vilakins | Book rec meme

An interesting book rec meme from norda. I'm putting quite a few of the books listed so far on my reading list.

Once the shock of reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows for the fifth time in a row wears off, some readers may be wondering what they can read next. So why not start a meme of suggestions?

Copy and paste the directions and the list so far, and then add three (and only three) new fantasy or SF books to the top of the list that that those who enjoyed Harry Potter may also enjoy. Label the books as either YA (young adult, suitable for the younger fans of Harry Potter) or A (adult,suitable for the not-so-younger fans of Harry Potter). It will be understood that anything labelled YA is also recommended for A.

Here are mine:

vilakins recommends:

Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time (YA) Three children are transported through the galaxy via tesseract (a fold in space and time) to fight the dark cloud of evil that is threatening it and the earth. This work of powerful imagination opened my young mind to SF and stories of wonder, and I'm sure it would appeal to anyone who enjoyed Harry Potter. Oh and it starts with "It was a dark and stormy night..." :-)

Diana Wynne Jones's Howl's Moving Castle (YA) Set in a world of magic with a heroine who doesn't let being the eldest (and therefore unluckiest) child or being cursed into old age stop her.from going off to live life to the full.

Fred Saberhagen's Empire of the East (A) The book is in three parts, originally published separately (The Broken Lands, The Black Mountains, Ardneh's World), each with a different POV. The story takes place in a future where magic is the norm (and takes energy from the magic user; nice consistent world-building) and technology is viewed with scepticism. Its characters are complex, evolving, and memorable.

And here's the list so far:

norda recommends:

1. L.M. Boston - The Children of Green Knowe. Tolly experiences time travel and ancestral magic in an English country house. [YA, published in 1954]

2. Geraldine McCaughrean - The Stones Are Hatching. Phelim had always thought there must be more to magic than rabbits or handkerchiefs - that if it existed at all, it would be too large to palm or to hide up your sleeve. [YA, published in 2000]

3. James A. Owen - Here, There Be Dragons. Charles, Jack and John find themselves forcibly removed from wartorn Britain to a realm literally beyond imagination. [YA, published in 2006]

wyldemusick recommends:

Alan Garner - The Weirdstone Of Brisingamen (YA) (It would be easy to just recommend all of Garner's books, really)

Samuel R. Delany - Neveryona (A) - although this is a quantum leap, simply because of the corners Chip thinks around when it comes to language; it's the start of a series of books

Roger Zelazny - Lord Of Light (A) - science fiction, but it's built on Hindu mythology and fantastic in every way

mdg1 recommends:

Good Omens(A), by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. Humorous fantasy, with a similar English mindset.
Lord Darcy (A), by Randall Garret. Short mystery stories set in a world where magic is part of society.
A Wizard of Earthsea (YA), by Ursula K. LeGuin. The ORIGINAL "wizarding school" book, as far as I know.

alexjay recommends:

1.Alma Alexander's Worldweavers (YA)--about learning magic despite yourself; despite being a bust at being the seventh child of a seventh child, and what a Potterhead would call a "Muggle".

2. Diane Duane's So You Want to be a Wizard (YA)--a very up-to-date, very American take on the schooling of new wizards and their first clashes with Evil. Perhaps even better than the Potter books for young adults,as it offers a very good reason why Evil exists and continues to exist.(first in a trilogy)

3. Either Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow or Italo Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveler (very much A)--we've already got them hooked on the drug of reading with Potter; now it's time for them to start mainlining the hard stuff ...

(Kidding on that last, of course ...)

pbray recommends:

1. Diana Wynne Jones's Charmed Life (YA)
2. Susan Cooper's Over Sea, Under Stone (YA)
3. Lloyd Alexander's The Book of Three (YA)

Patricia's picks are books that are marketed as YA, but that she first read and enjoyed as an adult. Much like the Harry Potter books, come to think of it.

janni recommends:

1. Lene Kaaberbol's The Shamer's Daughter (YA)
2. Robin McKinley's The Blue Sword (YA)
3. Tamora Pierce's The Magic in the Weaving (Circle of Magic, Book 1) (YA)

(All books that are, one way or another, about learning magic.)

jpsorrow recommends:

1. S.C. Butler's Reiffen's Choice (YA)
2. Jim Hines' Goblin Quest (YA)
3. Patricia Bray's The First Betrayal (A)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Stop taunting me with recommendations of yet more things to read ! Like there's not enough out there already !

*Decides to make notes, and find out which I can get from the library, and what I can borrow off Ven*

I'm doing much the same. I keep a small notebook of book recs and cross them out as I read them.

Some excellent recommendations there! A Wrinkle in Time was one of my very, very favoritest books when I was a kid, and I read it over and over. I still have the old, battered copy I got when I was nine or so -- I found it in a box a few years back -- but I'm too nervous to re-read it again, in case I don't like it as much as I remember. :)

I read it again as an adult and it was still excellent. I see in the Wikipedia article it was considered too strange and was turned down by 26 publishers in the 50s; I'm so glad she persevered. That book had me thinking about wild possibilities for months after reading it. There are many other books I loved as a kid, but that one really grabbed me and flew off with me. :-D

*vigorous nodding* Oh, yeah. That one climbed into my brain and stayed there. It's still there, really whether I ever do re-read it again or not. :)

I read all the sequels, too, but it was that first one that really did something special for me.

…has written way more than three books (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Diane_Duane#Bibliography), not all YA however. But there are eight in the Young Wizards sequence, which are eminently suitable.

Thanks! She is an author I don't yet know, so she's on my growing future reading list.

I love all of the Madeleine L'Engle's Time Quartet series, which includes the one mentioned already, A Wrinkle in Time. The others are:

A Wind in the Door (YA)
Many Waters (YA)
A Swiftly Tilting Planet (YA)

I must reread those. The first one really made an impact on me; I don't remember the others anywhere near as well.

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