Recs if you like The Little Mermaid...

Before they became beloved films, they were stories on the page. Here are the books that inspired the Studio Ghibli movies! Some are direct adaptations and others were used as inspiration. Note: not all of them have been translated to English (yet).

All fiction books that appear in the Tiny Bookshop catalogue! Would sort them by genre as I read along.

Books featuring mermaids for MerMay! Anything from Ariel to the merperson in The Cabin the Woods - open to additions!

inspired by me watching youtube videos about literary analysis of villains, here is a list full of books in which i believe their villains to be absolutely ghastly and horrifying; bloody and abusive, terrorizing and killing. if you have any to recommend, please put them in the comments! i'd love to make this list large!

i have not read all of these, mainly based on other lists ive seen elsewhere

They are beautiful, and that is their sharpest tooth. These are the sirens of the coral reefs and the silk-skinned selkies of the northern rocks. They promise a life without breath, a kingdom of pearls and moonlight. But the sea never gives without taking, and their songs are simply the dinner bell for the deep. We call them... the Lure.

hans christian andersen, brothers grimm and more :)

pov: you’re nine years old and unboxing your mother’s old, dusty books and vintage toys, which will soon become a core memory of your girlhood. ༺❀♡❀༻ coming-of-age feminine stories that are old-fashioned, wondrous and romantic.

a collection of four of the most popular books from each of the last twenty decades. I used the goodreads “most popular books of x decade” lists to find these. I tried to incorporate a mix of genres, so these aren’t strictly The most popular books in each decade, but a selection from the most popular the list may have removed the chronological order from these, but I have a shelf where everything is in order if you’d like to see it that way!

abandoned at sea

books that are the basis for adaptations and other book-related films and TV shows being released in the U.S. in July 2026