Diana Wynne Jones

Diana Wynne Jones's personal choice of favorite fantasy writing is a treat for all fans - and the perfect introduction for anyone coming to this genre for the first time. This collection contains stories from some of the best fantasy writers of all time. With stories including extracts from classics to modern favorites, this is a comprehensive and satisfying anthology. There are humorous stories by E. Nesbit, Eva Ibbotson, and Isaac Asimov; tales in a darker mood from Andre Norton and Joan Aiken; and plenty of dragons, witches, wizards, and other magical creatures throughout. A typically intriguing new story from Diana Wynne Jones herself brings the collection right up to date. Part of the Story Library series of anthologies. Contents: "Boris Chernevsky's Hands" by Jane Yolen "The Hobgoblin's Hat" by Tove Jansson (from Finn Family Moomintroll) "Ully the Piper" by Andre Norton "Milo Conducts the Dawn" by Norton Juster (from The Phantom Tollbooth) "Who Goes Down This Dark Road?" by Joan Aiken "The House of Harfang" by C.S. Lewis (from The Silver Chair) "Martha in the Witch's Power" by K.M. Briggs (from Hobberdy Dick) "Prince Delightful and the Flameless Dragon" by Isaac Asimov "The Box of Delights" (an extract) by John Masefield "The Amazing Flight of the Gump" by L. Frank Baum (from The Land of Oz) "On the Great Wall" by Rudyard Kipling (from Puck of Pook's Hill) "The Waking of the Kraken" by Eva Ibbotson (from Which Witch?) "The Caves in the Hill" by Elizabeth Goudge (from Henrietta's House) "Bigger than the Baker's Boy" by E. Nesbit (from Five Children and It) "Jermain and the Sorceress" by Patricia C. Wrede (from The Seven Towers) "Una and the Red Cross Knight" by Andrew Lang (from The Red Book Romance) "What the Cat Told Me" by Diana Wynne Jones

Chrestomanci #5 When his uncle sends him to work at the mysterious Stallery Mansion, twelve-year-old Conrad Tesdinic overcomes his bad karma and discovers in the mansion's winecellar the source of the magic that threatens to pull his world into one of the eleven other parallel universes.

PerfectBound e-book exclusive extras: "Diana Wynne Jones's The Chronicles of Chrestomanci: Nine Notes"; and our exclusive interview with Diana Wynne Jones.Dapper, debonair, and wise, the great enchanter Chrestomanci has nine lives and a strong personality as well as strong magic. That personality reverberates in each of these four dazzling stories.

Tanqui discovers she has the only means to conquer the evil Kankredin who threatens her own people and the Heathens who have invaded prehistoric Dalemark.

Never before published stories by New York Times bestselling authors Jonathan Stroud, Gregory Maguire, Garth Nix, Diana Gabaldon, and others.Whether portrayed as fire-breathing reptilian beasts at war with humanity or as noble creatures capable of speech and mystically bonded to the warriors who ride them, dragons have been found in nearly every culture's mythology. In modern times, they can be found far from their medieval settings in locales as mundane as suburbia or as barren as post-apocalyptic landscapes—and in The Dragon Book, today's greatest fantasists reignite the fire with legendary tales that will consume readers' imaginations.With original stories by New York Times bestselling authors Jonathan Stroud, Gregory Maguire, Garth Nix, Diana Gabaldon, Tamora Pierce, Harry Turtledove, Sean Williams, and Tad Williams as well as tales by Naomi Novik, Peter Beagle, Jane Yolen, Adam Stemple, Cecelia Holland, Kage Baker, Samuel Sykes, Diana Wynne Jones, Mary Rosenblum, Tanith Lee, Andy Duncan, and Bruce Coville.

When a teacher at an English boarding school finds a note on his desk accusing someone in the class of being a witch, magical things begin to happen and an Inquisitor is summoned.

Once he becomes a pawn in a game played by a powerful group he calls them, 12-year-old Jamie is repeatedly catapulted through space and time.

The story … It is the 1960s and the small African country Nmkwami is preparing for independence from Britain. The prime minister is looking forward to becoming the first president. The last colonial governor is looking forward to a quiet retirement. The ordinary people are looking forward to a good party. But into this peaceful scene comes the shadowy figure of Mark Changeover. Is he an international terrorist? An anarchist bomber? Or really, nobody at all? As the hunt for Changeover brings chaos and confusion to Nmkwami, Diana Wynne Jones has fun with colonial attitudes, communist students, military coups and more …

Describes Fantasyland, where all fantasy novels are set in the same place.

Cat Chant and Marianne Pinhoe have discovered something incredibly exciting, truly precious, and very strange — an egg.This egg was not meant to be found. Chrestomanci himself, Cat's guardian and the strongest enchanter in the world, is sure to find it particularly interesting. And that's the last thing Marianne's family of secret rogue witches wants.But the Pinhoes' secrets are falling to pieces, and powerful spells are wreaking havoc across the country-side. Marianne and Cat may be the only two who can set things right — if Marianne accepts her own powerful magic, and Cat solves the mystery behind the mystical Pinhoe Egg.

While visiting and caring for Great-Aunt Maria, Mig and Chris discover that their "helpless" relative has frightening powers.

In 1939 an eleven-year-old London girl is kidnapped to Time City, a place existing outside the stream of time and manipulating the history of humanity, where she finds the inhabitants facing their worst hour of crisis.

From Publishers Weekly Published in Great Britain in 1981 and available here for the first time, this gripping novel serves up often giddily hilarious fantasy that nonetheless deals unflinchingly with some ugly issues. At least twice in the course of the multi-layered narrative, the heroine has not the faintest idea who she is?a powerful metaphor for the novel's underlying theme of alienation from self. The story begins with the as-yet-nameless heroine floating?literally?through a boys' boarding school and its outlying grounds, a setting she finds oddly familiar. With a little spectral sleuthing (easy enough to accomplish when you're invisible) the disembodied spirit concludes that she is Sally Medford, one of a quartet of eccentric sisters who live at the school and are grossly neglected by their overworked schoolmaster parents. As the plot continues on its intriguingly convoluted path, evidence of time-travel begins to emerge: the college-age Sally is in a hospital, gravely injured after her abusive boyfriend throws her from a speeding car. Some part of her has journeyed back seven years into the past, where?with the help of her sisters and their schoolboy friends?she must undo a rash bargain with a powerful and ancient goddess. Given the violent boyfriend and the girls' ill-tempered father (prone to referring to his daughters as "bitches"), this tale is less overtly lighthearted than such Wynne Jones works as Howl's Moving Castle and Charmed Life but it is just as profoundly satisfying. Ages 10-up. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

When a disagreeable man with two boys marries a widow with three children, family adjustments are complicated by two magic chemistry sets which cause strange things to happen around the house.

Ann discovers that the wood near her village is under the control of a Bannus, a machine that manipulates reality, placed there many years ago by powerful extraterrestrial beings called Reigners.

As the oldest daughter, willful, outspoken Sophie knew that her life could lead to nothing but mistakes. When her father dies, her stepmother sends her two sisters out to make their fortunes while Sophie continues to work in the family hattery. As she whispers her thoughts to the hats she trims, the shop begins to grow in popularity, until she offends the Wicked Witch of the Waste. The witch casts a spell turning Sophie into an old woman. Sophie leaves the shop and happens upon the castle of the Wizard Howl. He has a reputation for finding young women and eating their hearts but that doesn't stop Sophie from moving in and turning the lives of the whole castle, including Howl's apprentice and his fire demon, upside down in a battle against the wicked witch and for Sophie's future.

LoC Summary: Sirius the dog star is reborn on earth as a puppy with a mission to search for the lost Zoi, the murder weapon of the stars.