Bartimaeus: The Amulet of Samarkand

Hey everybody, today I will be talking about the book called Bartimaeus: The Amulet of Samarkand.


The setting takes place in London, England. Bartimaeus is a magical being called a djinn, and there are more djinni then just him. So far I have read chapters 1-8 of the book. What's interesting about this book is that it switches between the characters Bartimaeus and Nathaniel throughout the chapters. So far Bartimaeus's storyline has been this.

             Bartimaeus was summoned by Nathaniel and was told to steal the magical artifact called The Amulet of Samarkand from Simon Lovelace, a very well-known magician, and bring it to Nathaniel. Bartimaeus snuck into Lovelace's mansion and stole the amulet. But as he tried to get out, he ran into two other djinni, Jabor and Farqual, that were summoned by Simon Lovelace. When he got out, Bartimaeus changed into a bird and flew away from the mansion. Then, he got tired and changed into the form of a boy and hid among the crowd. After that, these kids started chasing after Bartimaeus until finally he shook them off, or so he thought. Bartimaeus then almost went to sleep in an alleyway, until the kids that were chasing after him caught him. Bartimaeus changed into an alligator and got them away from him. Then, he changed into a fox and hid in a trash can until the night police showed up and took away the kids.

This has been Nathaniel's story so far.



           Nathaniel's first chapters tells about an experience with demons when he was only six years old. His master, Arther Underwood told him to go into his study and put on some glasses that were in a metal box. So, he went down into his study and then pencils started flying out of a cup on his master's desk. This scared him so he instantly found the glasses and put them on. He saw a lot of small demons standing still until the noticed that he had the glasses on. Then, they tackled him. The next chapters of Nataniel's story tell about how he came to Underwood. His parents saw an advertisement somewhere that said if you give in your child to a magician to become their apprentice, they will pay you. So Nathaniel's parents dropped him off, got their money, and left. Nathaniel was told to forget about his past and his name. Nathaniel's master's wife, Martha, told him that he could share his name with her. At the point where I stopped reading, Martha was being very kind to Nathaniel, and Underwood didn't like that.

That's is the story so far, I hope you enjoyed this blog post and that you will read the book sometime, farewell.