Top Ten Tuesday | Portal Fantasy

Posted March 2, 2026 by Haze in Top Ten Tuesday, Weekly Book Memes / 37 Comments

Welcome to Top Ten Tuesday, a weekly bookish meme hosted by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl that features a different bookish topic every week.

Today’s topic is Genre Freebie  

I decided to go with “portal fantasy” for today’s genre freebie. Portal fantasy is when people from the “real world” suddenly find themselves transported into an alternate reality, a fantasy world, via some sort of portal like a book or a wardrobe. Some of these are well-known and loved, and others less so, but I realized I enjoy portal fantasy a lot. What other books have you read and loved that fall into the portal fantasy genre? Please share them with me!

Top Ten Portal Fantasy Books

  1. Long Live Evil by Sarah Rees Brennan – The MC is sick and unwell in real life and finds herself transported into one of her favorite books as a villain. It was one of my favorite surprises; I didn’t expect to love this book as much as I did but I’m obsessed and eagerly waiting the next one.
  2. The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster – This book probably doesn’t need an intro since I only read it because so many of you gushed about it! I’m so glad you did because I loved it and I kind of feel like rereading it now.
  3. Oz: The Complete Collection by L. Frank Baum – Dorothy goes from the real world into Oz via hurricane. Not really the portal I would choose to go through if I had a choice, but I love the Oz stories and was surprised that Dorothy is only a small part of the whole collection!
  4. The Neverending Story by Michael Ende – This is one of my favorite books (and I loved the movies too!) but it’s been a while since I read it. I’m mixing up a lot of the book details with the movie details so it makes sense that I should just go ahead and reread it and rewatch the movies soon!
  5. Fairy Tale by Stephen King – If King wrote it and it fits the prompt, it sits on the list! This is one of my favorite King books, but I love so many King books I don’t know if being my “favorite” King book carries weight anymore. This one is fantasy, not horror, has found family and a dog, and is just really good.
  6. The Astral Library by Kate Quinn – I’ve been wanting to read more of Kate Quinn and this is on my TBR. It’s probably the most recently released book on the list and I’m very excited about it, because it’s about a hidden library where you can go inside your favorite books and visit those worlds!
  7. Inkheart by Cornelia Funke – In the same vein, this one is also about being transported into a book world. Full disclosure, I’ve only watched the movie but I love the idea and I’ve been thinking that I should probably read the book.
  8. Her Majesty’s Wizard by Christopher Stasheff – I loved this book as a child. It’s a series of 8 books but I’ve only read up to book 4 because I didn’t know there were more at the time! In the first book, the “wizard” is just a normal guy from the real world who gets transported into a world with a rhyming magical system, and he becomes a powerful wizard in that world just because he’s good with rhymes. I love it and I’m going to reread it all over again!
  9. The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher – I love Kingfisher and I loved this book. I found it so creepy but in a good way, and I jumped at shadows for a while, but it was worth it!
  10. The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis – I feel like this is another one that doesn’t need an intro because it’s probably one of the most popular portal fantasy and everyone knows about the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe. However, I realized suddenly as I was writing this, that this is another one of those stories you think you know because it’s so popular, but I’ve only read the first book and not any of the others! I need to rectify this.

Have you read any of these books? What did you think of them? Would you read any of these books?

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37 responses to “Top Ten Tuesday | Portal Fantasy”

    • Haze

      Oooohh, I have the Library Trilogy by Mark Lawrence on my TBR! I didn’t know it was a portal fantasy but I’m moving it up the tbr for sure!

      Reply
  11. Nicky @ The Bibliophibian

    Ahh, portal fantasy will always have a big place in my heart. Have you ever tried Guy Gavriel Kay’s The Fionavar Tapestry books? They broke my heart, but they’re lovely. Very Silmarillion inspired in tone/scope, it doesn’t “feel” like a lot of other portal fantasy I’ve read.

    Reply
    • Haze

      No, I hadn’t heard of them, but I’ve been wanting to read GGK and this sounds like a great place to start! Thanks for the rec!

      Reply
  13. Deb Nance at Readerbuzz

    What an excellent idea for a list! I’m a huge fan of Phantom Tollhouse and the Oz books. Astral Library just came in for me yesterday at the library and I can’t wait to get back to reading it!

    Reply
  17. Constance

    I reread and reviewed all the Narnia and Oz books quite recently! I went to Kate Quinn’s event for this new book just a week or so ago although I haven’t read it yet and my fourth grade teacher read us The Phantom Tollbooth.

    Some of my portal fantasy favorites are Time at the Top (elevator) by Edward Ormondroyd and The Diamond in the Window by Jane Langton (I think the attic was magic).

    Reply
  18. Nicole @ BookWyrm Knits

    Great list! Narnia and Oz are of course the typically read portal fantasy books, but The Phantom Tollbooth has always been a favorite of mine. And I love that you included Her Majesty’s Wizard! I loved that book, but never read more than just the first book in the series.

    Portal fantasy is a favorite genre of mine. I also enjoy the Wayward Children series by Seanan McGuire and Finna by Nino Cipri (portal world via an Ikea-type store… LOL). My next portal fantasy read is probably going to be And Put Away Childish Things by Adrian Tchaikovsky.

    Reply

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