Penny Ponders On A Bookkeeper’s Guide To Practical Sorcery

Accountants denied crumpet to market the boss

I had to do a double-take when I first picked up this book.

Kate Russell…? Practical Sorcery…? Wait a minute…!

I knew Kate Russell as a broadcaster — a presenter on BBC Click — and someone who campaigned for women in STEM. She gave a powerful TED talk, “Girls Don’t Game” in 2014. I couldn’t fit either bookkeeping or sorcery (practical or impractical) into my mental image.

But it turned out that, along with all the other stuff she’s done, and books she’s written, Kate Russell had indeed written a young adult adventure called A Bookkeeper’s Guide To Practical Sorcery. So, of course, I couldn’t wait to dive in.

Because this isn’t intended to be a book review, I’m not going to tell you too much about this Bookkeeper’s Guide, but I will note that it is dramatic, scary, funny, moving, and ultimately a very satisfying read. Russell’s background clearly informs the way things work within the world she has created. It’s aimed at young adults but has layers to it. The humour from her adult novel, Elite: Mostly Harmless, shines through on several levels. There are places where all age groups will laugh, but for different reasons.

So, if this isn’t a book review, what is it?

Fair question. I was given the opportunity to delve into the spotlight books for Fantastic Books Publishing’s Massive Autumn Book Launch Event…

And since others have written useful reviews — notably novelist Stuart Aken …

… I have picked on one aspect that is both integral to the main plot and also sitting slightly aside from it. This is something that has intrigued me from my first reading of A Bookkeeper’s Guide To Practical Sorcery.

All that gold!

This is what I asked Kate Russell:

Henry’s workplace in the vaults is reminiscent of 19th-century banks with their rooms full of young clerks working long hours. It also echoes off accounts of Victorian London workplaces that the gold needs such assiduous and continual counting. Turnover must be brisk. Is this to do with high finance in a pre-technological society or is it helped along by industrial-scale money laundering on the part of the bad guys?

Here is Kate’s reply:

The official line is that running a Kingdom is a very complex business that requires a lot of movement of funds coming in and out. People pay taxes, there is income from the estates, there are workers to pay and rare ingredients to buy from distant lands.

However, anyone who has met a King or a Queen will know they love nothing better than to boast about their wealth to visiting dignitaries. There is no better way to do this without seeming gauche, than a tour of the vaults, with table upon table of glittering piles of gold on display.

So, for the most part, people in ‘the know’ believe the expansively staffed castle vaults are nothing more than a marketing exercise. In fact the accountants could just as well be at home enjoying a nice toasted crumpet with strawberry jam and the Kingdom would run just as effectively as when they sit there counting gold over and over again.

This could explain why most accountants look so miserable while they are at work, and so contented while eating strawberry jam on toasted crumpet.

MABLE 2022

Both A Bookkeeper’s Guide To Practical Sorcery and Kate Russell are in the spotlight during this autumn’s online MABLE 2022 event. The book will be the star of the MABLE show on Sunday 18th September, and Kate will be on Drew Wagar’s channel on Monday 19th September talking about writing with other authors.

Do sign up. It’s free and you’ll have the chance to chat with all the authors, find out more about them, and win copies of their books.

For in-depth reviews and features on other MABLE 2022 spotlight authors, I recommend that you keep an eye on author Stuart Aken’s website:

Explore more pondering (and some added musings) here:

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