“A multigenerational saga of a family who are bewitched by fairies. John Drinkwater, an architect, builds a large house called Edgewood; it sits alone, deep in the woods. It is a composite of various styles on the outside and is confusing to navigate on the inside. It is also an entrance to the realm of Faerie. I would love to spend an afternoon wandering through Edgewood, looking into all the rooms, conversing with the Drinkwater family. It would be dreamy and dangerous, as one might be stolen by the fairies before returning to the real world.”

“This story is set in an alternative Great Britain in which magic was once possible and real but has now (during the time of the Napoleonic Wars) faded from use until its revival by the titular characters. The magic described by Clarke is subtle and imaginative, her characters are wry, intelligent, and practice an amusing variety of human vices, and she is brilliant at describing places: wonderful private libraries full of books of magic, haunted apartments full of cats and a madwoman, towers of darkness that cover whole neighborhoods. I would gladly live in her world, especially if I could spend most of my time in Mr. Norrell’s library at Hurtfew.”

“Another magical world (I’ve been longing lately to disappear into a more glorious realm than our own) in which our hero, a high school senior named Quentin Coldwater, finds himself matriculating at Brakebills, a college that trains young magicians. In this book and its sequels, magic is difficult, often dangerous, and occasionally useful. Brakebills is everything one could wish for in a college; it’s full of smart, snarky people and it’s lovely and seemingly tuition-free. It would be a satisfying place to hide from reality for as long as possible (or until one accidentally dies doing magic gone wrong).”

“I would love to wander through Victorian London’s foggy streets to compare then with now. I probably wouldn’t be able to stay long, as the air quality was famously terrible, but it would be wonderful to follow Holmes and Watson as they meet each other and solve their first case.”

“I am a few months older than Donna Tartt, and we were in college at the same time, the early eighties. I went to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where I studied printmaking, painting, and photography. Tartt famously went to Bennington and emerged with a degree in philosophy and the makings of her marvelous first novel. I don’t know if I would enjoy Bennington, but I would be curious to spend some time with her characters in Hampden College, to observe their eccentricities while avoiding being murdered.”