universe44 books1893
Start hereThe Jungle Book · Start here
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The Law of the Jungle is older than any animal reciting it, and a naked man-cub who wandered into a wolf den at dusk will have to learn every clause of it. Mowgli grows up between two peoples and belongs entirely to neither — the pack that took him in, Baloo who teaches him the words, Bagheera who bought his life with a bull, Kaa who is the most dangerous friend a boy ever had, and Shere Khan, who has been waiting since the first page. Rudyard Kipling wrote these as two books of stories, and the stories run well past Mowgli. Rikki-Tikki-Tavi fights cobras in a bungalow garden; a white seal searches the ocean for an island where men do not come; Toomai watches the elephants dance where nobody is meant to see them; and the beasts of the army explain, in Her Majesty's Servants, exactly why they obey. Verse runs between the tales, and the Jungle Books have been reissued, excerpted and adapted ever since. The voice is the whole point — biblical cadence, animal dignity, and a hard moral world in which the Law protects you precisely as far as you keep it. Read The Jungle Book first and take the Mowgli stories in their order within it; the rest stand alone and can be picked up in any mood. It is a children's book that never once talks down.
Dan Simmonsstandalone novel1985
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Song of Kali is a horror novel by American writer Dan Simmons, published in 1985. The story deals with an American intellectual who travels to Calcutta, India, where he becomes embroiled in mysterious and horrific events at the centre of which lies a cult of Kapalikas that worships Kali.
Yann Martelstandalone novel2001
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Life of Pi is a Canadian philosophical novel by Yann Martel published in 2001. The protagonist is Piscine Molitor "Pi" Patel, an Indian boy from Pondicherry, who explores issues of spirituality and metaphysics from an early age. After a shipwreck, he survives 227 days while stranded on a lifeboat in the Pacific Ocean with a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker, raising questions about the nature of reality and how it is perceived and told.
Salman Rushdiestandalone novel1975
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After drinking a mysterious fluid that grants him immortality, the young Axona man Flapping Eagle sets out on a centuries-long search for his vanished sister, drifting through identities and eras as the decades pass without aging him. The trail eventually leads him to a hidden dimension reachable through the Mediterranean, and to Calf Island, a refuge for immortals who have grown weary of endless life but cannot bring themselves to give it up, ruled by a strange and rigid order all its own. Salman Rushdie's first novel, an early, genre-inflected departure from the realism of his later, more famous work.
Vaishnavi Patelstandalone novel2022
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Kaikeyi is a 2022 novel, the debut novel by Vaishnavi Patel. The work is a re-imagining of the life of the titular character, who first appeared in the ancient Sanskrit epic, the Ramayana. The character of Kaikeyi has long been vilified for her role in banishing her stepson Rama from the kingdom of Kosala. Patel's novel tells the story from Kaikeyi's perspective.
series3 books2003
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The Brotherhood of the Conch is Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's middle-grade fantasy trilogy: The Conch Bearer (2003), The Mirror of Fire and Dreaming and Shadowland. It follows a boy in Kolkata entrusted with a magical conch shell and drawn into a hidden brotherhood of healers and mystics guarding it from those who would misuse its power. The trilogy follows one continuous quest across its three books, drawing on Indian myth and setting.
Chitra Banerjee Divakarunistandalone novel2008
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The Palace of Illusions: A Novel is a 2008 novel by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, published by Doubleday. The novel is a rendition of the Hindu epic Mahabharata as told from Draupadi's (Panchaali's) viewpoint, namely, that of a woman living in a patriarchal world.
series13 books1954
part of Tolkien's legendarium
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The Lord of the Rings is an epic high fantasy novel written by the English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's book The Hobbit but eventually developed into a much larger work. Written in stages between 1937 and 1949, The Lord of the Rings is one of the best-selling books ever written, with over 150 million copies sold.
series50 books1912
part of Tarzan Universe
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Tarzan is a series of 24 adventure novels written by Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875–1950) and published between 1912 and 1966, followed by several novels either co-written by Burroughs, or officially authorized by his estate. There are also two works written by Burroughs especially for children that are not related to the main series.
series2 books1937
completed
part of Tolkien's legendarium
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The Hobbit (1937) is J. R. R. Tolkien's children's fantasy novel following the reluctant burglar Bilbo Baggins, who joins a company of dwarves and the wizard Gandalf on a journey to reclaim treasure guarded by the dragon Smaug. It stands as a complete adventure on its own, but shares its setting with the rest of Tolkien's legendarium and leads into the events of The Lord of the Rings.
universe112 books1902
Start herePeter Pan · Start here
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Second star to the right, and straight on till morning — and there it is, the island that every child dreams once and then, growing up, contrives to forget. Neverland: mermaids in the lagoon, a ticking crocodile with a clock in its belly, a pirate nursing his severed hand, and above it all the boy who will not grow up, forever flying, forever heartless in the lovely careless way that only children are. It begins with J. M. Barrie — the 1904 stage play, the chapters of Kensington Gardens, and the novel Peter and Wendy that fixed Peter, Wendy, Tinker Bell, Hook and the Lost Boys in place. From that small window a wide world has flown. Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson supply the how-it-all-began in their Starcatchers books, chasing falling starstuff aboard a doomed ship to explain why one orphan came to fly and never age. A whole bright shelf tends Tinker Bell's Pixie Hollow — the Disney Fairies and Fairy Haven tales, Kiki Thorpe's Never Girls — while Heidi Schulz hands the wheel to Hook's own daughter, and stranger, dimmer corners carry the island into far darker weather. Many hands, one archipelago; no single map governs them all. What sets it apart is the sweetness with a blade in it — wonder shadowed always by the ache of leaving, of mothers who keep the window open and children who fly home too late. Newcomers should begin where it began, with Barrie's Peter and Wendy, then, for the origin, take the Starcatchers books in their own order. The rest of Neverland waits, as it always does, for whoever still remembers how to reach it.
series26 books1950
part of Narnia Universe
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The Chronicles of Narnia is a series of seven portal fantasy novels by British author C. S. Lewis. Illustrated by Pauline Baynes and originally published between 1950 and 1956, the series is set in the fictional realm of Narnia, a fantasy world of magic, mythical beasts, and talking animals. It narrates the adventures of various children who play central roles in the unfolding history of the Narnian world. Except in The Horse and His Boy, the protagonists are all children from the real world who are magically transported to Narnia, where they are sometimes called upon by the lion Aslan to protect Narnia from evil. The books span the entire history of Narnia, from its creation in The Magician's Nephew to its eventual destruction in The Last Battle.
series18 books1964
completed
part of Earthsea
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The Earthsea Cycle, also known as Earthsea, is a series of high fantasy books written by American author Ursula K. Le Guin. Beginning with A Wizard of Earthsea (1968), The Tombs of Atuan (1970), and The Farthest Shore (1972), the series was continued in Tehanu (1990), and Tales from Earthsea and The Other Wind. In 2018, all the novels and short stories were published in a single volume, The Books of Earthsea: The Complete Illustrated Edition, with artwork by Charles Vess.
series11 books1962
completed
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The Time Quintet is a science fantasy series of five young adult novels written by American author Madeleine L'Engle and made up of A Wrinkle in Time (1962), A Wind in the Door (1973), A Swiftly Tilting Planet (1978), Many Waters (1986), and An Acceptable Time (1989).