Mythic Fiction: 25 Good Books (in no particular order)
Explore 25 captivating mythic fiction books in no particular order. Discover magical realms, ancient myths, and legendary tales in this curated list of must-read novels.
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Lava
by Pamela Ball
A haunting tale of obsessive love, "Lava" is a magical novel set on the Big Island of Hawaii. When a bizarre incident brings back her estranged husband after five years of his living with another woman, Kinau is overtaken by a new wave of passion and her colorful life becomes even more dramatic.
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The Journal of Antonio Montoya
by Rick Collignon
In this dear and funny first novel, Rick Collignon moves the cool, magical soul of South American Realism to the hot, dry magical heart of the American Southwest, in this story of curious members of the Montoya family.
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The Mistress of Spices
by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
A classic work of magical realism, this bestselling novel by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni tells the story of Tilo, a young woman from another time who has a gift for the mystical art of spices. Now immortal, and living in the gnarled and arthritic body of an old woman, Tilo has set up shop in Oakland, California, where she administers curatives to her customers. But when she's surprised by an unexpected romance with a handsome stranger, she must choose between everlasting life and the vicissitudes of modern society. Spellbinding and hypnotizing, The Mistress of Spices is a tale of joy, sorrow, and one special woman's magical powers.
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Anansi Boys
by Neil Gaiman
One of fiction's most audaciously original talents, Neil Gaiman now gives us a mythology for a modern age -- complete with dark prophecy, family dysfunction, mystical deceptions, and killer birds. Not to mention a lime. Anansi Boys God is dead. Meet the kids. When Fat Charlie's dad named something, it stuck. Like calling Fat Charlie "Fat Charlie." Even now, twenty years later, Charlie Nancy can't shake that name, one of the many embarrassing "gifts" his father bestowed -- before he dropped dead on a karaoke stage and ruined Fat Charlie's life. Mr. Nancy left Fat Charlie things. Things like the tall, good-looking stranger who appears on Charlie's doorstep, who appears to be the brother he never knew. A brother as different from Charlie as night is from day, a brother who's going to show Charlie how to lighten up and have a little fun ... just like Dear Old Dad. And all of a sudden, life starts getting very interesting for Fat Charlie. Because, you see, Charlie's dad wasn't just any dad. He was Anansi, a trickster god, the spider-god. Anansi is the spirit of rebellion, able to overturn the social order, create wealth out of thin air, and baffle the devil. Some said he could cheat even Death himself. Returning to the territory he so brilliantly explored in his masterful New York Times bestseller, American Gods, the incomparable Neil Gaiman offers up a work of dazzling ingenuity, a kaleidoscopic journey deep into myth that is at once startling, terrifying, exhilarating, and fiercely funny -- a true wonder of a novel that confirms Stephen King's glowing assessment of the author as "a treasure-house of story, and we are lucky to have him."
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Troll
by Johanna Sinisalo
Returning to his apartment, Angel finds a group of drunken teenagers taunting a wounded troll, so Angel decides to take him in, a decision that changes Angel's life forever.
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The Thin Place
by Kathryn Davis
In a thin place, according to legend, the membrane separating this world from the spirit world is almost nonexistent. The small New England town of Varennes is such a place, and Kathryn Davis transports us there - revealing a surprising pageant of life as, in the course of one summer, Varennes' tranquillity is shattered by the arrival of a threatening outsider, worldly and otherworldly forces come into play, and a young local girl finds her miraculous gift for resurrecting the dead tested by the conflict between logic and wish.
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Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell
by Susanna Clarke
In nineteenth-century England, all is going well for reclusive Mr Norell, who has regained some of the power of England's magicians from the past, until a rival magician, Jonathan Strange, appears and becomes Mr Norrell's pupil.
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Strandloper
by Alan Garner
Over the next thirty-two years, William becomes Murrangurk in reality - the law-giver and healer of the People, a highly initiated, powerful and holy man - brought from the dead for a quest that only he can achieve. When he does, at last, return to England, it is neither as William Buckley nor as Murrangurk, but as "Strandloper". And in a magnificent and redemptive climax, the Dreaming of the Aborigines and the ancient magic of England are fused as one.
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The Kappa Child
by Hiromi Goto
In a house not at all reminiscent of "Little House on the Prairie", four Japanese-Canadian sisters struggle to escape the bonds of a family and landscape as inhospitable as the sweltering prairie heat.
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Mockingbird
by Sean Stewart
When voodoo runs in the family, the younger generation finds it has a debt to pay. "Mockingbird" is a classic 2000 "New York Times" Notable Book and a World Fantasy and Nebula Award Finalist.
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The Famished Road
by Ben Okri
BOOKER PRIZE WINNER • A modern classic that reveals the tension between the land of the living, with its violence and political struggles, and the temptations of the carefree kingdom of the spirits. • "A dazzling achievement for any writer in any language." —The New York Times Book Review In the decade since it won the Booker Prize, Ben Okri's Famished Road has become a classic. Like Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children or Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, it combines brilliant narrative technique with a fresh vision to create an essential work of world literature. The narrator, Azaro, is an abiku, a spirit child, who in the Yoruba tradition of Nigeria exists between life and death. The life he foresees for himself and the tale he tells is full of sadness and tragedy, but inexplicably he is born with a smile on his face. Nearly called back to the land of the dead, he is resurrected. But in their efforts to save their child, Azaro's loving parents are made destitute.