Books › Magic for beginners › Books like it
If you loved
Books like Magic for beginners
A surreal, pop-culture-infused fever dream where the mundane and the magical bleed seamlessly into one another. These 12 books are the closest matches in mood, pace and themes, with what each one shares with Magic for beginners.
- dreamlike
- uncanny
- nostalgic
- eerie
- 01
Get in Trouble
Kelly Link
A darkly playful plunge into a world where suburban anxieties and teenage sleepovers collide with ghosts, superheroes, and the uncanny.
- 02
Fragile Things
Neil Gaiman
A cabinet of curiosities where every drawer opens into a dark, dreamlike fairy tale.
- 03
Pretty Monsters
Kelly Link
A funny, surreal, and imaginative collection where the ordinary world hides bizarre, unsettling, and wondrous secrets.
- 04
The Weird
Ann VanderMeer and Jeff VanderMeer
A massive, labyrinthine cabinet of curiosities that will permanently tilt your perception of reality.
- 05
No One Belongs Here More Than You
Miranda July
A tender, delightfully weird exploration of lonely people fumbling toward connection in the most unexpected ways.
- 06
The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories
Susanna Clarke
A wry, enchanting collection where polite Regency society masks the wild, capricious magic of English folklore.
- 07
The Ten Thousand Doors of January
Alix E. Harrow
A lush, defiant love letter to the magic of storytelling and the hidden thresholds that lead us to where we belong.
- 08
20th Century Ghosts
Joe Hill · 2007
A masterful blend of nostalgic Americana and creeping dread that finds the monstrous in the mundane and the heartbreaking in the horrific.
- 09
Pastoralia
George Saunders · 2000
A hilarious, heartbreaking funhouse mirror reflecting the soul-crushing absurdities of modern work and life.
- 10
Brief Interviews With Hideous Men
David Foster Wallace · 2001
A dizzying, darkly hilarious plunge into the neurotic, self-justifying minds of profoundly alienated people.
- 11
Six months, three days, five others
Charlie Jane Anders
A wry, offbeat collection of speculative tales that uses the bizarre to illuminate the deeply human.
- 12
Song for the Unraveling of the World
Brian Evenson
A masterclass in the uncanny that quietly and methodically dismantles your grip on reality.
