Susan Pevensie’s Retirement Home Reading List

The Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis
Susan doesn’t always agree with C.S. Lewis’s take on things—why does he spend so much time on her younger siblings? Why does he only describe one of her disastrous suitors? She has much better stories than that one—but these seven books, which describe the adventures of Susan, her siblings, and assorted other hapless children in Narnia and its surrounding lands, are still the first thing she picks up when she starts to miss everybody too much. Adventures! Witches! Talking mice! Remember that time your embarrassing cousin got turned into a dragon? That was hilarious. Whatever happened to that guy?

His Dark Materials Trilogy, by Philip Pullman
Lyra grew up running wild at Jordan College, an alternate universe version of Oxford; Will lives in the same city in our own world. When they each follow a mysterious window into a third universe, they join forces to unravel the mystery of Dust, a mysterious substance that sticks to adults but not to children. Their adventures put them at the center of a conflict between witches, angels, armored bears, and the Magisterium, a murderous church that believes Dust is original sin and is determined to kill Lyra before she yields. Philip Pullman’s trilogy is often viewed as a response to Lewis’s treatment of Susan in the Narnia books; Susan can’t help but be flattered.

The Dalemark Quartet, by Diana Wynne Jones
Remember The Horse and His Boy? Imagine if Shasta was the first character to show up in the Narnia books, and you’ll start to get a sense of the way this series is structured. Diana Wynne Jones begins by introducing her fantastic characters—Moril, the son of traveling minstrels whose instrument has strange powers; Mitt, a failed assassin who knows the names of the gods; and Tanaqui, a weaver and witch—before jumping into a ordinary-modern-girl-gets-sucked-into-a-world-of-magic-and-adventure plotline in the final volume.

The Wood Beyond the World, by William Morris
The characters in this book speak the way Susan and her siblings spoke when they were Kings and Queens of Narnia; here, too, human men are called Sons of Adam, and a wicked enchantress rules a fantastic kingdom. Morris’s 1894 fantasy reads like the parts of the Pevensies’ story Lewis skips over, and could be an outtake from the reign of any one of Narnia’s monarchs. The story—an unhappy husband tries to get over his unfaithful wife by leaving town, and wanders into a magical land by mere chance—is one of the earliest examples of modern English fantasy, and heavily influenced C.S. Lewis.

The Princess and the Goblin and The Princess and Curdie, by George MacDonald
You’ve heard of an Achilles Heel, but have you heard of a goblin’s toe? Well, that’s because goblins have no toes, a vulnerability that becomes crucial to this story about a goblin plot to tunnel under a castle, kidnap the young Princess Irene, and make her the goblin prince’s bride. Susan read this Victorian children’s book and its sequel, The Princess and Curdie, as a young child, long before she ever heard of Narnia; when her cousin Eustace told her about his adventures underground, she accused him of copying it wholesale from MacDonald.

The Magicians Trilogy, by Lev Grossman
The Magicians and its sequels read like a mature mash-up of the Narnia chronicles and an obscure British fantasy series you probably haven’t heard of. Quentin Coldwater, a student at an exclusive magic college, discovers that Fillory, the Narnia-like setting of a series of children’s books he loves, is a real place. Quentin and his friends find a pathway to Fillory, but learn that remaining stuck in a story can have its downsides, a fact Susan needs reminding of from time to time.