The Magus
by John Fowles
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“I read this as a 21 year old and decided to see how it (and me) has changed, 30 years later. The sheer page turning storytelling still shines through, but all the “big ideas” don’t quite feel as big anymore. What favourite book of yours felt different after a longer gap | Q: What books have influenced your life` EW: Russell Crowe, who I am working with on a film, gave me John Fowle’s The Magus. | When I did a Top 10 list for fave books a while back, “The Magus” by John Fowles was on it. It’s a magical humbling of a novel, an uppercrusty snob just getting messed with, I love it. (If you ever read it, get the 1977 Revised Edition, which is how Fowles intended it to be.)”
Source →“I read this as a 21 year old and decided to see how it (and me) has changed, 30 years later. The sheer page turning storytelling still shines through, but all the “big ideas” don’t quite feel as big anymore. What favourite book of yours felt different after a longer gap | Q: What books have influenced your life` EW: Russell Crowe, who I am working with on a film, gave me John Fowle’s The Magus. | When I did a Top 10 list for fave books a while back, “The Magus” by John Fowles was on it. It’s a magical humbling of a novel, an uppercrusty snob just getting messed with, I love it. (If you ever read it, get the 1977 Revised Edition, which is how Fowles intended it to be.)”
Source →Recommended by 4 notable people, including Emma Watson and Matt Mullenweg
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Should I read this?
Recommended by 6 sources and appears in Most Recommended Books, Mystery & Crime, and Fantasy.
This daring literary thriller, rich with eroticism and suspense, is one of John Fowles's bestloved and bestselling novels and has contributed significantly to his international reputation as a writer of the first degree. At the center of The Magus is Nicholas Urfe, a young Englishman who accepts a teaching position on a remote Greek island, where ...
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Why recommended
Recommended by 6 sources and appears in Most Recommended Books, Mystery & Crime, and Fantasy.
Recommended by notable people
People and public figures who have recommended this book.
Recommendation Signals
Recommendation proof is sourced from public posts, interviews, reading lists, and cited references.
Emma Watson
Actor and activist
“I read this as a 21 year old and decided to see how it (and me) has changed, 30 years later. The sheer page turning storytelling still shines through, but all the “big ideas” don’t quite feel as big anymore. What favourite book of yours felt different after a longer gap | Q: What books have influenced your life` EW: Russell Crowe, who I am working with on a film, gave me John Fowle’s The Magus. | When I did a Top 10 list for fave books a while back, “The Magus” by John Fowles was on it. It’s a magical humbling of a novel, an uppercrusty snob just getting messed with, I love it. (If you ever read it, get the 1977 Revised Edition, which is how Fowles intended it to be.)”
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Not sure if this is the right fit?
Consider The Republic by Plato. Recommended by 13 sources.
“Plato stages an extended Socratic conversation that moves from concrete questions about justice into broad proposals about an ideal city, the structure of the soul, and what counts as reality and knowledge. Reading alternates brisk question-and-answer snippets with long, cumulative demonstrations that reward careful attention and annotation. Main value: a wealth of thought experiments for testing political and ethical intuitions. Main limitation: repetitive refutations, long policy sketches and dense metaphysical passages can feel abstruse and slow; patience and some philosophical background help.”
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Each recommendation is collected from a public source — interviews, articles, or curated lists — and linked to its original URL. Books with many verifiable recommendations from respected people rank higher.
The Magus
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