Conjure Wife

What if half the world's population practiced witchcraft? Specifically, what if Women practiced witchcraft and kept it a secret from men? And what if a husband found his wife's charms, spells, and totems and made her destroy them all, considering them dangerous superstitions. That's the basic premise of the book, but in his superb writing style, Leiber allows most of the books action to occur internally. The main character is left to speculate on what he experiences and to question his own sense of reality. Why it's on the list Conjure Wife is an interesting window into another time. It tells the tale of the hidden magic of women. Written in the 1940's and set in a small college town, it's a compelling view of a time when women, no matter how intelligent, were constrained to secondary roles in favor of their husbands' professions and most often landed up helping them in ways that the men would never acknowledge. The story itself is engaging and has a lot of twists. Leiber's language is simple and flows easily from page to page. Although Leiber writes simple and convincing dialogue, he allows his descriptions to stick with you, even after you have put the book down. Read if you like A great way to understand the social norms at the time.