Soman Chainani Books In Order

Publication Order of Faraway Books

Publication Order of The School for Good and Evil Books

Publication Order of Short Story Collections

Publication Order of Anthologies

Soman Chainani is a reputed American novelist and filmmaker, who is well known for writing children’s books and fantasy novels. He is particularly famous for his book series called The School for Good and Evil. This series’ first book with the same name made its debut on the bestselling list of the New York Times. It has been translated into as many as 27 languages and has been published across six continents, thereby making Chainani a popular name in the genre of children’s books. The book is also in talks to be adapted into a movie under the banner of Universal Pictures. Author Chainani has been hired by the production company to write the screenplay for the movie version of the story. For this purpose, he has been teamed up with Malia Scotch Marmo. Following the tremendous success of Chainani’s debut book, he added 4 more titles in the series. The second and third novels have also appeared on the NY Times Bestseller list. Altogether, the first three books have been on the extended bestseller list of the NY Times and on the print for over 30 weeks.

Chainani’s debut book series has fetched him a number of literary awards, accolades, and recognition. Author Chainani was born and brought up in Key Biscayne, Florida, United States. His family is among the few of the Indian descent living in the Key Biscayne area. Chainani has studied at Harvard University. He completed his graduation summa cum laude and earned his degree in English and American Literature. Following his graduation, he enrolled himself at the Columbia University for an MFA Program. Before beginning his career in the writing field, Chainani sought work in screenwriting and film direction. His films have played in more than 150 film festivals all over the world. The films have won over 30 audience and jury prizes.

Chainani has been honored with writing awards from the CAPE Foundation, Big Bear Lake, and New Draft. Chainani has received a Waterstone Prize nomination in the category of Children’s Literature and has featured in Out100. He has also received the Sun Valley Writers Fellowship and the Sasha Grant for debut authors, both amounting to $100,000 together. Currently, Chainani resides in New York City. He spends his time writing children’s stories and indulging himself in social activities in his spare time. He also works as a teacher. This profession takes up most of his daytime and leaves him only the evenings and nights to work on the development of his stories. During his school and college days, Chainani was an excellent player of tennis. He has played many competitive tournaments of the sport and won. But now, he hardly finds time to play tennis because of his writing and teaching commitments.

Author Chainani is a great believer in fairy tales. He even created his own fairy tale major during his days at Harvard. After his graduation, Chainani had plans to become a management consultant. But, things didn’t out the way he had expected and he ended up becoming a writer. Chainani considers himself lucky to have found the career field of writing as it has provided him success and satisfaction. His advice to upcoming writers is that they should pursue what they like other than writing because this field requires a lot of patience, hard work, and heartache. Chainani treats writing like a normal day job. He exercises in the morning and then sits down to write from 9 to 5. He keeps editing the chapters of his stories as he finishes them. Chainani expected to publish a new book very soon, which is going to be a part of his debut novel series. After that, he is expected to begin a new book series soon.

The School for Good and Evil series written by author Soman Chainani is comprised of a total of 5 books released between 2013 and 2019. Every book of this series revolves around the lives of Agatha and Sophie, who are middle-grade students and best friends. The series begins with a description that around 200 years ago, the children started getting kidnapped and sent to separate schools to get trained for becoming fairy tale villains and heroes. The schools are accordingly divided into Good & Evil. The kidnappings take place every year and only two kids are taken. One of them is always good and beautiful, while the other is usually an outcast, odd child. Such opposing pairs of kids get plucked from their youth ever year and spirited away.

The debut book of the series is entitled ‘The School for Good & Evil’. It was released in 2013. The book opens by depicting that Sophie and Agatha have been hearing about the kidnappings every year and they are about to know where they are sent. Being the most beautiful kid in all of Gavaldon, Sophie wishes to be taken to an enchanted world full of fantasies. She is determined to score good marks and graduate to become a fairy tale princess. On the other hand, Agatha doesn’t seem to fit for Good as she is disliked by everyone because of her wicked appearance. But, when the girls have finally swept away, they find that their fortunes have been reversed. Sophie gets dumped into the Evil School to undertake Death Curses, Henchmen Training, and Uglification, while Agatha is thrust in the Good School and finds herself among fair maidens and handsome princes to take classes in Animal Communication and Princess Etiquette.

Another exciting novel of the series is called ‘The Last Ever After’. It was published by HarperCollins in 2015. The main characters of this novel include Agatha, Lancelot du Lac, Sophie, ClarissaDovey, August Sader, Merlin, and others. The novel starts by showing that Sophie & Agatha go on separate paths after they complete their training in their respective Evil and Good schools. Agatha is told to stay with the beautiful School Master, while Sophie is ordered to return to Gavaldon. As the girls start settling into their modified lives, they head for a rewriting of their life’s story. Evil gets taken over by villains from the past, who intend to turn the world of Evil & Good upside down. The girls are not able to do anything for now as they are apart. It is only after they become aware of the situation that they arrive just in time and defeat the villains. This extraordinary book offers a journey filled with adventure, romance, action, twists & turns, and laughter.