Our Fantasy collection spans sweeping epics, wizard schools, and modern myth. Here are ten must-reads to start with.
1. A Game of Thrones — George R.R. Martin
The book that launched A Song of Ice and Fire, and with it an entire era of grounded, morally grey fantasy that HBO's Game of Thrones later brought to a global audience. Martin builds the story around competing noble houses — Stark, Lannister, Targaryen, and more — whose alliances and betrayals unfold through rotating point-of-view chapters rather than a single hero's journey. He is famous for treating character death as a real narrative tool rather than an empty threat, which gives the book a sense of genuine stakes rare in the genre at the time. The novel also weaves in a slower-burning supernatural thread beyond the Wall that pays off across the wider series. Martin spent years as a television writer before returning to novels, and that background shows in his tight scene construction and dialogue. The series remains unfinished, with the final two volumes still awaited by millions of readers. Its influence on 21st-century fantasy publishing, favoring political complexity over clear-cut good and evil, is hard to overstate.
2. A Wizard of Earthsea — Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula K. Le Guin's 1968 novel follows the young mage Ged as he trains at a school of wizardry and must confront a shadow creature he unwittingly unleashed through his own arrogance. It predates Harry Potter's wizard-school setting by decades and is frequently cited as one of the genre's foundational influences on that entire subgenre. Le Guin, also celebrated for The Left Hand of Darkness in science fiction, brought a spare, poetic prose style to fantasy that stood apart from the more baroque epics of her era. The novel's magic system, built on true names and the idea that using power always carries a cost, has shaped how countless later fantasy writers think about magic's rules. Earthsea itself is an archipelago world with a deliberately non-European cultural texture, notable for its time. The book is as much a meditation on self-knowledge and balance as it is an adventure story. It remains a staple of both fantasy curricula and lists of the genre's most important novels.
3. A Wrinkle in Time — Madeleine L'Engle
Madeleine L'Engle's 1962 novel follows Meg Murry, her younger brother Charles Wallace, and their friend Calvin as they travel across the universe via a tesseract to rescue Meg's missing scientist father. It blends fantasy with real scientific concepts like the fifth dimension, an unusual combination for children's literature at the time, and one that reportedly caused multiple publishers to reject the manuscript before it found a home. The novel went on to win the Newbery Medal and has never been out of print since. L'Engle wrote it while working through her own questions about faith and science, and the book carries an unusually direct moral seriousness about love and individuality confronting conformity. Meg is frequently cited as an early example of a flawed, believable girl protagonist in genre fiction, allowed anger and self-doubt rather than simple heroism. The book was adapted into a major Disney film in 2018. It remains a common introduction to speculative fiction for young readers precisely because it refuses to talk down to them.
4. American Gods — Neil Gaiman
Neil Gaiman's 2001 novel imagines America as a battleground between old gods, brought over in the beliefs of immigrants and now fading, and new gods of media, technology, and money. Ex-convict Shadow Moon is drawn into this hidden war after taking a job with the mysterious Mr. Wednesday, who turns out to be an old god in disguise. Gaiman, already known for the Sandman comics, uses the road-trip structure to survey a version of America built from folklore, myth, and roadside kitsch rather than its usual landmarks. The novel won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards, a rare feat that reflects its crossover appeal between literary and genre readers. It was later adapted into a Starz television series. Gaiman has spoken about drawing on his own experience as a British immigrant to America while writing the book's themes of belief and belonging. It remains one of the most acclaimed examples of mythic fantasy grounded in a contemporary setting.
5. Anansi Boys — Neil Gaiman
A loose sequel to American Gods, this novel follows Fat Charlie Nancy, who discovers after his father's death that dad was actually Anansi, the West African trickster god of stories, and that he has a long-lost brother with all their father's magical charisma. Gaiman shifts tone here toward comedy, drawing on Anansi folklore's playful, mischief-driven spirit rather than the darker mythic weight of its predecessor. The novel explores family estrangement and self-reinvention through a fantastical lens, as Charlie is forced to reckon with the trickster inheritance he never wanted. Gaiman has cited his love of old folk and fairy tales as the backbone of the book's structure, which nests smaller Anansi stories within the main narrative. It won the Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel. The book stands on its own without requiring familiarity with American Gods. It's frequently recommended as an entry point for readers who want Gaiman's mythic sensibility with a lighter touch.
6. A Court of Thorns and Roses — Sarah J. Maas
Sarah J. Maas's series opener follows huntress Feyre, who is dragged into a magical faerie court after killing a wolf that turns out to be a shapeshifted High Fae. Loosely inspired by the Beauty and the Beast fairy tale, the novel blends court intrigue, a slow-burn romance, and a fae world with real teeth beneath its glamour. Maas had already built a large readership with her Throne of Glass series before launching this one, and ACOTAR went on to become one of the defining titles of the modern 'romantasy' boom that has reshaped fantasy publishing and bookstore shelves in the past decade. The series deepens considerably in tone and stakes across its later volumes, several of which are also stocked in this collection. Maas is known for meticulous world-building paired with high-emotion romantic pacing, a combination that has made her one of the best-selling fantasy authors currently in print. The book's popularity on BookTok has driven a broader resurgence of interest in fantasy romance among younger readers. It's frequently the gateway title for readers discovering the wider fae-court subgenre.
7. Adventures of Tom Bombadil — J.R.R. Tolkien
This is a collection of verse Tolkien framed as poems composed within Middle-earth itself, centered on the enigmatic, songful figure of Tom Bombadil who appears briefly in The Fellowship of the Ring. Tolkien, primarily known for his prose epics, was also a serious philologist and poet, and this collection reflects his lifelong interest in constructed mythology extending down to the level of in-world folk verse. The character of Bombadil has remained one of the most debated figures in Tolkien's legendarium, seemingly immune to the Ring's power and never fully explained within the main trilogy. The poems range from whimsical to melancholic, giving a fuller picture of the Shire's folk culture than the main novels have room for. It's a slim, niche volume best suited to readers who already love Middle-earth and want to go deeper into its margins rather than newcomers. Tolkien revised and expanded the collection from earlier published poems for its 1962 release. It remains a curiosity treasured mainly by devoted Tolkien completists.
8. A Deadly Education — Naomi Novik
Naomi Novik's Scholomance series opener is set at a magic school with no teachers, where students must simply survive the monsters lurking in its halls until graduation, and where failure is often lethal. Novik, previously known for Uprooted and the Temeraire series, inverts the cozy magic-school trope into something closer to a survival thriller, with a sharply sarcastic narrator in El, a student whose immense destructive power makes her both feared and isolated. The novel is notable for building an unusually rigorous internal logic around how the school's magic and dangers actually work, appealing to readers who want mechanics as well as atmosphere. Novik has spoken about wanting to subvert the found-family warmth of typical school stories with something colder and more Darwinian. The book won strong critical acclaim and became a bestseller, spawning two sequels. Its first-person voice is sharp, funny, and often self-deprecating in a way that distinguishes it from more earnest entries in the genre. It's a strong pick for readers who want their magic school stories with real teeth.
9. 9 From the Nine Worlds — Rick Riordan
This is a short-story companion to Rick Riordan's Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard series, gathering nine tales narrated by different characters across the Norse Nine Worlds. Riordan built his career on Percy Jackson before expanding into Norse and Egyptian mythology with the same accessible, humor-driven formula aimed at middle-grade readers. The anthology format lets side characters from the main trilogy take the spotlight, filling in backstory that the main books don't have room for. Riordan has been widely credited with getting a generation of young readers genuinely excited about mythology, often as their first exposure to Norse legend beyond pop culture references. His approach consistently blends real mythological detail with contemporary teen voice and comedy. The book works best for readers already invested in the Magnus Chase trilogy rather than as a cold entry point. It reflects Riordan's broader strategy of using short fiction to keep expanding his mythological universes between full novels.
10. Alchemy of Secrets — Stephanie Garber
Stephanie Garber, best known for her bestselling Caraval trilogy, brings her signature blend of lush romance and fairy-tale atmosphere to this newer fantasy, built around magic, secrets, and high-stakes intrigue in a richly imagined world. Garber has built a career on stories where nothing is quite what it seems, often structured around games, masks, or performances that mirror the characters' own hidden motives. Her prose leans ornate and sensory, favoring vivid imagery over sparse minimalism, which has made her a favorite among readers who want their fantasy to feel like a fever dream. Caraval's massive success established her as one of the key voices in the YA-to-adult fantasy romance crossover that has come to dominate bestseller lists. This title continues her interest in unreliable appearances and slow-reveal plotting. It's aimed at readers who enjoyed the atmosphere of Caraval and want a similar blend of romance and mystery in a new setting. Garber remains one of the most recognizable names in the current romantasy wave.
