Magical Realism

Magical realism books are often set in the real world, introducing a bit of 'magic' into the tale.

1. Garden Spells- Sarah Addison Allen

   Readers said:
   "light and enchanting romance", "finding where you belong", "faint magical pieces", "love and romance"
    

   In a garden surrounded by a tall fence, tucked away behind a small, quiet house in an even smaller town, is an apple tree that is rumored to bear a very special sort of fruit. In this luminous debut novel, Sarah Addison Allen tells the story of that enchanted tree, and the extraordinary people who tend it.…
   The Waverleys have always been a curious family, endowed with peculiar gifts that make them outsiders even in their hometown of Bascom, North Carolina. Even their garden has a reputation, famous for its feisty apple tree that bears prophetic fruit, and its edible flowers, imbued with special powers. Generations of Waverleys tended this garden. Their history was in the soil. But so wer ...Read More

2. One Hundred Years of Solitude- Gabriel Garcia Marquez

   Readers said:
   "exotic, epical style", "fantastic and abusurdist elements", "originality and creativity", "latin american magic realism"
    

   "One Hundred Years of Solitude is the first piece of literature since the Book of Genesis that should be required reading for the entire human race. . . . Mr. Garcia Marquez has done nothing less than to create in the reader a sense of all that is profound, meaningful, and meaningless in life." -William Kennedy, New York Times Book Review
   One of the most influential literary works of our time, One Hundred Years of Solitude remains a dazzling and original achievement by the masterful Gabriel Garcia Marquez, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature.
   One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the story of the rise and fall, birth and death of the mythical town of Macondo through the histor ...Read More

3. Kafka on the Shore- Haruki Murakami

   Readers said:
   "part allegory, part fantasy", "thought-provoking and different", "patented magical realism", "hoshino's character progression"
    

   Kafka on the Shore displays one of the world's great storytellers at the peak of his powers.
   Here we meet a teenage boy, Kafka Tamura, who is on the run, and Nakata, an aging simpleton who is drawn to Kafka for reasons that he cannot fathom. As their paths converge, acclaimed author Haruki Murakami enfolds readers in a world where cats talk, fish fall from the sky, and spirits slip out of their bodies to make love or commit murder, in what is a truly remarkable journey. ...Read More

4. Practical Magic- Alice Hoffman

   Readers said:
   "omniscient point of view", "the magic of life", "lovely and rich", "beautiful and moving"
    

   Alice Hoffman's enchanting witch's brew of suspense, romance and magic -- now a major motion picture from Warner Bros.
   When the beautiful and precocious sisters Sally and Gillian Owens are orphaned at a young age, they are taken to a small Massachusetts town to be raised by their eccentric aunts, who happen to dwell in the darkest, eeriest house in town. As they become more aware of their aunts' mysterious and sometimes frightening powers -- and as their own powers begin to surface -- the sisters grow determined to escape their strange upbringing by blending into "normal" society.
   But both find that they cannot elude their magic-filled past. And when trouble strikes -- in the for ...Read More

5. The Night Circus- Erin Morgenstern

   Readers said:
   "magical circus exhibitions", "almost dreamlike quality", "style over substance", "non-linear plot line"
    

   The circus arrives without warning. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Against the grey sky the towering tents are striped black and white. A sign hanging upon iron gates reads:
   Opens at Nightfall
   Closes at Dawn
   As dusk shifts to twilight, tiny lights begin to flicker all over the tents, as though the whole circus is covered in fireflies. When the tents are aglow, sparkling against the night sky, the sign lights up:
   Le Cirque des Rêves
   The Circus of Dreams
   The gates shudder and unlock, seemingly by their own volition.
   They swing outward, inviting the crowd inside.
   Now the circus is open.
   Now you may enter.
   Discover this amazing f ...Read More

6. The House of the Spirits- Isabel Allende

   Readers said:
   "mental and physical oppression", "intricate and compelling", "rich and imaginative", "very descriptive and vivid"
    

   Chilean writer Isabel Allende's classic novel is both a richly symbolic family saga and the riveting story of an unnamed Latin American country's turbulent history.
   In a triumph of magic realism, Allende constructs a spirit-ridden world and fills it with colorful and all-too-human inhabitants. The Trueba family's passions, struggles, and secrets span three generations and a century of violent social change, culminating in a crisis that brings the proud and tyrannical patriarch and his beloved granddaughter to opposite sides of the barricades. Against a backdrop of revolution and counterrevolution, Allende brings to life a family whose private bonds of love and hatred are more complex and ...Read More

7. Like Water for Chocolate- Laura Esquivel

   Readers said:
   "strangeness and uniqueness", "romantic and mysterious", "mexican folk tale", "magical realism fairytale style"
    

   The bestselling phenomenon and inspiration for the award-winning film.
   Earthy, magical, and utterly charming, this tale of family life in turn-of-the-century Mexico blends poignant romance and bittersweet wit.
   This classic love story takes place on the De la Garza ranch, as the tyrannical owner, Mama Elena, chops onions at the kitchen table in her final days of pregnancy. While still in her mother's womb, her daughter to be weeps so violently she causes an early labor, and little Tita slips out amid the spices and fixings for noodle soup. This early encounter with food soon becomes a way of life, and Tita grows up to be a master chef, using cooking to express herself and sharing rec ...Read More

8. Love in the Time of Cholera- Gabriel Garcia Marquez

   Readers said:
   "lush and beautiful", "lovely and descriptive", "dense, poetic, and romantic", "third person flashbacks"
    

   A poignant meditation on the nature of desire, and the enduring power of love, Gabriel García Márquez's Love in the Time of Cholera is translated from the Spanish by Edith Grossman in Penguin Modern Classics.
   Florentino Ariza is a hopeless romantic who falls passionately for the beautiful Fermina Daza, but finds his love tragically rejected. Instead Fermina marriesdistinguished doctor Juvenal Urbino, while Florentino can only wait silently for her. He can never forget his first and only true love. Then, fifty-one years, nine months and four days later, Fermina's husband dies unexpectedly. At last Florentino has another chance to declare his feelings and discover if a passion that has end ...Read More

9. The Time Traveler's Wife- Audrey Niffenegger

   Readers said:
   "clear and straightforward", "separation, loneliness, waiting", "detailed and realistic", "love, loneliness, and loss"
    

   *A People Top Ten Book of the Year* The beloved, mega bestselling first novel from Audrey Niffenegger, "a soaring celebration of the victory of love over time" (Chicago Tribune).
   A most untraditional love story, this is the celebrated tale of Henry DeTamble, a dashing, adventuresome librarian who inadvertently travels through time, and Clare Abshire, an artist whose life takes a natural sequential course. Henry and Clare's passionate affair endures across a sea of time and captures them in an impossibly romantic trap that tests the strength of fate and basks in the bonds of love. "Niffenegger's inventive and poignant writing is well worth a trip" (Entertainment Weekly). ...Read More

10. The Sugar Queen- Sarah Addison Allen

    Readers said:
    "easy and enjoyable", "pure southern magic", "a southern romance", "whimsical and charming"
     

    NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
    In this irresistible novel, Sarah Addison Allen, author of the bestselling debut, Garden Spells, tells the tale of a young woman whose family secrets-and secret passions-are about to change her life forever.
    Brimming with warmth, wit, and a sprinkling of magic, here is a spellbinding tale of friendship, love-and the enchanting possibilities of every new day.
    Praise for The Sugar Queen
    "Like the most decadently addictive bonbons, once started, Allen's magically entrancing novel is impossible to put down."-Booklist (starred review)
    "Bewitching . . . Such a pleasurable book."-Publishers Weekly ...Read More

See all the books and more recommendations at  https://www.meetnewbooks.com/find-books/magical-realism

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