20 supremely cozy books and movies for hibernation season

15. The Last Unicorn

Don’t let the title deceive you. The Last Unicorn novel is no piece of ephemera, constructed solely of fairies, glitter, and dreams. Rather, it’s a mature work that examines the breadth of beauty and depravity in the world, and what humans wreak upon it. Yes, it also has unicorns.

In fact, The Last Unicorn’s central character is the titular unicorn, seemingly the last of her kind. She’s an ageless sort of being, deeply connected to her forest and its animal inhabitants. Yet, she is also curiously removed from the world, to the point where it’s quite some time before she realizes that she hasn’t seen another unicorn in a long time. Neither is she very familiar with or interested in the human world — though, can you blame her?

Still, this unicorn is inveterately curious. What happened to all the other unicorns? A passing butterfly claims that a fantastical “Red Bull” made of flames chased them into the ocean. Could this really be true? She decides to take the drastic step of leaving her forest and venturing into the larger world.

The unicorn encounters a wide variety of people, from good to bad and everything in between. That includes Mommy Fortuna, a witch/sideshow proprietor who uses magic to convince everyone that regular animals are fantastical creatures. At the carnival, the unicorn also encounter the magician Schmendrick, who is a real magic worker if a bumbling one. The two escape the carnival together, amidst great chaos.

There’s quite a lot more to this slender book, which includes roving bandits, a depressed king, transformational magic, and the legendary Red Bull. Yet, author Peter S. Beagle is able to pack in a lot of thoughts on emotion, regret, and humanity within a small space. The 1982 animated film adaptation is also fine, but the book is more complex and mature.