Monday 26 September 2011

Practical Magic

Most people will have heard of the film 'Practical Magic' starring Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman (also with Stockard Channing and Aiden Quinn *swoon*). For me it is one of my all time favourite movies and one that I put on to watch if I need some added 'witchiness' ;-)

However I recently picked up the book that the film was taken from. The book carries the same title as the film and was written by Alice Hoffman.

The description of the book is very similar to the film, Alice Hoffman's website says:

For more than two hundred years, the Owens women have been blamed for everything that went wrong in their Massachusetts town. Gillian and Sally endured that fate: As children, the sisters were forever outsiders, taunted, talked about, pointed at. Their elderly aunts almost seemed to encourage the whispers of witchery, with their darkened house and their love concoctions and their crowd of black cats. All Gillian and Sally wanted to do was escape. One would do so by marrying, the other by running away. But the bonds they shared brought them back to each other, and to the magic they couldn’t escape. A delicious novel about witches and real love, family life and everyday spells. A literary incantation.

I had not read any of Alice Hoffman's work before but I have to say I am impressed having read this book. The story is, as usually happens not quite the same as the film but it is excellent and is in fact a lot darker than the film. She does use the 'F' word quite a bit which is not to my liking but that doesn't detract from the general brilliance of the story.

Ms Hoffman is a very prolific writer and has more than thirty books to her name so far and is very well respected in the literary field. Her website is www.alicehoffman.com

If you have not seen the film - I highly recommend it, and if you have not read the book I highly recommend that too!

Tansy
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