Philip Pullmans His Dark Materials trilogy:
These are almost as good as discworld though more complex and need to be read a few times to get your head round them. Also try his mystery series (don’t know what this one is called):
-The Ruby in the Smoke
-The Shadow in the North
-The Tiger in the Well
-The Tin Princess
The Hero and the Crown
The Blue Sword - both by Robin McKinley
Idoru by William Gibson
Katya Reimann (I think Wind in a Foreign Sky was her first)
Sharon Shinn (The Allelluia Files… I think?)
Laurell K. Hamilton (Anita Blake books)
Non-fantasy:
The Tale of Genji (I don’t remember the author’s name ;_; Lady Murasaki, maybe…?)
Memoirs of a Geisha
I second the recommendation of Poe.
Jazz by Toni Morrison
It’s too late at night to think of more <.<
Good books? Well, I’m pretty across the board.
Sci-Fi:
I, Robot - Issac Asimov
Dune - Frank Herbert
2001 Space Odessy (Can’t remember who wrote it)
Fiction:
Michael Chrichton -Jurassic Park
Michael Chrichton - Lost World
Michael Chrichton - Andromeda Strain
Michael Chrichton - Air Frame
John Grisham - The Pelican Brief
John Grisham - The Client
John Grisham - The Chamber
John Grisham - The Rainmaker
Thomas Harris - Red Dragon
Thomas Harris - Silence of the Lambs
Upton Sinclair - The Jungle
Hubert Selby Jr. - Requiem for a Dream
Chuck Palahniuk - Fight Club
Catch Me (Can’t remember who wrote it, nobody well known)
Fantasy:
Brian Jacques - Redwall
Brian Jacques - Mossflower
Brian Jacques - Matimeo
Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time Series
The Harry Potter Series
Originally posted by vyse the legend
[b]Philip Pullmans His Dark Materials trilogy:
- The Northan Lights
- The Subtle Knife
- The Amber Spyglass[/b]
Umm, you sure about the title of the first one? I’m positive it’s The Golden Compass. I posted these already by the way.
Eye by Frank Herbert is an interesting book of sci-fi shorts. Most anything by Azimov or Herbert are good sci-fi. Older books by Michael Crichton (sp?) are good, though is recent ones are more or less just movie scripts.
For a series, I’d recommend the Dark Tower series (book five coming soon!). I think it’s interesting, and it’s fun if you’ve read other King books. See, I say this series first even though I read Wheel of Time a lot more, and I do that because certain things about WoT really annoy me.
I’ve never read the Earthsea series, but I read Tehanu, which is a sequel work that Le Guin wrote. I’m not sure about the series, but that book was… interesting.
I saw Crichton and Grisham mentioned previously, and my favorite books from those authors weren’t mentioned. I enjoyed A Time to Kill (by Grisham, his first work) and Sphere (by Crichton).
I’m just stabbing in the dark here, but I’d love to know if someone else here has even heard of a book called His Monkey Wife.
uh, read Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse, and read 1984 by George Orwell.
I’ve never read any of Terry Pratchett’s books, but everyone here always raves about them so I think I’ll give them a shot. Are they ordered in a series or unrelated to each other, and if so which should I read first?
Originally posted by demigod
Umm, you sure about the title of the first one? I’m positive it’s The Golden Compass. I posted these already by the way.
That title is the title for the UK version, though it may be different in the US.
CH: the discworld books are grouped into different seies each revelving around one or a group of characters, they don’t have to be read in order but I reccomend that you read the books in each series in order.
Yeah see, the thing is I don’t know what the order is, or which series is which, or what would be a good series to start with.
Anything by James Patterson and Dean Koontz o.o
What the hell?! At least one person had the sense to mention DragonLance, but no one has mentioned any of R. A. Salvatore’s books?! WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE!
Go into a bookstore. Look for R. A. Salvatore. Buy every book of his you see. Have fun 
Stick to the Frank Herbert books
They aren’t THAT bad, Zero. Close, but not quite there yet…
Originally posted by Cloth Hat
Yeah see, the thing is I don’t know what the order is, or which series is which, or what would be a good series to start with.
Start with the Rincewind series, the first is The colour of Magic and the second is The light Fantastic.
Originally posted by deathstryke
They aren’t THAT bad, Zero. Close, but not quite there yet…
Yes they are, those books would be barely acceptable as some random pulp sci-fi, but to see them with the name Dune on them is obscene. It’s like a publisher went on to fanfiction.net and bought some random stories about Dune.
And thanks Vyse, I’ll do that.
R.A. Salvatore’s books are fun to read, but generally poorly written. He tried valiantly with The Dark Elf Trilogy, my personal favorite. Servant of the Shard is written surprisingly well, though it’s not as inspired as the trilogy. The books set between these are all fairly good. Anything more recent is sentimental trash.
Xwing1056
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Phoenix Valkyrie, for mentioning Zelazny. He gets too little credit. The Amber series is told from a first-person perspective, and Zelazny uses his main character’s lack of omniscience to really engross the reader in the story. It’s a nice change of pace if you’ve been reading stock fantasy before hand.
Hell, anything with “Zelazny” that you can get your hands on would be well worth it. <i>A Night in Lonesome October</i> fits right into the time of year.
Othewise…as for Salvator, don’t bother with anything except his Dark Elf books unless you want some really, REALLY cliche characters and stories.
Raymond E. Feist has a nice-sized Riftwar Saga series. The books aren’t too long, and the series is continued in a following saga if you become a fan.
There’s always Robert Jordan and his Wheel of Time series, but be warned - the books usually run a good 700 pages minimum, and it starts getting repetitive after the 3rd or 4th. It’s definitely worth it to read at least the first, though.
Beyond the core Dragonlance books, Weiss and Hickman collaborated on bunch of other things. My favorite of theirs (‘sides Dragonlance) is the Death Gate cycle, a 7-volume saga that still stands out in my. It’d take to long for me to explain the series’ premise, so just trust me, will ya?
Terry Brooks has sever series. The Shannara books are serious fantasies, somewhat like the second coming of fantasy after the Lord of the Rings. The Magic Kingdom for Sale books are funny fantasy fluff. The Knight of the Word books are fantasies set in modern times, and I think a favorite around here.
Lastly (and that means I’m leaving out a whole lot of things that deserve to be read), try to track down the Chronicles of Corum books by Michael Moorecock. They’re nice and fast moving.
<i>Edit: New Gunslinger book comes out next month, doesn’t it? I can’t wait!</i>
Originally posted by VickiMints
I saw Crichton and Grisham mentioned previously, and my favorite books from those authors weren’t mentioned. I enjoyed A Time to Kill (by Grisham, his first work) and Sphere (by Crichton).
I didn’t really like Sphere, it took me a few tries to get through it. Cool concept, but…well…yea. And as far as Grisham goes, I’m a fan boy. I like everything he’s written law related, so I listed the ones that I thought are absolutly neccessary. While A Time to Kill is certainly great, I don’t think it’s as good as the ones I listed. But even still, if it were up to me, I’d make you buy em all and read them.
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco: A murder mystery set in a fourteenth-century monastery. It is very well researched.
Grendel by John Gardener: A novel based on the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf but told from the perspective of the monster Grendel. Includes some fascinating psychological and philosophical passages as well as several good comic scenes.
Tail Tigerswallow and the Great Tobacco War by Arthur L. Hoffman: The world’s first anti-smoking novel. A tale of anti-smoking activists whose innovative guerilla tactics smite down the tobacco industry.