Books like The Books of Magic — picked by fans

Three worlds in one book! There’s the not-so-important world of the Ancelstierre, roughly Edwardian or early-20th-Century-ish, and there’s the Old Kingdom, basically medieval, where Charter Magic wars with Free Magic (and how well Nix thinks through the workings of his forms of magic).

But the third world is the one that takes the cake! An underworld of the dead, with its different levels, gates, and sills. Sabriel discovers her own special inheritance and powers—OK, that’s standard fantasy fare, except that Sabriel’s powers are those of an abhorsen. It’s the Abhorsen’s role to make sure that the dead stay dead, and journey on down into the deeper levels of death. Of course, the dead who keep coming back are the ones who drive the narrative!

This novel is a wonderful East meets West tumble into the afterlife that will leave an impression on you long after you close the book. The main character is nothing like the usual hero, but an overweight 10-year-old, taciturn, lonely, but most of all, fiercely determined to save her mother. 

We follow Melanie into a creepy and harsh underworld heavily influenced by Buddhist beliefs and discover the terrible truth about monsters and how they are created. This book is like a Japanese Alice in Wonderland where no punches are held back, celebrating courage, family, and tenacity.  

This must be one of the strangest works I have read in a long while, and I admire it deeply. It surfs on the documentary graphic novel trend. It exists to teach people about the disastrous impact of intensive farming on the environment, and more particularly on dirt. Not a very attractive topic, despite how serious it is – but, and that’s where this comic is so innovative, it twists all this knowledge around a suspenseful battle royal orchestrated by Hades in the Underworld. Unlikely, isn’t it? I loved discovering the facts while cheering on my main characters, two lost 16 years old, who struggle to survive in the underground. While it is directed at teens, I would recommend it to the above 16 only, as there is gore (this book follows the Hunger Games pattern of only one survivor) and nudity. 

I read this book not long after reading Spook, and it scratched many of the same philosophical itches for me. I love its dreamlike quality and haunting sense of nostalgia. As far as I know, it's also unlike any other work of fiction in its approach to the question of life after death.

It blends two seemingly unrelated topics—historical disasters (e.g., the Hartford circus fire, the sinking of the Titanic)—and the science of near-death experiences in a striking, unique way. Although it is, in many ways, a deeply sad story, it ultimately feels hopeful. This is one of those novels that left a lasting impact on my psyche.   

This was the first book I ever read by HP Lovecraft and after reading it, I read everything else that I could find by such a talented writer. Lovecraft’s stories are dark, doom-ridden tales that are filled with cosmic horror, nightmarish landscapes, and indescribable monsters. But it’s not only the tales themselves that captivated me, it’s the style in which they were written. Lovecraft has such a beautiful literary style of writing that really made me feel what the characters felt and see what horrors they witnessed. His work definitely inspired me to pick up pen and paper and write stories of my own.

I read this book as fiction, being that it is written by a psychic, and I’m still not convinced that anyone knows what exists on the other side. As such, I was fascinated by the wonders and possibilities that are put forth and it was extremely encouraging to me during my time of grief.

My young daughters also loved the “book about heaven” and would insist on me reading parts of it to them at bedtime after their dad died.  

Savage Dominion is just plain fun and worth the read. But you know how it’s even better? On audio, narrated by Luke Daniels. Seriously, pick up the audio if you can. Luke’s narration alone is worth every penny.

Here we have a big, dumb nerd who honestly wasn’t hero material but when a wolf shows up to ruin his already bad date, our man sacrifices himself. This doesn’t go unnoticed and he is given the chance to become an eternal, basically a demi-god. Only he ends up being one for the “baddies” according to the solar court. 

So Maulkin has to overcome everyone thinking he’s the devil, learn how this new world of his works, and all of that while being more brawns than brains in one of the funniest characters I’ve read in a good long while.

For insights into non-western afterlife theory, the Bardo Thodol offers a collection of texts covering aspects of death, reincarnation, and the ‘space’ in between. The work, which dates back to the 8th century, serves as a ‘guidebook’ on preparing the soul for its continuing journey, including advice on meditation, the six states of consciousness, death rituals, and the pursuit of karma. Over the centuries the Bardo Thodol has inspired numerous interpretations as well as literary works. Screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin, who spent time secluded in a Buddhist monastery, describes his film Jacob’s Ladder as a modern take on the ancient text. 

 Okay, technically, Malice is a futuristic young adult novel, but there's a fantastic mystery here with a strong female protagonist. I did mention these books would be genre-bending. In this one, a young girl knows part of the future--the part where one of her classmates releases a virus that kills two-thirds of the population. Now she's in a race against time to find out who he is before he kills everyone she knows.

This is the most comprehensive book on Native American afterlife beliefs ever written.

What makes it especially interesting is that the author focuses on myths and legends of afterlife journeys – what he called “Orpheus myths.” He looks at them from many perspectives – historical and cultural – but most importantly experiential.

Writing almost 20 years before the popularization of near-death experiences in the Western world, Hultkrantz identified NDEs as a different type of experience from dreams or shamanic visions – and found that indigenous people did, too.

He also suggested that such experiences contributed to afterlife beliefs – that is, that they weren’t simply culturally created “stories” or hallucinations. Readable and entertaining as well as scholarly, it’s wonderful that this book is back in print after languishing in obscurity for decades!