The best magical realism books

When aspiring violinist Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman lands a job with a professional ensemble in New York City, she imagines she has achieved her lifelong dream. But the ensemble proves to be a sham. When the group “performs,” the microphones are never on. Instead, the music blares from a CD. The mastermind behind this scheme is a peculiar and mysterious figure known as The Composer, who is gaslighting his audiences with music that sounds suspiciously like the Titanic movie soundtrack. On tour with his chaotic ensemble, Hindman spirals into crises of identity and disillusionment as she “plays” for audiences genuinely moved by the performance, unable to differentiate real from fake.

Sounds Like Titanic is a surreal, often hilarious coming-of-age story. Written with precise, candid prose and sharp insight into ambition and gender.

While landscaping his backyard, ever-conscientious Paul Prentice discovers an iron door buried in the soil. His childhood friend and perpetual source of mischief, Jay Lightsey, pushes them to explore what's beneath. When the door slams shut above them, Paul and Jay are trapped in a between-worlds place of Escher-like rooms and horror story monsters, all with a mysterious connection to a command-line, dungeon explorer computer game from the early '80s called The Between.

Paul and Jay find themselves filling roles in a story that seems to play out over and over again. But in this world, where their roles warp their minds, the biggest threat to survival may not be the Koŝmaro, risen from the Between's depths to hunt them; the biggest danger may be each other.

A family of luck poachers receives a phone call that sets them off in the hopes of reversing their bad fortune. At a singles mixer for chemical elements, a luminous-yet-jaded Neon looks for love, or at least a one-night exothermic reaction. When blue skies turn gray and the daikaiju siren blares, the ten-year-old daughter of the local weatherman discovers her destiny. And washed-up evildoers live out their meaningless lives at a retirement home for villains—you never know when someone might turn the swimming pool into a shark pit. Or bring a death ray to Taco Tuesday.

Lost Creatures contains fourteen tales that blend fantasy, science fiction, magical realism, dark comedy, and social satire.

Being pretty much retired, well-off, active, lively, sociable, a frequent traveler, and based at an age-friendly community for similar free spirits in lovely Scotland, had been great for Edge and her friends: and then along came Covid19. After months of Katryn's draconian restrictions, with Christmas 2020 closing in, it wasn't surprising that boredom was driving the neighbors nuts. Are they imagining things, though, or was there really something off-kilter at Grasshopper Lawns?

Thirteen-year-old Claire is a science-minded girl who has deep concerns about her brother who is away fighting in the Iraq War. When her quirky and estranged grandmother comes to live with her, Claire is even more uneasy—especially since the elderly woman believes in fairies. In fact, they are nearly all she talks about. However, it's through Grandma Faye's stories of being a thirteen-year-old in Dallas, Texas in the 1920s that teaches Claire about love, growing up, and the importance of believing in things only seen with her heart.

Wait for God to Notice is a memoir about growing up in Uganda. It is also a memoir about mothers and daughters and about how children both know and don’t know their parents. As teens, Fordham and her sister, Sonja, consider their mother overly cautious. After their mother dies of cancer, the author begins to wonder who her mother really was. As she recalls her childhood in Uganda―the way her mother killed snakes, sweet-talked soldiers, and sold goods on the black market―Fordham understands that the legacy her mother left her daughters is one of courage and capability.

Weaving Eastern beliefs and perspectives with Western realities and pragmatism, Guesthouse for Ganesha is a tale of love, loss, and spirit reclaimed.

In 1923, 17-year-old Esther Grünspan arrives in Köln “with a hardened heart as her sole luggage,” Thus begins a 22-year journey, woven against the backdrops of the European Holocaust and Hindu Kali Yuga (“Age of Darkness”), in search of sanctuary. Throughout her travails, Esther relies on her masterful tailoring skills to help mask her Jewish heritage, navigate war-torn Europe, and emigrate to India. Her traveling companion and the novel’s narrator is Ganesha, the beloved elephant-headed Hindu God. Impressed by Esther’s fortitude and relentless determination, born of her deep―though unconscious―understanding of the meaning of love, Ganesha conveys her journey with compassion, insight, and poetry.

Years later, Raqi is a successful partner at a law firm in Los Angeles. She gets a call from Billy, the leader of the Lawless. Dodge is dead, and Billy wants her to go on the Grieving Ride. There is no way Raqi would ever attend, except for one thing: Billy promises to give her the address of her grandfather if she goes.

Bonaventure Arrow didn’t make a peep when he was born, and the doctor nearly took him for dead. No one knew that his silence was filled with resonance—a miraculous gift of rarefied hearing that encompasses the Universe of Every Single Sound. He can hear flowers grow, a thousand shades of blue, and the miniature tempests that rage inside raindrops. Then one day he hears the voice of his father, who’d been shot dead by a crazy man known only as the Wanderer before Bonaventure was even born. This special little boy would find the key to buried mysteries and soothe a chorus of family secrets that were clamoring to be healed.

Frances Tarantino has felt her mother's spirit by her side ever since the woman's tragic death. Fran's mother sends beautiful ladybugs to land on her dress whenever she feels lonely or afraid. And on those rare occasions when Fran misbehaves, her mother disciplines her. As Fran falls in love for the first time, she learns how dangerous a parent's discipline can be.

Fran's grand aunt, Aurora Ciconne, vowed never to take another husband when she became widowed at twenty-two. And now, at fifty-eight, Aurora insists she does not need a man. But in secret, she has always been a bride. When Fran develops their family's gift of sight, Aurora searches for a way to free them both from the diabolical enslavement they can speak of to no one else.