Need to leave the real world for a bit? Ever dreamt of getting lost in a magical library? (Were you one of those kids who watched the lesser-known Macaulay Culkin movie from 1994, The Pagemaster?) In addition to being the ultimate fantasy of all bibliophiles, the magical library trope is essentially its own genre. One might trace its origins to Jorge Luis Borges, himself a librarian, who wrote the metaphysical short story "The Library of Babel" (1941) envisioning the universe as a vast, infinite library of every possible book. Libraries lend easily to metaphors about life, given that they can be sacred, mysterious, and labyrinthine. (Also, what author doesn't love a library?) Maybe that's why there's no shortage of books about magical libraries, unlikely heroes, and stewards of stories and legacies. Here are seven absorbing examples:
This 2019 novel introduces us to a place called the Library of the Unwritten within hell that's filled with unfinished stores. As the Head Librarian, Claire is tasked with curating the works that reside here. Of course, there is the pesky problem of characters constantly trying to escape. Claire ends up in quite a predicament when a character named Hero breaks out to search for his author. What should have been a simple retrieval breaks out into an all-out war between heaven, hell, and Earth.
Welcome to a lost bookshop on a quiet Dublin street where a vanishing book casts a spell that unites three strangers in the strangest of ways. While saying too much about this book can give the plot away, readers can prepare for a smart dual-timeline story with overlapping narration by characters named Opaline (past), Martha (present day), and Henry (present day). Book lovers and fans of magical realism will both be satisfied by the themes of magic and self-discovery found in The Lost Bookshop.
In this pioneering book from 2001, a young boy named Daniel is brought to a place called the Cemetery of Forgotten Books. After choosing a novel to guard, Daniel becomes forever intertwined with the book and its author. He is drawn into mystery, adventure, and danger as he fights to preserve a legacy that is threatened by one man's thirst for destruction.
In this magical thriller from 2014, we meet a woman named Irene who serves as a spy for a very mysterious library that generates its fiction using different realities. When Irene and her assistant Kai are assigned the mission of confiscating a dangerous book from circulation, their discovery that it's already missing brings them to grittiest parts of London's deep underground. While that would be intriguing enough, Cogman throws in some supernatural creatures, nature-bending magic, and eerie secret societies to spice things up. This page-turning adventure is the first in a series by Cogman.
If you read 2011's The Night Circus, you'll be enraptured by this darkly magical love story by the same author. This time around, Morgenstern introduces her readers to a grad student named Zachary who stumbles upon a stack of hidden books that lead him to a series of clues that ultimately bring him to a masquerade party in a secret New York City club. Far from an ordinary club, this place is actually a portal to a realm of lost cities, desperate lovers, and secrets guarded by the dead. In a strange twist of fate, and an even stranger journey on a subterranean sea, Zachary becomes the only person who can keep the realm safe.
Blending the historical and the mythical, this 2020 novel follows a group of Chinese university students who flee the 1937 Japanese invasion before discovering that someone unsavory is in their midst. Upping the stakes is the fact that the students have been entrusted to carry a 500-year-old collection of myths and folklore called the Library of Legends with them to safety on their 1,000-mile trek. During the journey, immortal guardian spirits awaken to change the course of history and the lives of the travelers forever.
The Library at Mount Char is a contemporary fantasy novel with a dark dash of horror that focuses on a woman named Carolyn who has been swept into a dark world of ancient customs under the charisma of a man they call Father. When Father goes missing, Carolyn must use the books she has studied in his dark library to fight what she feels is coming next when those seeking the power once held by Father come knocking.
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