I’m an Irish author who lives close to three very different forests: deciduous, planted coniferous, and the planned gardens of a former stately home that once welcomed WB Yeats and several other famous writers. I’ve always loved the woods – it often feels like stepping through a portal into some other, stranger parallel world – and drew huge inspiration from these places for Shiver the Whole Night Through. I wanted the forest to feel like a character, which was sentient and had agency. I incorporated several real-life locations into the fictional Shook Woods…and wrote a lot of the story in the forest, gazing into the dark trees, waiting for them to speak.
Shiver the Whole Night Through is a YA novel, blending mystery and horror, about a bullied Irish youngster drawn into a dream world of magic, desire, hope, and revenge. After months of harassment and romantic heartbreak, seventeen-year-old Aidan Flood feels ready to end it all.
But when he learns that local girl Sláine McAuley actually has, he discovers a new sense of purpose and becomes determined to find out what happened to her. Aidan isn’t sure if beautiful Sláine is a ghost, a demon, or the figment of his imagination. The weather is turning colder, an ancient evil has awoken – and it might just be the death of them all.
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A group of disparate Medieval travellers finds themselves marooned in a spooky castle in the middle of a forest. Some strange enchantment means they’re unable to speak, so each tells their tale through the medium of the Tarot. I love Calvino – the kind of stone-cold genius who made everything look easy – and I love this book, which immerses you deep within the forest: an almost mythical realm where anything feels possible.
The English novelist famously denied that she was rewriting fairy-tales for adults in this brilliant story collection, rather digging down for the core truth of each then using it to write something genuinely new. But she definitely tapped into something elemental in those original Grimm-style stories, whose heart and mind lie in the forest, in particular with pieces such as The Erl-King, The Company of Wolves and Wolf-Alice.
Tolkien’s fantasy epic is packed with forests – Mirkwood, Lothlórien, Fangorn, the Old Forest, and many more – and these aren’t just big bunches of trees grouped together. In LOTR, the forest is always alive. The trees move, think, talk. They play a key role in some of the plot developments later on. They ruled Middle Earth during some of its formative years. They have, are, and make magic.
Essentially two parts of one book, Secret History and The Final Dossier see Mark Frost – co-writer, with the legendary David Lynch, of the equally legendary TV series – returning to the dark, dark woods which cast a baleful shadow on the troubled logging town. The woods are the source of all evil in Twin Peaks: malevolence, mystery, mayhem, murder. In real-life Lynch once described the forest as being “everything those old fairy-tales made you feel”.
A tropical forest in Africa is the epicentre of a bizarre and very troubling phenomenon. Through a sort of “leak” in space-time, everything is slowly turning to crystal, and this “disease” will eventually seep out into the rest of the world. An English doctor goes on an Apocalypse Now-style journey into the forest to try and understand. Ballard’s sci-fi classic is as weird and thought-provoking as always, and the forest itself is a palpable presence throughout.
5,888 authors have recommended their favorite books and what they love about them. Browse their picks for the best books about investigations, Italy, and fairy tales.
We think you will like Norse Mythology, The Overstory, and The Once and Future King if you like this list.
From Tiana's list on Norse mythology for fans of Thor.
This has to be the best modern adaptation of the original Norse myths. Neil Gaiman has adapted them into something fun, easy to read, and super entertaining. The Thor and Loki tales were easy to get into, and at times hilarious! I recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn about the original Norse myths. This is more entertaining than reading the source material, and I think Neil Gaiman did a great job captivating the original spirit.
From Alan's list on fiction on the real challenges our world now faces.
For most of us writers, it’s hard enough to make people come to life on the page. In this Pulitzer Prize-winner, Powers manages to turn trees into memorable characters. A literary tour-de-force, The Overstory exemplifies why nonfiction authors like me, charged with conveying critical information to readers, study the story-telling alchemy of novelists. Recalling Picasso’s observation that art is a lie that gives us the truth, this deeply researched work of fiction reminds us that failing to respect our biological companions on this Earth, as our early ancestors did, risks not only losing them, but ourselves. Even though I’ve written about the environment for decades, after reading it, I’ll never again feel the same about forests and trees again. The Overstory doesn’t merely inform, it transforms.
From Gideon's list on shoving a stick up the arse end of perceived reality.
Who wouldn't want a serious dark age romance to open in horror, and then slip into the Disney landscape of the sword in the stone, before delivering a legendary and literary masterpiece? Make no mistake, this is a serious book from start to finish, capturing the full magical significance of the Arthurian legend, in a spellbinding story of incest, intrigue, plot, and counterplot, set against a heart-rending love triangle, and delivering a coup de grace ending, that is full of both despair and hope, for the future of England and humankind.
