Good to know you enjoy the magic. I think he gets a lot of criticism for including magic from his more snobby reviewers and readers who think it's unbecoming of a writer of his quality, but like you I think it's great and always appreciate a writer ignoring genre boundaries.

It's probably closer to Bone Clocks, but there's much less magic for most of the book, and the narrative is quite straight forward. I liked it a lot; it's very well written and the characters are charming and have strong voices. The magic comes in quite naturally and had some great links for previous books that made me excited to see what he'll do with this world in the future. It's focused on the musical scene in Britain and the US in the 60s. Mitchell writes about music and people that love music really well. My only criticism would be it did sometimes feel the characters were randomly running into famous musicians early in their careers a bit too much. It started to feel like a Simpsons episode where they all shout "Tony Hawk!? What are you doing here!?" But it didn't ruin the book for me.

My favourites are:

Number 9 Dream - it just has so much narrative drive and youthful enthusiasm. The main character really felt real to me. And I loved the experimentation with style/genre in each section. Not a big fan of the Goat Writer stuff, but it's not a deal breaker.

Black Swan green - Being from the Midlands in the UK this had a lot of nostalgia for me. I liked how down to earth it was and how that would contrast with some of Mitchell's more unusual choice of metaphor. Plus Hugo Lamb was a great antagonist I was very glad to see reappear.

Thousand Autumns - Just a big wonderful beast of a book. He manages to get the bygonese perfectly, striking the balance between it feeling viably old whilst still being readable. it's incredibly well researched, and the setting is fascinating. I managed to visit Dejima when I went to Japan, and I never would have known about it without the book. Plus I think this is where we first meet Marinus.

Depends what you're after. Ghost written is his first book, and he hasn't quite landed his style yet, but it has great characters and moments. It's essentially a book of linked short stories on a theme.

If you prefer something with more narrative coherence then Number 9 Dream could be good. Set in Japan, strong plot but also some beautiful writing. Maybe my favourite.

His most down to Earth novel is Black Swan Green. Set in small town England following a key point in life of a boy with a stammer (quite autobiographical). Introduces a cool character who's key in Bone Clocks.

Later books like Bone Clocks and Utopia Avenue are great, but do build heavily on what's gone before, so I'd recommend reading some earlier stuff first. That said, if the blurb to any of them appeal you can certainly just go ahead and read them - they wont be incomprehensible., and it might be fun to go back and see where characters started.

Enjoy!