Lessons in Magic and Disaster

by Charlie Jane Anders

Overview

In the vein of Alice Hoffman and Charlie Jane Anders's own All the Birds in the Sky comes a novel full of love, disaster, and magic.

A young witch teaches her mother how to do magic—with very unexpected results—in this relatable, resonant novel about family, identity, and the power of love.

Jamie is basically your average New England academic in-training—she has a strong queer relationship, a working esoteric dissertation proposal, and inherited generational trauma. But she has one maybe extraordinary secret: she's also a powerful (though fledgling) witch.

Jamie's mother Serena has been hiding from the world in an old one-room schoolhouse for several years, grieving the death of Mae (her wife and Jamie's mom), as well as the simultaneous explosion in her professional life. All she has is her memories—and those aren't always as comforting as they could be.

It's not like Jamie doesn't have enough on her plate, but she wishes she could have Serena back still, so now she's decided to teach Serena to cast spells, so her mother can get her life back.

But Jamie doesn't know the whole story of what happened to her mom years ago, and those buried secrets lead Serena to do some destructive magic. Now it's up to this grad student and literature nerd to understand the secrets of a three-hundred-year-old magical book before her mother ruins both of their lives.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250867346
Publisher:	Tor Publishing Group
Publication date:	08/19/2025
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	368

About the Author

Charlie Jane Anders is the author of Victories Greater Than Death, the first book in the young-adult Unstoppable trilogy, along with the short story collection Even Greater Mistakes. Her other books include The City in the Middle of the Night and All the Birds in the Sky. Her fiction and journalism have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Slate, McSweeney's, Mother Jones, the Boston Review, Tor.com, Tin House, Conjunctions, Wired Magazine, and other places. Her TED Talk, "Go Ahead, Dream About the Future" got 700,000 views in its first week. With Annalee Newitz, she co-hosts the podcast Our Opinions Are Correct.

Editorial Reviews

Lessons in Magic and Disaster will conjure a wickedly brilliant spell on its readers in this tale about witchcraft, queer wisdom, and the pain and powers of womanhood at any age, written by one of our most wildly imaginative writers, Charlie Jane Anders.”—Amber Tamblyn, author of Listening in the Dark: Women reclaiming the Power of Intuition

“Charlie Jane Anders always goes a step further.” —Jonathan Lethem, bestselling and award-winning author of Motherless Brooklyn

Praise for The City in the Middle of the Night

“A breathtaking work of imagination and storytelling… making the case for Anders as this generation’s Le Guin.” —Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Less

“Like a classic from another timeline… This book has notes of Ursula K. Le Guin and Philip Pullman.” —Robin Sloan, author of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore

"An intimate portrait of people as much as it is a piece of culturally aware social scifi — a look at our moment in history through a distorting lens of aliens and spaceships." —NPR

"Classic SF in the mode of Ursula K Le Guin or Octavia Butler....This is a millennial’s novel, featuring young people trying to make their way through an uncaring, corrupt and intermittently violent world....Heartfelt and absorbing fiction." —The Guardian

"Anders has written a unique book, one that uses tropes found in old-school science fiction to comment on modern side effects of class structures." —Washington Post

"Original and gripping...The City in the Middle of the Night may be set light-years away, but it’s likely to hit too close to home." —Paste

"An even stronger novel than Anders’ Nebula Award–winning All the Birds in the Sky; a tale that can stand beside such enduring works as Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness, Frank Herbert’s Dune, and Dan Simmons’ Hyperion." —Booklist, starred review

"Intricate, embracing much of what makes a grand adventure: smugglers, revolutionaries, pirates, camaraderie, personal sacrifice, wondrous discovery, and the struggle to find light in the darkness. Breathlessly exciting and thought-provoking." —Publishers Weekly, starred review

From the Publisher