The Land of Laughs
by Jonathan Carroll (1980)

New York native Jonathan Carroll's first novel is regarded as an important book in the urban fantasy subgenre. Schoolteacher Thomas Abbey sets out with his girlfriend Saxony to research the life of a beloved children's books author known for his literary magic. On visiting the author's hometown Tom discovers that all may not be as it seems when a dog starts talking to him.

Little, Big
by John Crowley (1981)

Award-winning novel packed with romance, humour and plenty of quirks. When Smoky Barnable falls in love with Daily Alice Drinkwater (getting the picture?) he heads off to Edgewood, her family home. Edgewood is a Rod Serling type of place in that it's not on any map and absolutely isn't what it seems to be. Topnotch urban fantasy.

Song of Kali
by Dan Simmons (1985)

Simmons won a World Fantasy Award with this tense thriller, his debut novel. Poet/journalist Robert Luczak heads off to India to find the mysterious M Das, a poet previously rumoured to be dead. Accompanied by his attractive wife and their baby daughter, he gets more than he bargained for on the darkside of Calcutta. Topnotch work from one of speculative fiction's best.

This Present Darkness
by Frank E Peretti (1986)

Pacey Christian thriller with the power of prayer proving handy in the war of the New Age. In the small town of Aston a sceptical reporter and a prayerful Pastor team up to fight the evil rulers of a great darkness set to envelop humankind. This is Christianity with attitude and plenty of in-your-face grunt. Available in a value pack with Piercing the Darkness (1989) and Prophet (1992).

Weaveworld
by Clive Barker (1987)

Barker tones down the horror in this well constructed fantasy tale of the Fugue - a magical land that has been woven into a carpet for protection. When its guardian dies evil rears its ugly head in a bid for control of the Fugue. A Liverpool clerk gets drawn into the Weaveworld of the Seerkind while humanity's existence goes on the line.

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
by Haruki Murakami (1994)

Toru Okada loses his job, goes searching for his wife's cat… then she goes missing too. He ends up in a Tokyo netherworld in some unusual company that includes an elderly war veteran of the Manchurian campaign. Murakami is a master of the bizarre and here continues his examination of Japanese society, with war atrocities the centrepiece of some incisive social commentary.

The Darkness That Comes Before
by R Scott Bakker (2004)

Bakker's debut contains a few rookie mistakes that have put a few people off, but there is little doubting his enormous potential. Book One in the Prince of Nothing series starts off with two prologues before getting into the story of a mysterious messiah-type character who arrives on the verge of the Second Apocalypse. Richly imagined, complex and very dark.

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
by Max Brooks (2006)

From the man who brought you The Zombie Survival Guide, comes an equally straight-faced account of the Zombie War. The claim in the promo blurb is that Brooks, "spent years travelling to every part of the globe in order to conduct the face-to-face interviews". As a former Saturday Night Live writer Brooks is no stranger to slinging more than a few socio-political barbs and arrows.