Lev Grossman is an American novelist and journalist, notably the author of the novels Warp, Codex, and The Magicians. He is a senior writer and book critic for TIME and is co-author of the TIME.com blog TechLand.
The Midnight Club (2024) Margot Harrison "The Midnight Club is a strange, riveting, brilliant fable about smart people seduced by the darkest, most forbidden fantasy. Like a fever-dream of Donna Tartt's The Secret History."
Nicked (2024) M T Anderson "M. T. Anderson is one of our greatest and most precious voices. His books aren't just brilliantly witty and vastly entertaining, they're fixed stars of wisdom and sanity in our increasingly unhinged universe. When lost, I use them to steer by."
The Door of No Return (2022) (Door of No Return, book 1) Kwame Alexander "Alexander turns the nightmare of the past into an epic story for all times and all people. The Door of No Return is a breathtaking, heartbreaking triumph and an instant classic."
When Women Were Dragons (2022) Kelly Barnhill "Ferociously imagined, incandescent with feeling, this book is urgent and necessary and as exhilarating as a ride on dragonback."
Ninth House (2019) (Alex Stern, book 1) Leigh Bardugo "Ninth House is one of the best fantasy novels I've read in years. This book is brilliant, funny, raw and utterly magnificent - it's a portal to a world you'll never want to leave."
The Bird King (2019) G Willow Wilson "The Bird King is marvelous in the deepest sense?a treasure-house of a novel, thrilling, tender, funny, and achingly gorgeous. I loved it."
An Absolutely Remarkable Thing (2018) (An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, book 1) Hank Green "You're about to meet somebody named April May who you're immediately going to want to be best friends with. And bonus, she spends all her time having incredible adventures with giant robots and dream puzzles and accidental Internet fame. An Absolutely Remarkable Thing is pure book-joy."
The Night Ocean (2017) Paul La Farge "Magnificent. The Night Ocean is an impossible, irresistible novel, a love letter to the unloveable that speaks the unspeakable."
Carry On (2015) (Simon Snow, book 1) Rainbow Rowell "Carry On is a triumph. Thrilling and sexy, funny and shocking, deeply moving and very, very magical. Trust me, you have never, ever seen a wizard school like this."
The Buried Giant (2012) Kazuo Ishiguro "Ishiguro works this fantastical material with the tools of a master realist. . . . [He] makes us feel its sheer grotesque monstrosity with a force and freshness that have been leached away by legions of computer-generated orcs. . . . He keeps a straight face, but Ishiguro has fun with the swords and sorcery: he’s a lifelong fan of samurai manga and westerns, and some of the action has the feel of a classic showdown scored by Ennio Morricone."
Vita Nostra (2012) (Vita Nostra, book 1) Marina and Sergey Dyachenko "I first encountered VITA NOSTRA in 2009, and then, as now, I was stunned by what I read – not just by the story, which was a revelation to me in itself, but also by the vividness and fluency and power of Hersey's translation. VITA NOSTRA has become a powerful influence on my own writing. It's a book that has the potential to become a modern classic of its genre, and I couldn’t be more excited to see it get the global audience in English it so richly deserves."
A Guile of Dragons (2012) (Tournament of Shadows, book 1) James Enge "I could read him forever and never get bored."
The Circle (2012) (Engelsfors Trilogy, book 1) Sara B Elfgren and Mats Strandberg "A stunning novel...very thrilling and very, very wicked. The Circle is Twilight by The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo."
The Heroes (2010) (First Law World, book 2) Joe Abercrombie "Imagine The Lord of the Rings as directed by Kurosawa."
The Windup Girl (2009) Paolo Bacigalupi "It's ridiculous how good this book is... Bacigalupi's vision is almost as rich and shocking as William Gibson's vision was in 1984... I hope he writes 10 sequels."
(b.1969)
