Social Book Club - Fantasy & Historical Fiction Circle - The Amulet of Samarkand

Welcome to the "Fantasy and Historical Fiction" Reading Circle of the Social Book Club!

We will meet to discuss Jonathan Stroud's fantasy novel "The Amulet of Samarkand" (462 pages).

Please note that it is totally fine to attend the event even if you have only read e.g. half the book! As long as you don't mind spoilers for it, of course.

The meeting point is at JO&JOE on the 5th floor. Drinks and some food can be bought there, so if possible please buy something for reasons of politeness, if you can afford it, since they provide the space for free.

Book Description:

Nathaniel is a boy magician-in-training, sold to the government by his birth parents at the age of five and sent to live as an apprentice to a master. Powerful magicians rule Britain, and its empire, and Nathaniel is told his is the "ultimate sacrifice" for a "noble destiny."

If leaving his parents and erasing his past life isn't tough enough, Nathaniel's master, Arthur Underwood, is a cold, condescending, and cruel middle-ranking magician in the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The boy's only saving grace is the master's wife, Martha Underwood, who shows him genuine affection that he rewards with fierce devotion. Nathaniel gets along tolerably well over the years in the Underwood household until the summer before his eleventh birthday. Everything changes when he is publicly humiliated by the ruthless magician Simon Lovelace and betrayed by his cowardly master who does not defend him.

Nathaniel vows revenge. In a Faustian fever, he devours magical texts and hones his magic skills, all the while trying to appear subservient to his master. When he musters the strength to summon the 5,000-year-old djinni Bartimaeus to avenge Lovelace by stealing the powerful Amulet of Samarkand, the boy magician plunges into a situation more dangerous and deadly than anything he could ever imagine.