Recs if you like The Bear and the Nightingale...

When the narrator(s) makes the book even better. For new listeners and audiobook elites, here is a range of different genres and narrators that excel at audio perfection.

Books that are part of 3 or more quests ✨for easier planning! Initially thought of making this on my shelf, hope the members of pb find this helpful!! (The list is incomplete, I'm working on checking & adding new quest books🙌🏻 thanks for the love ❤️🥹)

books in which Death, or a god of Death, or the Grim Reaper (or a Grim Reaper), is personified. This list will NOT include the works of Neil Gaiman (ew)

I couldnt find a list of these yet, so i made one! You may not be able to collect the badges anymore, but if you’re a completionist like me; here are all the books of the pagebound seasonal readalongs and the special event readalongs!

Books that inspired or are similar to Studio Ghibli films

Fantasy inspired by Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Albania, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, and/or Russia (myths, setting, etc.) Will also be including Slavic inspired fantasy books here as well.

Chill-fueled journeys through frostbitten kingdoms, forbidden wards, and legends carved in ice. Perfect for readers craving grand myths wrapped in winter magic.

In honour of Everybody Scream dropping tomorrow, here are books that are utterly delicious, magical, and sometimes a little bit dark. (Lots of folklore, some horror, and of course feminine rage)

Fantasy where plants, herbs, forests and green places aren’t just set dressing: they drive character choices, magic systems and plot. Expect hedgewitches and apothecaries, sentient woods and green men, tea alchemists, orchard bargains and kitchen gardens that meddle in human affairs. The tone ranges from cozy cottagecore to gently thorny fairytales sprinkled in. If you crave stories that smell like rain on soil and sound like wind in leaves, start here!

Books that blend the magic of fantasy with real world history (i.e., books set within actual historical time periods and not inspired-by settings). Feedback and recs welcome!

gotta catch 'em all! fantasy books that feature a collection/array of different fantastical creatures, whether they just exist in the world surrounding the characters, are the main characters, or are the main focus of the story!

fiction books that have a main character or prominent side character that fit the D&D Druid class (at least partly). here for the wildshape, speak with animals, and loving nature vibes! open to recs and input!

also credit to @moss-mylk for providing a whole shelf worth’s of recs for this list!!!

A collection of stories about women whose obscure knowledge, forbidden studies, forgotten traditions, or relentless curiosity become the thing standing between the world and disaster.

Bears in all their shapes and forms and across genres (this includes sentient teddybears and memoirs). If not friend why friend-shaped?! As long as the bear is plot or character relevant the book can land in here. Feel free to recommend books to be added (maybe also tell me why you think the bear functions as relevant for the story). We bear bears!

books that are part of 3 or more quests, for those readers with a completionist streak within and a personal plague of Too Many Books, Too Little Time.

If we are going to do Qwordy's the Hardest Reading Challenge You'll Ever Do 3.0 - we should probably get some Pagebound badges along the way! I'm specifically going to be adding books from Quests and readalongs that I think matches at least one of these cover prompts: craft, food, motion, biomes/landscapes, animals, weather.

Ever felt overwhelmed by Quests? Well, we currently (August 1st 2026) have over 100 of them, totaling 4000+ different books. Ofc you’re overwhelmed.

Ever wished there was a easy way to see the overlap of all the quests, so you could better strategize on where to start for max badge-achievement? Well, we don’t have that (yet?). But here I’m giving you a list of every book on Pagebound that’s in 4 Quests. Hopefully you’ll find it helpful. NB: Time limited Quests not included. Too much upkeep, sorry.

Enjoy, and happy questing

Do you love collecting tiny shiny objects (badges)? These books will count towards THREE quests, helping you collect all the shiny objects!

…fairytales with a darkness that creeps