It's like Wizbit, but set in 19th century England

Jonathon Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke

There's no denying that this is a beautifully written book, and that Clarke's command of the language is really good, but there are flaws with the story-telling that stop this from being a great book. If you can get past these -- if you're not perturbed by picking up an 800-page novel -- then it will be a thoroughly enjoyable read. The characters, settings and situations are cleverly used and well written, it's just in areas such as pacing and certain plot-choices that disappoint. Pacing because in some areas it does drag a little -- usually when discussing one of the numerous sub-plots. Plot-choices because a lot of the sub-plots, whilst demonstrating the length at which Clarke has taken her world-building, take you out of the main plot a little too much. The footnotes start off interesting and entertaining, but soon get annoying (some of them run to two or three pages), and it begins to feel like you're reading a text book[3].

The plot revolves around the title characters: Mr Norrell, who being the only magician in England, is determined to bring about the return of English magic; and Jonathon Strange, the young student of magic who joins him. It sounds fairly simple, but there's a lot more to it than that, and to go into any more detail would both take far too much room in this blog, and ruin the story for you.

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[3] Especially the ones that just refer you to other books about magic (books which, AFAIK, don't exist).