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Marcus
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The Book of Three
Lloyd Alexander
Marcus
Love this book when I read it many, many years ago
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Fairy Tales
Hans Christian Andersen
While the emotional sophistication of his stories can make them seem darker than their child-friendly frames at first suggest, there is no shortage of humor or high spirits in Andersen’s fanciful canon. Only a dozen or so of his more than 150 tales were drawn from existing folktales, in the manner o...show more
Foundation and Empire: The Foundation Trilogy, Book 2
Isaac Asimov
While Asimov’s saga nowadays seems less original than when it first appeared, the sweep of its conception maintains a thrilling freshness. Humanity spreads throughout the galaxy (there are, notably, no aliens to contend with) and reaches a developmental peak after 12,000 years, typified by the uber-...show more
Second Foundation: The Foundation Trilogy, Book 3
Isaac Asimov
Asimov’s penchant for discursive logic and brains over brawn does not prevent the Foundation series from being enthralling. Even today, ranked against all that has followed, it glows with quiet majesty.
Childhood's End
Arthur C. Clarke
Stranger in a Strange Land
Robert A. Heinlein
Dune
Frank Herbert
Recently re-read after more than 30 years. Still just as powerful, but also just a darn good read!
A Game of Thrones
George R. R. Martin
Stormbringer
Michael Moorcock
Elric—plaything of the God of Chaos, cursed albino prince of a dying line, a hero troublingly addicted to the slaughtered souls fed to him through his sentient sword Stormbringer—is at the center of a saga, spread across many stories, novellas, and books, conceived in deliberate reaction to the more...show more
Titus Groan: The Gormenghast Trilogy, Book 1
Mervyn Peake
Mervyn Peake lurks in the shadows of literature like a forgotten enchanter obscured by the main action of a fantasy sequence. In the royalty of the genre, one might even see him as J. R. R. Tolkien’s dispossessed brother, ruling a realm wilder than the one the creator of The Lord of the Rings comman...show more
Gormenghast: The Gormenghast Trilogy, Book 2
Mervyn Peake
In the royalty of the fantasy genre, one might see Mervyn Peake as J. R. R. Tolkien’s dispossessed brother. The difference is evident in their prose: Tolkien’s writing is sturdy and occasionally poetic, but it pales next to Peake’s idiosyncratic, virtuosic style. And where the former’s heart lay wit...show more
Titus Alone: The Gormenghast Trilogy, Book 3
Mervyn Peake
In Titus Alone, the third and final installment in the Gormenghast Trilogy, choosing to leave the all-encompassing certitude of the ancient keep, Titus encounters a surprising outer world of advanced industry and sophisticated technology that is a daring disruption of the familiarities of the first ...show more
The Golden Compass
Philip Pullman
A girl and a moth are stealing through an imposing dining hall on their way to the Retiring Room, the private chamber of the Scholars of Jordan College, Oxford. On a mission of mischievous espionage, they quickly discover more than they bargained for, stumbling on an assassination plot and eavesdrop...show more
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
J. K. Rowling
“Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you’d expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn’t hold with such nonsense.”
So, modestly, J. K. Rowling opens t...show more
Frankenstein
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Mary Shelley’s novel is the work of a thinker, and not just the cheap thrill that countless sequels, spin-offs, and spoofs might lead one to expect. The philosophical, psychological, and ethical complexities in which she has tangled her tale deepen its strangeness and wonder. Strange and wonderful i...show more
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Robert Louis Stevenson
Rare is the modern literary work that speaks with the uncanny authority of folklore. Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, published in 1886 to a popular acclaim that has not diminished since, is just such a creation, a tale of tantalizing suspense that echoes with disturbing and ...show more
Dracula
Bram Stoker
You’re probably familiar with the outlines of the story: A centuries-old vampire lures an English visitor to his castle in Transylvania, then journeys to London to seek fresh blood from his visitor’s paramour—with first mystified, then terrified, and finally horrified pursuers on his trail. But what...show more
The Hobbit
J. R. R. Tolkien
In the late 1920s, J. R. R. Tolkien, a professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University, scribbled a sentence while correcting some student papers: “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” Those ten words are the seed from which grew a complex and elaborate mythology that would captivate the ima...show more
The Lord of the Rings
J. R. R. Tolkien
Appearing in three separate volumes between July 1954 and October 1955, The Lord of the Rings constitutes a single linear narrative that was segmented for publishing convenience rather than by authorial intent. Tolkien’s hero, Frodo, is the adoptive heir of Bilbo Baggins, protagonist of The Hobbit. ...show more