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Built on ISFDB, Wikipedia, Wikidata and Open Library. Curated reading orders carry their reasoning on the page; the rest follow publication order. Data sources & licenses

© Loreful · data: ISFDB · CC BY

More like Polly!

anchored on:fantasyour worldcontemporarywhimsicalhumoridentity+1 more

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Mood

The mood the book leaves you in.

  • The reading experience is propelled by journeys, exploration, and physical risk; excitement and forward momentum dominate over dread or introspection.
  • Joy and loss are deliberately mixed; the resolution grants characters something real while taking something else away, leaving warmth and sorrow together.
  • The book demands work from the reader — dense prose, difficult structure, unfamiliar ideas, or morally uncomfortable material — as part of its intended effect.
  • Grim events, cruelty, or despair dominate the atmosphere, and the book does not soften them with comfort or comic relief.
  • The atmosphere is quietly unsettling — wrongness, unease, and the uncanny pervade the book without necessarily escalating into overt horror.
  • The book is built to move the reader; character feeling is foregrounded and major scenes aim at a strong emotional response.
  • Humor is a primary aim and the prose plays for laughs — comic situations, wit, or dialogue produce sustained comedy, not occasional levity.
  • The book insists that things can improve; effort and decency are shown to matter, and the arc bends toward better outcomes even through hardship.
  • The book teaches as it goes — real facts, history, science, or craft are conveyed in enough depth that learning is part of the reading experience.
  • The book is designed to uplift and motivate, presenting perseverance or achievement in a way that invites the reader to aspire or act.
  • The overall register is cheerful and easygoing; stakes are kept gentle and the book avoids dwelling on pain or dread.
  • Withheld information drives the experience; the book sustains enigmas and secrets the reader wants resolved, whatever its genre.
  • The book is contemplative and inward-looking, giving more weight to thought, memory, and meaning than to external events.
  • The book works as comfort reading — low tension, a soothing pace, and an atmosphere the reader can unwind in.
  • Grief, loss, or melancholy set the dominant register, and the book lets sorrow stand rather than resolving it into comfort.
  • Sustained suspense is the point; the book keeps the reader braced for what happens next through danger, pressure, or impending revelation.
  • Playful invention and charm define the register — fanciful conceits, light absurdity, and a narration that delights in its own oddity.

About

What the story runs on.

  • Stories in which extraterrestrial beings are central — as characters, cultures, or the object of the plot.
  • Stories structured as a quest — a journey undertaken to find, deliver, or destroy something of great import.
  • Stories in which staying alive against nature, catastrophe, or scarcity is the central problem.
  • Stories of lovers kept apart by law, family, faith, or station, where the obstacle to love is the plot.
  • Stories in which a friendship — its making, testing, or loss — is the emotional center.
  • Stories of growing up — a young protagonist crossing from childhood into adult knowledge and responsibility.
  • Stories about who a character truly is — self-discovery, doubled lives, and the search for a self.
  • Stories about mourning — living through the death of a loved one and what loss does to the survivors.
  • Stories in which a buried family truth — hidden parentage, crimes, or shames — surfaces and reorders the present.
  • Stories driven by maneuvering for power — factions, conspiracies, and statecraft conducted in shadow.
  • Stories in which war itself is the subject — combat, occupation, and what warfare does to soldiers and civilians.
  • Stories organized around investigating a killing — the case, the clues, and the pursuit of the killer, in any genre's clothing.

Shelf

Where it sits in the library.

    • Fiction built on magic or other supernatural elements that have no scientific explanation.
    • Secondary-world fantasy at large scale, where the fate of nations or the world turns on the protagonists' struggle.
    • Fantasy set in a recognizably modern city or contemporary world where the supernatural intrudes on everyday life.
    • Fantasy that blends in horror's atmosphere and imagery, keeping a fantastical frame around grim or frightening material.
    • Action-driven fantasy following warriors or rogues with personal stakes against sorcerous threats, rather than world-spanning conflicts.
    • Fantasy set in a real historical period or a close analogue of one, with magic woven into the era.
    • Fantasy in which protagonists cross from the ordinary world into another world through a portal or similar passage.
    • Fiction that retells or reworks a traditional fairy tale in a new form or setting.
    • Fantasy drawing directly on myths, legends, and folklore, retelling them or building on their figures and logic.
    • Fantasy of ghosts, vampires, shapeshifters, psychics, and similar phenomena, usually set in an otherwise ordinary world.
    • Fiction mixing science-fictional trappings with overtly magical or impossible elements in one setting.
    • Low-stakes fantasy emphasizing comfort, community, and everyday pleasures over conflict and peril.
    • Speculative fiction of pervasive moral ambiguity, violence, and cynicism that rejects heroic conventions — fantasy and SF alike.
      • Fiction that extrapolates from science and technology — future societies, space travel, or speculative inventions — within at least nominally natural laws.
      • Science fiction of interstellar scope — starships, galactic polities, and adventure across star systems.
      • Science fiction committed to scientific rigor, where technical plausibility constrains the story.
      • Science fiction centered on armed forces and warfare, told largely from a military point of view.
      • Science fiction of networked, corporate-dominated near futures, pairing high technology with social decay.
      • Science fiction styled on nineteenth-century steam-powered technology, often in a Victorian or pseudo-Victorian setting.
      • Fiction depicting an oppressive or catastrophic society, presented as a warning.
      • Fiction set after civilization's collapse, following survivors in the ruins of the old world.
      • Fiction in which characters move between past and future, and the mechanics or consequences of that travel drive the plot.
      • Fiction exploring a world where a historical event went differently and history diverged from ours.
      • Science fiction about humanity's first encounter and communication with an alien intelligence.
      • Science fiction in which extraterrestrial forces attack or occupy Earth and humanity resists.
      • Fiction whose primary aim is to frighten or unsettle the reader through dread, menace, or the monstrous.
      • Horror of vast, indifferent, incomprehensible entities before which humanity is insignificant, in the Lovecraft tradition.
      • Horror of decaying houses, buried family secrets, and oppressive atmosphere in the Gothic literary tradition.
      • Horror centered on hauntings and the returning dead.
      • Horror located in the mind — paranoia, obsession, and unreliable perception rather than external monsters.
      • Horror built around the reanimated dead and survival amid their outbreaks.
      • Horror defined by explicit, transgressive gore that refuses to cut away from violence.
      • Speculative fiction of the strange and uncanny that resists both natural explanation and standard genre categories.
      • Fiction organized around solving a crime or puzzle, typically following an investigator toward the identification of a culprit.
      • A puzzle-first mystery that lays out clues so the culprit's identity can be deduced before the reveal.
      • Crime fiction of moral ambiguity, fatalism, and hard-edged style, set among the corrupt and the doomed.
      • A mystery following the realistic routines of police work — forensics, interviews, and case-building.
      • A gentle mystery with an amateur sleuth, a small community, and violence kept off the page.
      • A mystery set in a past era, where the investigation works within that period's methods and society.
      • Fast-paced fiction driven by imminent danger, pursuit, or high-stakes conspiracy, built to sustain tension.
      • A thriller of espionage — agents, tradecraft, and intelligence services in conflict.
      • A thriller centered on lawyers and the courtroom, where litigation carries the suspense.
      • A thriller driven by detailed contemporary or near-future technology, often military or scientific.
      • A thriller whose tension comes from mental states and manipulation between characters rather than external action.
      • Fiction whose central plot is a romantic relationship and its development toward an emotionally satisfying resolution.
      • Romance in which one or both partners are supernatural beings, blending fantasy elements into the love story.
      • A fantasy-romance hybrid in which the romantic arc and the fantasy plot carry equal weight.
      • Romance set in a past era, with courtship shaped by the period's society and manners.
      • Romance set in the present day, without supernatural or historical elements.
      • Fiction set in a real past period, where the historical setting materially shapes characters and events.
        • General and literary fiction emphasizing prose style, character interiority, or formal ambition over genre plot conventions.
        • Fiction in a realistic world where magical events occur and are treated as ordinary, in the tradition of Latin American literature.
        • Fiction that ridicules people, institutions, or society in order to criticize them.
        • Fiction of dreamlike, irrational imagery and logic that breaks from realistic representation.
        • Fiction that plays with narrative convention through metafiction, fragmentation, and self-reference.
        • Fiction propelled by journeys, exploration, and physical peril, where action and survival carry the plot.
        • Adventure fiction of ships and seafaring — naval engagements, voyages, and life at sea.
        • Fiction of the American frontier West — gunmen, ranchers, and lawmen, typically in the late nineteenth century.
        • Fiction centered on soldiers, campaigns, and the experience of warfare, historical or imagined.
          • Fiction written primarily to amuse, using comedic situations, wit, or parody as its organizing principle.
            • Multi-generational fiction following a family or dynasty across decades, with inheritance and kinship as the through-line.
              • Fiction whose world runs on explicit game mechanics — levels, stats, and skills that characters can see and exploit.
                • Fiction about costumed or superpowered heroes and their conflicts with comparable villains.

                Practical

                How long a commitment, whether it stands alone, and whether it has finished.

                Tap a chip to ask for it · tap again to rule it out · once more to clear. Numbers show what would be left.

                • Cover of The Starless Sea
                  The Starless Sea

                  Erin Morgenstern · standalone novel · 2019

                  similar byidentitywhimsicalcontemporaryfantasyour world

                  The Starless Sea is a 2019 speculative fiction novel by Erin Morgenstern. It is her second book, following the best-selling The Night Circus, which was published in 2011. The novel reached number three on The New York Times Best Seller list, and was also a Los Angeles Times and Sunday Times bestseller.

                • Cover of Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town
                  Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town

                  Cory Doctorow · standalone novel · 2005

                  similar byidentitywhimsicalcontemporaryour worldfantasyurban fantasy

                  Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town is a contemporary fantasy novel by Canadian author Cory Doctorow. It was published in May 2005, concurrently released on the Internet under a Creative Commons license, free for download in several formats including ASCII and PDF. It is Doctorow's third novel.

                • Cover of Coyote Blue
                  Coyote Blue

                  Christopher Moore · standalone novel · 1994

                  similar byidentitywhimsicalcontemporaryfantasyhumor

                  Coyote Blue is a novel by American writer Christopher Moore, published in 1994. It has been widely reviewed.

                • Cover of All the Crooked Saints
                  All the Crooked Saints

                  Maggie Stiefvater · standalone novel · 2017

                  similar byidentitywhimsicalcontemporaryfantasyour worlddesert

                  *Here is a thing everyone wants: A miracle.* *Here is a thing everyone fears: What it takes to get one.* Any visitor to Bicho Raro, Colorado is likely to find a landscape of dark saints, forbidden love, scientific dreams, miracle-mad owls, estranged affections, one or two orphans, and a sky full of watchful desert stars. At the heart of this place you will find the Soria family, who all have the ability to perform unusual miracles. And at the heart of this family are three cousins longing to change its future: Beatriz, the girl without feelings, who wants only to be free to examine her thoughts; Daniel, the Saint of Bicho Raro, who performs miracles for everyone but himself; and Joaquin, who spends his nights running a renegade radio station under the name Diablo Diablo. They are all looking for a miracle. But the miracles of Bicho Raro are never quite what you expect.

                • Cover of Black and Blue Magic
                  Black and Blue Magic

                  Zilpha Keatley Snyder · standalone novel · 1966

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                  Twelve-year-old Harry Houdini Marco is awkward and clumsy, bearing little resemblance to his magician namesake, until he acquires the gift of flight.

                • Cover of Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon
                  Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon

                  Wole Talabi · standalone novel · 2023

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                  Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon is a 2023 novel by Wole Talabi, the author's debut novel. The novel won the 2024 Nommo Award for Best Novel. It was a finalist for the Crawford Award and the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel.

                • Cover of Miss Meteor
                  Miss Meteor

                  Anna-Marie McLemore & Tehlor Kay Mejia · standalone novel · 2020

                  similar byidentitywhimsicalcontemporaryfantasyour world

                  Miss Meteor is a 2020 young adult fantasy novel by Tehlor Kay Mejia and Anna-Marie McLemore.

                • Cover of American Gods
                  American Gods

                  series · 10 books · 1999

                  similar bycontemporaryfantasyour world+3 more

                  Neil Gaiman's American Gods (2001) follows Shadow Moon, an ex-convict who takes a job as bodyguard to a mysterious drifter who is secretly the Norse god Odin, and is drawn into a brewing conflict between the old immigrant gods of myth and the new gods of media, technology, and modern American life. Gaiman's 2005 novel Anansi Boys is set in the same mythological world and shares the trickster god Mr. Nancy, but follows a different protagonist and story, making it a loose companion rather than a direct sequel.

                • Cover of The Bear Went Over the Mountain
                  The Bear Went Over the Mountain

                  William Kotzwinkle · standalone novel · 1996

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                  The Bear Went Over the Mountain is a 1996 novel by American author William Kotzwinkle. The movie rights for the book were optioned to the Jim Henson Company.

                • Cover of Peaces
                  Peaces

                  Helen Oyeyemi · standalone novel · 2021

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                  Peaces is a 2021 novel by Helen Oyeyemi. The novel takes place on a train with several passengers.

                • Cover of Gingerbread
                  Gingerbread

                  Helen Oyeyemi · standalone novel · 2019

                  similar byidentitywhimsicalcontemporaryfantasyour world

                  Gingerbread is a 2019 novel by Helen Oyeyemi.

                • Cover of Still Life with Woodpecker
                  Still Life with Woodpecker

                  Tom Robbins · standalone novel · 1980

                  similar byidentitywhimsicalcontemporaryour world

                  WorldCat: Still Life with Woodpecker is a sort of a love story that takes place inside a pack of Camel cigarettes. It reveals the purpose of the moon, explains the difference between criminals and outlaws, examines the conflict between social activism and romantic individualism, and paints a portrait of contemporary society that includes powerful Arabs, exiled royalty, and pregnant cheerleaders. It also deals with the problem of redheads.

                • Cover of Stuart Little
                  Stuart Little

                  E. B. White · standalone novel · 1945

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                  Stuart Little is a 1945 American children's novel by E. B. White. It was White's first children's book, and became recognized as a classic in children's literature. Stuart Little was illustrated by the artist Garth Williams, also his first work for children.

                • Cover of The Prince of Butterflies
                  The Prince of Butterflies

                  Bruce Coville · standalone novel · 2002

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                  When surrounded by thousands of butterflies, eleven-year-old John becomes transformed into one of them and finds his entire life altered because of this experience.

                • Cover of Nothing But Blue Skies
                  Nothing But Blue Skies

                  Tom Holt · standalone novel · 2001

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                  Nothing But Blue Skies is a humorous fantasy novel by English author Tom Holt. It was first published in the UK by Orbit Books in 2001.

                • Cover of James and the Giant Peach
                  James and the Giant Peach

                  Roald Dahl · standalone novel · 1961

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                  James and the Giant Peach is a children's novel written in 1961 by British author Roald Dahl. The first edition, published by Alfred Knopf, featured illustrations by Nancy Ekholm Burkert. There have been re-illustrated versions of it over the years, drawn by Michael Simeon, Emma Chichester Clark, Lane Smith and Quentin Blake. It was adapted into a film of the same name in 1996 which was directed by Henry Selick, and a musical in 2010.

                • Cover of Or What You Will
                  Or What You Will

                  Jo Walton · standalone novel · 2020

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                  Or What You Will is a 2020 metafictional fantasy novel by Jo Walton, about immortality and creativity. It was first published by Tor Books.

                • Cover of The Puppy Sister
                  The Puppy Sister

                  S. E. Hinton · standalone novel · 1995

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                  The Puppy Sister is a 1995 children's novella written by American writer S. E. Hinton and illustrated by Jacqueline Rogers. The story revolves around Aleasha, a tricolor Australian Shepherd puppy who realises that the only way to really feel like a member of her new family is to become human. Aleasha begins a gradual, physical transformation from puppy to human child, trying to get used to both her new outward appearance as well as the struggle to actually feel more human. The story is based on her real life dog (Aleasha) and son's (Nick) relationship.

                • Cover of Charlie (Roald Dahl)
                  Charlie (Roald Dahl)

                  series · 6 books · 1964

                  completed

                  similar bywhimsicalcontemporaryfantasyour world

                • Cover of Fluke
                  Fluke

                  James Herbert · standalone novel · 1977

                  similar byidentitycontemporaryfantasyour world

                  A dog named Fluke is barely more than a puppy when fragments of a life that isn't his own surface in his mind -- memories of a wife, a daughter, a job, an entire human existence he can't reconcile with the body he's now living in. Driven by those memories, Fluke sets out to find the family he half-remembers, aided by Rumbo, another dog going through the same impossible transformation. James Herbert follows the journey from a dog's-eye view of the world, using Fluke's confusion and determination to ask what, if anything, survives of a person after death. A standalone novel by James Herbert, better known for straightforward horror.

                • Cover of The Mouse with the Question Mark Tail
                  The Mouse with the Question Mark Tail

                  Richard Peck · standalone novel · 2013

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                  The Mouse with the Question Mark Tail is a 2013 children's novel written by Richard Peck and illustrated Kelly Murphy. The book is set in the same universe as Secrets at Sea. The novel is suitable as reading for grades four through six.

                • Cover of Mennyms
                  Mennyms

                  series · 5 books · 1993

                  completed

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                • Cover of The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane
                  The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

                  Kate DiCamillo · standalone novel · 2006

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                  The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane is a 2006 children's novel by American author Kate DiCamillo and illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline. Following the life of a china rabbit, the book won the 2006 Boston Globe-Horn Book Award in the Fiction category. Scholarly readings of this novel have examined the work from the lens of spirituality and Christian religious studies, human development, and clinical psychology.

                • Cover of The Midnight World
                  The Midnight World

                  series · 2 books · 2020

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