Books like The Book of Doors — picked by fans

I want to acknowledge right at the start that some troubling accusations have come to light about Neil Gaiman. I completely respect someone’s decision to avoid his books if that seems right to them. I struggle with the alleged actions of the author and find that I still love this novel.

For younger readers (and those who love books for younger readers), this novel introduces us to the tender side of the uncanny. A community of ghosts who raise an orphaned boy. A vampire and a werewolf who become his mentors and guardians. Once again, we are invited to see death as a natural part of life.

And, oh my gosh, is this novel funny! And charming, and lyrical, and beautiful.

I love the way the magic moves through this novel in quiet, intimate ways.

It’s never flashy, nor is the magic there only for the sake of excitement. It whispers a twisted love. It’s dreadful and beautiful, both to Addie LaRue and to the reader. Because of it, Addie changes. Addie lives in our world, in historical times and today, and the magic exists in our world. 

One of the things I love about literary fantasy is that the main characters have true emotional arcs. We’re drawn into their experiences because we care about them. The questions they ask themselves are ones we all ask: Who do I want to be? What makes life meaningful? What do we owe the people we love?

This novel blends genres in a masterful way.

It’s magical realism, romance, fantasy, horror, and action-adventure. And none of the genres is given short shrift. Again, a magical society threatens the world as we know it, as well as the main character. The main character, a flawed human being, learns her own worth, rises above her limitations, and finds the courage to act. And to love. 

I found this novel to be rich in ideas, a wonderful insight into the early days of WWII in London, full of delightfully quirky characters, truly scary in a real-stakes way (not the cheap-scare thriller way), and truly moving.

Caveat to the reader: it ends on a cliffhanger. If you can’t bear waiting, don’t start this novel until the next one is published. 

Again, as with all the books I’ll mention, magic simply enters the “real world” with little fanfare.

We don’t have to go to a fairy realm or parallel universe or anywhere besides the world we live in. We don’t have to learn a whole new system of existence or memorize names that are impossible to pronounce and have far too many consonants. Magic is here, all around us.

Why this book in particular? I love novels that allow us to look at our own mortality and find hope. The Midnight Train takes us backstage at the moment of death and allows us to see the beauty of life, with all its mistakes and messiness and heartache.

Here too, the main character asks the important questions that make life meaningful.

Imagine waking up to discover you’ve become the City of New York. And meeting the avatar of São Paulo walking around trying to be a mentor. As a New Yorker, I’m all for it, and I was hooked right from the start of this urban fantasy. Aliens are trying to eat the cities of Earth, but the cities fight back by choosing champions from among their populations.

New York, being New York, has six—one for the City as a whole and one for each borough because we do things right here. I got such a kick out of every borough’s particular personality and approach to being part of the whole, when just the other day, these were all ordinary people pursuing their own aims. Sudden, magical, consequential reinvention. Love it.

This novel of literary fiction is a ribald and adventurous mixture of humor, magical realism, Old West historical fact, and dream-like self-reflection. Main character Didier Rain, who is a drunken yet poetic lout, is hired to deliver a baby named Virtue to a Mormon prophet, who has been chosen as his future bride. (!!!) He is accompanied by a band of talking animals. Virtue miraculously grows into a young woman during the trip. It’s hard to categorize this novel but one thing is for sure, it is delightfully bizarre and laugh-out-loud funny in parts.

I loved this series because it took a person who was struggling in life and brought them into a new and more deadly world where her struggles became more intense and real. She had to grow, trust herself, and learn how and who to trust in this new world. It was filled with Runes magic and though character driven it had a plot that pulled you along. 

How could I not love a book that sets its tone with “My name is Bond, Shaman Bond”? 

Bond, aka Eddie Drood, has all the latest magical gadgets to help suppress the forces of magical mayhem on behalf of the ancient and powerful Drood family (and yes there’s a pun there on Druid). This is what James Bond would have been if Ian Fleming had gone easy on the Martinis and tried a few magic mushrooms instead. 

The book, and in fact the whole series, is inventive, witty, and in places outright insane, with every book title a parody of a Bond book or film. 

(Also, Mr Green is a very nice man – we met him once over pizza at EasterCon several decades ago.)

I read this trilogy in 1998 when I had just finished high school.

Even then, I understood the book presented Frodo as the main hero, but I was always aware that without Sam, Frodo couldn't go far. He was just a gardener in the beginning, but when the books were over, he proved himself and even became the mayor of the Shire.

Seeing a regular guy carrying the main hero on his shoulders is something else. The decisions he made and his forcing himself to do more transformed him into a natural hero and a leader.

The first in a trilogy of books of magical fantasy set in Renaissance Europe and beyond that looks at magic and witchery at an unusual slant. Centre stage is Damiano Delstrego: son of a wizard and alchemist with an inheritance of Dark Magics. Forced out by war, he goes on pilgrimage to seek the aid of the powerful witch Saara, but the road he is obliged to walk is a dark one. R. A. MacAvoy is another writer I have admired for a long time and I was very sad when ill health stopped her from writing. I believe, however, that she has started to write again, so I can but hope for new novels while recommending her older, skillful work.