Short Story Review: "By the Book" by James

It's quite a change to go from a dense academic history with vast footnotes to a collection of short stories about magic. Our good friend James has penned a short story as part of a collection called Magic Malfunction. I have only read his story, so I can't attest to the quality of the book as a whole. 

James' story is a pleasing romp through cryptology and magic in Eastern Europe. The main character is bashful and imperfectly insightful, very quickly understanding that he is being recruited by a secret service but never understanding the women he meets. (In fairness, this is a problem many of us have; I think I finally understand my wife after nearly thirty years, but every now and then she still surprises me.)

I won't give the plot away in case any of you wish to read the story, but it revolves around grimoire. 

The etymology of grimoire is unclear. It is most commonly believed that the term grimoire originated from the Old French word grammaire 'grammar', which had initially been used to refer to all books written in Latin. By the 18th century, the term had gained its now common usage in France and had begun to be used to refer purely to books of magic. Owen Davies presumed this was because "many of them continued to circulate in Latin manuscripts".

I own one of these myself, the Icelandic Galdrabok. Don't rush out to buy that one; the spells probably don't actually work. I haven't actually tried them, mind you, but they don't sound plausible to me having read through it. I'm not sure I would want the powers it describes if they did work; winning a woman's heart, for example, should be done honestly or not at all. 

Bending lightning, which is a power discussed in James' story, that might be fun. So too is the tale, which you may enjoy if you choose.