Fantasy

Even if you’re not a math geek, you’re probably familiar with the algebraist Charles Dodgson — you just know him his much more famous alter-ego, Lewis Carroll. Unlike Dodgson, Carroll wrote stories that defied logic, twisting it into dreamlike, fantastical shapes: a hookah-smoking caterpillar, a flamingo-filled croquet-ground, a perpetually tardy White Rabbit.

When the four Pevensie siblings leave bomb-ravaged London to wait out World War II in the countryside, they discover a portal to the magical land of Narnia behind a pile of fur coats. But their magical new vacation spot suffers from bad leadership: it’s governed by a witch whose only policy decisions are about ensuring eternal winter with no Christmas cheer.

On a dense cluster of islands, inhabited by dragons and raised out of the water by a god, master fantasist Ursula K. Le Guin spins out elegant, character-driven tales, enriched by her knowledge of world mythology. Her first installment in the Earthsea series, A Wizard of Earthsea, is a bildungsroman of the old school, albeit enlivened with wizardry: a magical coming-of-age that treats hefty themes like death, the environment, and cosmic balance — all with Le Guin’s characteristically deft touch.

Like fellow multimedia phenomenon The Princess Bride, The Neverending Story uses a framework narrative to reflect on the power of, well, stories. The title refers to a book within the book: an antique volume unearthed by a boy called Bastian, an outsider at odds with schoolyard bullies and a distant father. As he reads — with us peering over his shoulder — Bastian is literally pulled into the story of Fantastica, a magical realm ruled by an immortal Childlike Empress.

If you need a summary of this book, you’ve been living under a rock for the past few decades. Love them or hate them, the Harry Potter series has shaped millennials more than any other media phenomena, creating a generation of bookworms inclined to question authority. The Boy Who Lived is now approaching middle-age — canonically born in 1980, he's just about 40 now. But as the book that kickstarted his literary career, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone remains as influential as ever, with Hogwarts houses being as legitimate a source of identity as zodiac signs.