drafts, along with the characters whose fictional lives demand their own unrequited recompense. Her sisters think she's nuts, and wasting their inheritance. Filomena, a local woman Alma hires to watch over the cemetery, finds solace in a steady paycheck and her unusual workplace.

Alma wants peace for herself and her characters. But they have their own agendas and, once buried, begin to make them known: They speak to each other and Filomena, rewriting and revising Alma's creativity in order to reclaim themselves.

Code Switch

How julia alvarez wrote her many selves into existence.

In this new story, Alvarez creates a world where everyone is on a quest to achieve a dream — retirement, literary fame, a steady job, peace of mind, authenticity. Things get complicated during the rewrites, when ambitions and memories bump into the reality of no money, getting arrested, no imagination, jealousy, and the grace of humble competence. Alma's sisters, Filomena, the townspeople — all make a claim over Alma's aspiration to find a final resting place for her memories. Alvarez sprinkles their journey with dialogue and phrases in Spanish and one — " no hay mal que por bien no venga " (there is goodness in every woe) — emerges as the oral talisman of her story. There is always something magical to discover in a story, and that is especially true in Alvarez's landing place.

Marcela Davison Avilés is a writer and independent producer living in Northern California.

Ozempic is the ‘it’ drug. A new book tries to explain what it means.

Johann Hari’s “Magic Pill” chronicles his experience taking semaglutide while simultaneously studying its pros and cons.

It’s hard to overstate how quickly Ozempic and similar drugs have gone mainstream. When I started taking semaglutide in January , I knew only two people who had tried it. Four months later, it feels almost ubiquitous.

Well-timed for this mania, Johann Hari’s “ Magic Pill: The Extraordinary Benefits and Disturbing Risks of the New Weight-Loss Drugs ” aims to help readers clarify whether they should take the plunge. His central contention, that “Ozempic and its successors look set to become one of the iconic and defining drugs of our time, on a par with the contra­ceptive pill and Prozac,” seems almost unarguable . But his conclusion on whether this is a good thing or a bad thing is mixed: “If you want a book uncritically championing these drugs, or alternatively a book damning them, I am afraid I can’t give it to you.”

What he does give is an easy-to-read summary of just what the subtitle suggests — benefits and risks — though there are a couple of points about which I think he’s wrong. And the amount of digressive fluff — an account of his nightmarish stint at an Austrian weight-loss spa, a smarmy chapter on Japanese food culture — implies this could have easily been a long magazine article rather than a short book.

Scottish-born journalist Hari, now based in London, used to be a fat guy. He opens his story by confessing, “Some people say the main reason they survived the pandemic was the vaccine; for me, it was Uber Eats.” He assumed he wasn’t alone, but then he went to a post-quarantine Hollywood party where everyone was not just slim but gaunt. What was going on here? He quickly found his answer. From there, Hari chronicles his snap decision to start Ozempic while simultaneously studying the pros and cons of semaglutide.

Before continuing with a summary of Hari’s admittedly entertaining anecdotes, it feels important to mention that, while he may not be especially well-known on this side of the pond, in 2011 he was suspended from his columnist job at the Independent after admitting to plagiarism and making malicious edits to the Wikipedia pages of other journalists. You would think this history would make him meticulous in his research, but he has already come under fire for claiming in the book that food critic Jay Rayner lost pleasure in food after taking Ozempic . When Rayner responded on social media that he had never taken the drug, Hari apologized, saying that he had “confused an article by Jay Rayner in the Guardian with an article by Leila Latif in the same paper.”

Hari’s reputation, as well as his sloppiness, casts a shadow over even the most poignant portions of the book, such as the grief he experienced after his friend Hannah, his favorite partner for epic pigouts and crude banter, died at 46 after she choked while eating and went into cardiac arrest.

Hari, 5-foot-8, 203 pounds, deeply addicted to fried chicken — he was given a Christmas card by the employees of his neighborhood KFC addressed “to our best customer” (and it wasn’t even the chicken outlet he patronized most often!) — decided the time had come to take his shot.

In his telling, things went well for him; though he experienced nausea and lightheadedness, the product worked as advertised. After three months, his neighbor’s “hot gardener” asked for his phone number. At which point he went into a bit of soul-searching about whether he was taking these drugs because he cared about his health — or was it really because he was worried about how he looked?

All I can say to that is: duh. As he reports a few chapters later, when Esquire magazine polled 1,000 women, asking if they would rather gain 150 pounds or get hit by a truck, more than half said they would prefer the truck.

This was not the first or the last of the “duh” moments. Though the book is pleasant and informative, it consistently makes aha moments out of familiar concepts. “Satiety, or the feeling of no longer wanting more, is not a word we use much in everyday life, but I kept hearing it in two contexts. The first was the science of factory-assembled food — because this food, it turns out, is designed to undermine satiety. The second was in the sci­ence of the new weight-loss drugs — because they are designed to boost satiety. I only slowly began to trace the connections be­tween them.”

Some of us will be ahead of him there.

Meanwhile, Hari flatly states that “for the medication to work, you have to take it forever.” Like hypertension or diabetes, he explains, obesity is a condition that requires permanent medical management. And most people who go off the drugs regain much of the weight they lost within a year.

However, some doctors believe that if you can maintain your goal weight for six months, your body will lower its “set point” by about 10 percent, and you can wean yourself off the drug without fearing that all your losses will be reversed. In my case, I weighed 142 when I started, and I hit my goal of 126 after about three months. Since then, I’ve been on a low-maintenance dose, and I’m hoping that staying on it for another three months will give me a set point of 128. Call me a cockeyed optimist, but I do think the jury is still out here.

Hari also is critical of the off-brand semaglutide compounds available online and at med spas, labeling them “ Breaking Bad Ozempic” and suggesting that they could be fatal. But the book doesn’t lay out enough evidence to warrant such a baldly negative conclusion.

Which leads us to one last thing. I was tickled to read his claim that “there’s already been a decline in the value of the stocks of the doughnut company Krispy Kreme, which analysts directly attributed to the growing popularity of Ozempic.” So I looked that up in the endnotes and found nothing more.

I’m all for a good comeback, but perhaps Hari still has a little way to go.

Marion Winik has been detailing her Ozempic journey in a series at BaltimoreFishbowl.com .

The Extraordinary Benefits and Disturbing Risks of the New Weight-Loss Drugs

By Johann Hari

Crown. 320 pp. $30

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