Peng Shepherd's 6 favorite works with themes of magical realism

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In Peng Shepherd's new novel, "All This and More," a 45-year-old game-show contestant is allowed to go back in time to rewrite her life. Below, the author of 2022's "The Cartographers" recommends six "mesmerizingly strange books you can't put down."

'The Library at Mount Char' by Scott Hawkins (2015)

A library containing the universe's secrets; 12 children abducted to master its catalogs to receive incredible gifts (if they survive the horrific costs of such knowledge); a cruel, all-powerful "Father" — who then disappears, leaving 12 godlike, deeply unstable siblings on the brink of a war of succession. This novel defies summarization. Buy it here. 

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'Trust Exercise' by Susan Choi (2019)

As soon as you know what's going on, "Trust Exercise" shifts, and tells you everything you just read was a lie. Then it does it again. A gripping and chilling examination of the relationship between fiction and truth that will make you question who really owns a story. Buy it here. 

'Piranesi' by Susanna Clarke (2020)

A perfect puzzle. Piranesi lives in the House, a place so vast that it contains oceans and different climates. Piranesi never leaves, as the House is the whole world. He believes he and "the Other" are the only people alive, and that only 15 have ever existed. Then "16" arrives, and everything Piranesi knows changes. Buy it here. 

'Interior Chinatown' by Charles Yu (2020)

Stuck playing "Background Oriental Male" on the TV police procedural Black and White, Willis Wu wishes to be a star — but this novel is itself written as a screenplay, seamlessly blurring the dangers of the fictional Black and White with Willis' real-life struggles. An engrossing examination of identity, assimilation, and the American dream. Buy it here.

'Beowulf' translated by Maria Dahvana Headley (2020)

Headley thrillingly breaks free of the style common to translations of the classics. Her warriors come to raucous life in a way I've never read. Look no further than the poem's first word: "Hwæt!" is usually rendered as "Hark!" or "Listen!" Headley perfectly captures it as "Bro!" Buy it here.

'Lincoln in the Bardo' by George Saunders (2017)

This breathtaking novel starts with the death of President Lincoln's son, but from there, we're whisked away to Saunders' version of the bardo — the Tibetan Buddhist purgatory for souls in limbo — a magical, bizarre, hilarious, and sometimes frightening place. This book, a moving meditation on grief, loss, and being stranded,  ranks among my favorites of all time. Buy it here.

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