The Way Things Work

"That's what's so stupid about the whole magic thing, you know. You spend twenty years learning learning the spell that makes nude virgins appear in your bedroom, and then you're so poisoned by quicksilver fumes and half blind from reading old grimoires that you can't remember what happens next."

That's Rincewind the wizard, in Terry Pratchett's The Color of Magic, which I'm finally reading and which makes me laugh at least once per page. It's a comedic fantasy novel (the first in Pratchett's sprawling, 37-volume-and-counting Discworld series) that takes place in a world full of treachery, conflict, and catastrophic incompetence, where "the Gods are not so much worshipped as blamed." Grab a copy on your way to wherever you're going this summer!