India, June 1 -- Fantasy gets a bad reputation among people who don't usually read fantasy. Too many maps, too many made-up words, too many characters named something like Thrandor Moonblade. But the best fantasy books aren't really about magic systems or dragons, at least not exclusively. They're about grief, friendship, politics, survival, love, loneliness. In short, all the messy things literary fiction has always been obsessed with, just with slightly more swords involved. Here are 5 great fantasy books for beginners or non fantasy readers.

What works about some fantasy books (including the most popular ones like J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, which inspired the trilogy of the same name) even for sceptical readers is the f...