Magical Realism

Dive into a world where the extraordinary blends into the everyday with this week's Midweek Reads selection of magical realism!

Updated March 5, 2025
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One hundred years of solitude.
Garcia Marquez, Gabriel, 1928-
Paper Book
Now a Netflix original series! "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. . . . García Márquez has done nothing less than to create in the reader a sense of all that is profound,...
Violeta : a novel
Allende, Isabel
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * This sweeping novel from the author of A Long Petal of the Sea tells the epic story of Violeta Del Valle, a woman whose life spans one hundred years and bears witness to the greatest upheavals of the twentieth century. "An immersive saga...
Vampires in the lemon grove : stories.
Russell, Karen, 1981-
Paper Book
From the author of the New York Times best seller Swamplandia!--a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize--a magical new collection of stories that showcases Karen Russell's gifts at their inimitable best. A dejected teenager discovers that the universe is communicating with...
Quichotte.
Rushdie, Salman
Paper Book
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE Quichotte is a love story of profound tenderness and humanity from a great storyteller at his brilliant best. Wise, beautifully written, as heartbreaking as it is wildly comic, its characters unforgettable, its plot dazzlingly suspenseful, it...
A tale for the time being.
Ozeki, Ruth L.
Paper Book
A brilliant, unforgettable, and long-awaited novel from bestselling author Ruth Ozeki "A time being is someone who lives in time, and that means you, and me, and every one of us who is, or was, or ever will be." In Tokyo, sixteen-year-old Nao has decided there's only one escape from...
The wind knows my name : a novel
Allende, Isabel
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * "The lives of a Jewish boy escaping Nazi-occupied Europe and a mother and daughter fleeing twenty-first-century El Salvador intersect in this ambitious, intricate novel about war and immigration" (People), from the author of A Long Petal of the Sea and...
The golden house.
Rushdie, Salman
Paper Book
One of the truly great writers of the century reaches beyond the very top of his game in this uncannily timely knockout of a novel. In quality and compelling scope, this is Rushdie's The Godfather meets The Great Gatsby--an unparalleled modern-day American thriller,...
The book of form and emptiness.
Ozeki, Ruth L.
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION NATIONAL BESTSELLER A brilliantly inventive new novel about loss, growing up, and our relationship with things, by the Booker Prize-finalist author of A Tale for the Time Being One year after the death...
The bear and the nightingale : a novel
Arden, Katherine
Paper Book
Katherine Arden's bestselling debut novel spins an irresistible spell as it announces the arrival of a singular talent with a gorgeous voice.   "A beautiful deep-winter story, full of magic and monsters and the sharp edges of growing up."--Naomi Novik, bestselling...
The wind-up bird chronicle.
Murakami, Haruki, 1949-
Paper Book
A "dreamlike and compelling" tour de force (Chicago Tribune)--an astonishingly imaginative detective story, an account of a disintegrating marriage, and an excavation of the buried secrets from Japan's forgotten campaign in Manchuria during World War II. Now with a new...
The midnight library
Haig, Matt
Paper Book
An instant New York Times bestsellerA GOOD MORNING AMERICA Book Club Pick Between life and death there is a library, and within that library, the shelves go on forever. Every book provides a chance to try another life you could have lived. To see how things would be if you had...
When we were birds.
Banwo, Ayanna Lloyd
Paper Book
A mythic love story set in Trinidad & Tobago, Ayanna Lloyd Banwo's radiant debut introduces two unforgettable outsiders brought together by their connection with the dead. In the old house on a hill, where the city meets the rainforest, Yejide's mother is dying. She is...
Garden spells
Allen, Sarah Addison.
Paper Book
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...
Vanessa Yu's magical Paris tea shop
Lim, Roselle
Paper Book
From the critically acclaimed author of Natalie Tan's Book of Luck and Fortune comes a new delightful novel about exploring all the magical possibilities of life in the most extraordinary city of all: Paris.   Vanessa Yu never wanted to see people's fortunes-...
Klara and the sun.
Ishiguro, Kazuo, 1954-
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER LONGLISTED FOR THE 2021 BOOKER PRIZE NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE GLOBE AND MAIL, THE GUARDIAN, ESQUIRE, VOGUE, TIME, THE WASHINGTON POST, THE TIMES (UK),...
Peaces.
Oyeyemi, Helen
Paper Book
*SHORTLISTED FOR THE GOLDSMITHS PRIZE 2022* The prize-winning, bestselling author of Gingerbread; Boy, Snow, Bird; and What is Not Yours is Not Yours returns with a vivid and inventive new novel about a couple forever changed by an unusual train voyage.<...
A long petal of the sea : a novel
Allende, Isabel
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * From the author of The House of the Spirits, this epic novel spanning decades and crossing continents follows two young people as they flee the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War in search of a place to call home. "One of the most...
The ocean at the end of the lane
Gaiman, Neil
Paper Book
A brilliantly imaginative and poignant fairy tale from the modern master of wonder and terror, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is Neil Gaiman’s first new novel for adults since his #1 New York Times bestseller Anansi Boys. This bewitching and harrowing tale of mystery and survival,...
The invisible life of Addie LaRue
Schwab, Victoria
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER USA TODAY BESTSELLER NATIONAL INDIE BESTSELLER THE WASHINGTON POST BESTSELLER Recommended by Entertainment Weekly, Real Simple, NPR, Slate, and Oprah...
Novelist as a vocation /
Murakami, Haruki, 1949-
Paper Book
A charmingly idiosyncratic look at writing, creativity, and the author's own novels, from the beloved and best-selling author of1Q84 and Norwegian Wood. In this engaging book, the internationallybest-selling author and famously private writer Haruki Murakami shares...
Life of Pi.
Martel, Yann.
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE One boy. One boat. One tiger.    After the tragic sinking of a cargo ship, a solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on the wild, blue Pacific. The only survivors from the wreck are a sixteen-year-old boy named Pi, a hyena, a zebra (with a...
The snow child : a novel
Ivey, Eowyn.
Paper Book
In this magical debut, a couple's lives are changed forever by the arrival of a little girl, wild and secretive, on their snowy doorstep. Alaska, 1920: a brutal place to homestead, and especially tough for recent arrivals Jack and Mabel. Childless, they are drifting apart -- he...
The shadow of the wind.
Ruiz Zafon, Carlos, 1964-
Paper Book
"Anyone who enjoys novels that are scary, erotic, touching, tragic and thrilling should rush right out to the nearest bookstore and pick up The Shadow of the Wind. Really, you should." --Michael Dirda, The Washington Post "Wondrous...masterful...The ...
The Alchemist.
Coelho, Paulo
Paper Book
"My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer," the boy told the alchemist one night as they looked up at the moonless sky." Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams." Every few...
The house in the cerulean sea
Klune, TJ
Paper Book
A NEW YORK TIMES, USA TODAY, and WASHINGTON POST BESTSELLER! A 2021 Alex Award winner! The 2021 RUSA Reading List: Fantasy Winner! An Indie Next Pick! One of Publishers Weekly's "Most Anticipated Books of Spring 2020"...
The ten thousand doors of January
Harrow, Alix E.
Paper Book
"A gorgeous, aching love letter to stories, storytellers, and the doors they lead us through...absolutely enchanting."--Christina Henry, bestselling author of Alice and Lost Boys LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER! Finalist for the 2020 Hugo, Nebula,...
The time traveler's wife.
Niffenegger, Audrey
Paper Book
**Soon to be a TV series** Audrey Niffenegger's innovative debut, The Time Traveler's Wife, is the story of Clare, a beautiful art student, and Henry, an adventuresome librarian, who have known each other since Clare was six and Henry was thirty-six, and were married when...
Big fish
Burton, Tim
DVD
A father who loves to tell tales of his many adventures in life is trying to reconnect with his estranged son. Slowly, through the fascinating tales, the two begin to understand each other, and form a family again.
The shape of water
Toro, Guillermo del
Paper Book
The 2018 Academy Award's Best Picture of the Year and New York Times-bestselling novel, The Shape of Water. From visionary storyteller Guillermo del Toro and celebrated author Daniel Kraus comes this haunting, heartbreaking love story. "[A]...

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