79 books like The Wood Wife

This book is an instant classic. It took me years to finish reading it because I did not want it to end.

Kimmerer’s writing appealed to the dreamer in me while also explaining the science of the natural world in ways that were unforgettable. This beautifully written book connected me to my physical home and the people around me. I will come back to it again and again. 

The story of two mystical creatures stuck in 1899 New York who have to make their own way in the world.  Despite their different natures, they become unlikely friends and have to work together to survive. 

While I enjoyed the perspective of both supernatural beings in this book, I found the golem especially engaging. Through her eyes, the reader gets an amazingly detailed view of turn-of-the-century New York as well as the intricacies of human behavior. 

The jinni faces different challenges—he’s lost a chunk of his memory—but he also has to adapt to life among people. Wrapped in a rich tapestry of historical details, the story walks us through their processes of acclimating to human society and facing the dangers of their pasts.

This book is always on my list of favorite reads. Morgenstern invites us to inhabit a world where magic not only seems possible but wholly believable. I’ve read this book numerous times, and it always casts a spell over me so completely that the rest of my troubles disappear as quickly and mysteriously as the circus moves to another town.

The competition-turned-love story between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, moves the plot forward at a driving pace while enchanting subplots abound. Whenever I feel like I need to rekindle the magic in my own life, I pull this novel off the shelf.

I love a mix of fantasy and reality. This book (and the following series) has changed the way I look at almost everywhere in London.

Unbeknownst to most policemen and nearly all members of the ordinary public, the Metropolitan Police have a unit that deals with magic in the city. Seemingly-innocent events are often caused by vampires, magicians, or the rivalries between the gods and goddesses of the River Thames’ tributaries.

Here, it is not just the Thames that is important; all the little, often overlooked, waterways have a role to play. Peter, the Detective Constable at the heart of the story, is also a trainee wizard; the plot moves at breakneck speed, and I found it funny, exciting, and surprising all at once. 

Emma Bull wrote urban fantasy before that was really a thing, and this one is set in a shared world which straddles the human world and the world of the fey. Two unlikely friends are misfits in their own life. The titular character was kicked out of his family because his magic power made him seem too “weird” in the human realm, and his elven friend never felt at home in her fey family because her skill as a mechanic made her an outcast among the magic users. The fragile peace of their community is damaged when a new drug promises to turn humans fey.

This book is about making a home when you didn’t fit in with your family of origin, and the lengths people will go through to find a new identity. It may not feel as fresh as it did in the 1980s, but it will probably… show more.

Molly Tanzer came up with one of the cleverest “magic” tropes ever and I wish I’d thought of it myself. Her Victorian London “diabolists” engage with demons in a way that felt so logical that it seemed 100% plausible. It involves specific plants, for example, ginger. These demons are more like sentient aliens that enter into a (permanent) symbiotic relationship with a human host, upon which they confer benefits.

It made me go, “I mean, getting into devil worship like this may not be my thing, but yeah, I get why people could be into it.” It’s not all gushing balls and gaslit concerts either, since our protagonists are much more middle class. There’s danger here, because not all of these diabolists are harmless. I craved ginger for months after this book.

Rutherford’s saga follows the story of the New Forest in southern England, a place a number of my own books are set.

He has a deep love and fascination for the places, people, and traditions of the Forest, all the things that make it unique. I love how the stories shift and blend into each other, how details of history flow forward century to century into the future, and the many different ways people love and make choices about their home and the land they live on.

Most of all, Rutherford simultaneously puts a very human face on the New Forest, without losing any of the power and magic of the woods and bogs, plants and animals of the land itself.

Pamela Dean’s Tam Lin has been top of my favourite books list since I first read it more than 20 years ago.

It’s also a fascinating, nuanced, and evocative book about the magic and fantasy of a particular time and place - in this case, a liberal arts college in the mid-1970s in Minnesota. The fantasy elements of the book are slow to emerge (and reward a re-read later).

Dean deftly weaves together details of the place - season to season - but also the way that the lives of students change across their time at college. Most of all is the feeling of something just around the corner, whether it’s a ghost, a hint of magic, bagpipes drifting through the night, or small details that don’t quite add up. 

This is another book about appreciating differences told with in-your-face humor using a case of mistaken identity. When a chipmunk accuses a hare of being a rabbit, the hare stands up for itself. In doing so, hare describes the traits of a hare versus a jackrabbit. It’s a simple way to show kids the difference between animals that seem alike but are not. Like a turtle and a tortoise. Turns out chipmunk is not who hare thinks he is! A fun way to learn about desert creatures.

I bought this book for my daughter Ellen when she was 3 or 4 years old, and I think I was even more enchanted than she was! It's a wonderfully told and illustrated story about the animals that live in and around the giant saguaro cactuses in the deserts of the USA and Mexico. The pollinators are birds during the day and bats at night, and this book provides a child's-eye view of some of the science. Ellen is now 31...where does the time go?

Children are our future and the ways in which we influence them will have enormous consequences for the fate of our planet, including how we conserve bees, birds, bats, and other pollinators. Books such as this are so important – every child should have access to them, at home, at school, or in public libraries.