The Frugal Wizard's Handbook for Surviving Medieval England - Brandon Sanderson

Title: The Frugal Wizard's Handbook for Surviving Medieval England
Author: Brandon Sanderson
Genre: Fantasy
Rating: 4/5
# pages: 366
Date read: February, 2024

A man awakes in a clearing in what appears to be medieval England with no memory of who he is, where he came from, or why he is there. Chased by a group from his own time, his sole hope for survival lies in regaining his missing memories, making allies among the locals, and perhaps even trusting in their superstitious boasts. His only help from the “real world” should have been a guidebook entitled The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England, except his copy exploded during transit. The few fragments he managed to save provide clues to his situation, but can he figure them out in time to survive?


Everything about this book just appealed to me. The title, the cover, the book-in-a-book excepts, the back blurb. So even though I was just going to flip through it, I ended up reading the entire thing over the weekend.

And fortunately the story itself lived up to my expectations. I loved the mix of fantasy, mythology and realism, and liked seeing how John slowly remembered more and more of his past, and pieced together his life from clues along the way... even when he turned out to be spectacularly wrong.

This is one of those strange books where I can't say exactly why I loved it as much as I did, but it caught my attention from the very first chapter, and wouldn't leave me alone till I turned the last page.