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Recommendations based on Cautionary Tales for Childrenby Hilaire Belloc
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The Gashlycrumb Tinies
by Edward Gorey
An alphabet book featuring children meeting their untimely demise in various ways, illustrated in Gorey's signature macabre style.
The Gashlycrumb Tinies: or, After the Outing is an abecedarian book written by Edward Gorey that was first published in 1963. Gorey tells the tale of 26 children (each representing a letter of the ... (Goodreads)
The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories
by Tim Burton
Collection of darkly humorous, twisted tales of peculiar and fantastical characters.
From breathtaking stop-action animation to bittersweet modern fairy tales, filmmaker Tim Burton has become known for his unique visual brilliance – witty and macabre at once. Now he gives birth to a ... (Goodreads)
Amphigorey
by Edward Gorey
A collection of darkly humorous and macabre illustrated short stories, showcasing Gorey's unique and twisted imagination.
The title of this deliciously creepy collection of Gorey's work stems from the word amphigory , meaning a nonsense verse or composition. As always, Gorey's painstakingly cross-hatched pen and ink ... (Goodreads)
The Complete Poems
by Anne Sexton
A collection of powerful, confessional pieces exploring the beauty, tragedy, and pain of human experience.
From the joy and anguish of her own experience, Sexton fashioned poems that told truths about the inner lives of men and women. This book comprises Sexton's ten volumes of verse, including the ... (Barnes & Noble)
Titus Groan
by Mervyn Peake
A young man's rise to power in a decaying castle, amidst a backdrop of a decaying world.
The novel begins as the imperious and ritual-driven servant Mr. Flay seeks to tell someone new of the birth of an heir to the House of Groan in a remote part of the sprawling castle of Gormenghast. A ... (Wikipedia)
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
A single day in a Soviet prison camp, detailing the hardships and struggle of the inmates.
Ivan Denisovich Shukhov has been sentenced to a camp in the Soviet gulag system. He was accused of becoming a spy after being captured briefly by the Germans as a prisoner of war during World War II ... (Wikipedia)
Fantastic Mr. Fox
by Roald Dahl
Wild and wily fox outwits three mean farmers in an epic battle of wit and courage.
Mr. Fox is an anthropomorphic, tricky, and clever fox who lives underground beside a tree with his wife and four children. In order to feed his family, he makes nightly visits to farms owned by three ... (Wikipedia)
Good Faeries/Bad Faeries
by Brian Froud
A visual exploration of the world of faeries, both good and bad, through art and storytelling.
"Once upon a time, I thought faeries lived only in books, old folktales, and the past. That was before they burst upon my life as vibrant, luminous beings, permeating my art and my everyday ... (Goodreads)
The Lord of the Rings Sketchbook
by Alan Lee
Detailed visual journey of Middle-earth and its characters, brought to life through exquisite illustrations.
In The Lord of the Rings Sketchbook Alan Lee reveals in pictures and in words how he created the beautiful watercolor paintings for the special centenary edition of The Lord of the Rings . These ... (Goodreads)
Neverwhere
by Neil Gaiman
A mysterious journey through a hidden realm of London, filled with danger and unexpected allies.
Neverwhere is the story of Richard Mayhew and his trials and tribulations in London. At the start of the story, he is a young businessman, recently moved from Scotland and with a normal life ahead. ... (Wikipedia)
100 Selected Poems
by E.E. Cummings
An exploration of life, love, and the beauty of nature through the lens of poetry.
E.E. Cummings is without question one of the major poets of this century, and this volume, first published in 1959, is indispensable for every lover of modern lyrical verse. It contains one hundred ... (Barnes & Noble)
Life, the Universe and Everything
by Douglas Adams
An intergalactic quest to find the answer to the ultimate question of life.
After being stranded on pre-historic Earth after the events in, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, , Arthur Dent is met by his old friend Ford Prefect , who drags him into a space-time eddy , ... (Wikipedia)
The Haunting of Hill House
by Shirley Jackson
A group of people investigating a mysterious and haunted house, uncovering its secrets.
It is the story of four seekers who arrive at a notoriously unfriendly pile called Hill House: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of a "haunting"; Theodora, the lighthearted ... (Goodreads)
The Far Side Gallery
by Gary Larson
Collection of single-panel cartoons exploring the absurd, surreal and humorous aspects of life.
1984 FarWorks, Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Far Side and the Larson signature are registered trademarks of FarWorks, Inc. The Far Side Gallery is an anthology of Gary Larson's The Far Side comic ... (Goodreads)
Steppenwolf
by Hermann Hesse
The inner struggles of a tortured soul as he searches for redemption.
The book is presented as a manuscript written by its protagonist , a middle-aged man named Harry Haller, who leaves it to a chance acquaintance, the nephew of his landlady. The acquaintance adds a ... (Wikipedia)
Salomé
by Oscar Wilde
A retelling of the Biblical story of a young woman's defiance and seductive power.
Outraged by the sexual perversity of this one-act tragedy, Great Britain's Lord Chamberlain banned Salomé from the national stage. Symbolist poets and writers — Stéphane Mallarmé and Maurice ... (Goodreads)
Rhapsody: Child of Blood
by Elizabeth Haydon
Epic fantasy adventure, featuring a young girl's quest to reclaim her destiny.
Rhapsody: Child of Blood is a fantasy/adventure novel, though it opens with a strong romantic scene. The main story begins in Easton, when the protagonist Rhapsody finds herself in jeopardy, having ... (Wikipedia)
The Witches
by Roald Dahl
A young boy's adventure to defeat a coven of wicked witches.
The story is narrated from the perspective of an unnamed seven-year-old English boy, who goes to live with his Norwegian grandmother after his parents are killed in a tragic car accident. The boy ... (Wikipedia)
Season of Mists
by Neil Gaiman
A supernatural journey through various mythologies and realms, a quest to reclaim a lost soul.
This collection begins with an Endless family meeting, wherein Desire taunts Morpheus about his intolerant treatment of a former lover, the African queen 'Nada' ("Nada" is "Nothing" in Spanish ), ... (Wikipedia)
Invisible Cities
by Italo Calvino
A fantastical exploration of the cities of the imagination and the possibilities of life.
"Kublai Khan does not necessarily believe everything Marco Polo says when he describes the cities visited on his expeditions, but the emperor of the Tartars does continue listening to the young ... (Goodreads)
The Quiche of Death
by M.C. Beaton
Amateur sleuth navigates a small-town murder mystery, uncovering secrets and solving the crime.
Agatha Raisin retires from her profitable position as a PR agent in London, she moves to the Cotswolds expecting a peaceful country life. She enters a local baking contest with a quiche she bought in ... (Wikipedia)
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo
by Unknown
Epic poem of a knight's quest to save his kingdom, and two moral tales of faith and love.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Pearl are two poems by an unknown author written in about 1400. Sir Gawain is a romance, a fairy-tale for adults, full of life and colour; but it is also much more ... (Goodreads)
The Doll's House
by Neil Gaiman
A dark fantasy exploring the cruelty and power of fairy tales, and the consequences of secrets.
As part of a manhood ritual, an old man in the desert tells a younger man an ancient story, detailing the tragic love between Dream and Queen Nada. Fearing the consequences of loving an immortal, ... (Wikipedia)
The Complete Poetry
by Edgar Allan Poe
Collection of dark, romantic, and macabre poems exploring the depths of the human experience.
The eerie tales of Edgar Allan Poe remain among the most brilliant, enduring, and influencial works in American literature. But Poe is also the author of some of the most haunting poetry ever ... (Goodreads)
The Magician
by Michael Scott
An ancient struggle between powerful forces of good and evil, with fate of the world at stake.
Sophie and Josh Newman – 15-year-old twins – are in Paris with the alchemyst, Nicholas Flamel, and his friend, Scathach. They now face Niccolò Machiavelli and his colleague, but also rival, John Dee, ... (Wikipedia)
Ghost World
by Daniel Clowes
Two teenage girls navigate the awkward transition to adulthood, grappling with identity, relationships, and the mundanity of suburban life.
Ghost World has become a cultural and generational touchstone, and continues to enthrall and inspire readers over a decade after its original release as a graphic novel. Originally serialized in the ... (Goodreads)
Nightfall
by Isaac Asimov
A planet with six suns experiences a rare eclipse, causing chaos and destruction as the inhabitants face the darkness for the first time.
The planet Lagash ("Kalgash" in the novel) is constantly illuminated by at least one of the six suns of its multiple star system . Lagash has areas of darkness (in caves, tunnels, etc.), but "night" ... (Wikipedia)
Thief of Time
by Terry Pratchett
A humorous fantasy adventure to save time from being stolen.
The Auditors hire young clockmaker Jeremy Clockson to build a perfect glass clock, without telling him that this will stop time and thereby eliminate human unpredictability from the universe. Death ... (Wikipedia)
Asterix the Gaul
by René Goscinny
A group of ancient Gauls use wit, strength, and cunning to resist Roman invasion.
All of the Gaul area is under Roman control, except for one small village in Armorica (present-day Brittany ), whose inhabitants are made invincible by a magic potion created periodically by the ... (Wikipedia)
The Enormous Crocodile
by Roald Dahl
A conniving crocodile concocts a scheme to eat unsuspecting children.
The story begins in Africa in a large, deep, muddy river, where the enormous crocodile (the titular character) is telling a smaller crocodile, known as the "Not-So-Big One", that he wants to eat ... (Wikipedia)
