Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell on the web

"I do not read novels - I am happy to say that I have never read one - but I understand that they enjoy a certain popularity among the more frivolous classes of society. Young ladies; married ladies; old maids; thoughtless young persons of both sexes; gamblers, profligates and libertines; servants who, whether by accident or design, have acquired an education beyond their station: these are the idle creatures who may be found at any hour of the night or day with a novel in their hands. I despise all novels whatever the subject. I am told they promote a weakening of the intellect, moral stupor, morbid curiosity, and tend to encourage infections of the chest and eyes."

And with those words I realised that, on this topic at least, I was a Norrellite. I'm much happier myself with a dusty old history of religious conflict and the Byzantine Empire, or books about programming or information architecture.

I've just finished Susanna Clarke's novel "Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell" though, about the glorious restitution of English Magic during the 19th century. At the risk of sounding like Victoria "I've only read one book and it wasn't even the one I claimed to have written" Beckham, it is one of only three novels I have read in the last three years or so.

The others have been Carlos Ruiz Zafon's "Shadow of the wind" and Mark Haddon's "The curious incident of the dog in the night-time". I've thoroughly enjoyed all three, which suggests that either I would enjoy reading novels a lot more than I give it credit, or that my wife has become extraordinarily adept at recommending books to me that she has read first. I suspect a mix of both.

That does mean that I've missed out on one thing - the way in which the promotion of the modern novel has spread from the review pages of the press onto the web. Susanna Clarke has a website for Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell with background information on the author, e-cards, a related short story, and the opinions on the novel in their own words of the two main protagonists, from where I quoted Mr Norrell above.

This implies that I've not just been potentially missing out on 'novels' as an art-form over the years, but that I've been missing out on a whole sphere of activity which illustrates the way that the internet can expand the user experience of another medium.

As a fully paid-up internet nerd, that gives me much more of a nagging worry than the idea that I might have missed out on lots of good books...