What do I read next?

Cafe Society
1

I loved the Harry Potter books. J.K. Rowling just hit upon a very special something with those. I’ve read all of them at least twice; the earlier ones many more times than that.

Right now I am on book 5 of A Song Of Ice And Fire. Book 1 was good once I warmed up to it; books 2 and 3 were so good I squealed. Book 4 was pretty boring but 5 is better.

I am NOT a big fan of fantasy, I’ve just particularly loved these two series. I think that I have pretty high expectations for readability. My English degree focused on 18th and 19th century novels and a lot of modern stuff just doesn’t cut the mustard for me.

So what do I read next?

2

Non-scifi/fantasy: I’ve just finished Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, the first of a projected trilogy about the life of Thomas Cromwell (one of Henry VIII’s ministers), I’m about to start hunting around for Bringing Out the Bodies, the second book in the trilogy. Mantel’s style is a little unusual but it’s a great story so far (and she won the Booker Prize for it). I thought I’d hate it, being all Tudored out, but she does a good job from telling lesser known tales from a different perspective.

Scifi/fantasy: Anything by Jack Vance.
Maybe embark on the Malazan Book of the Fallen series if you think Proust is just too short.

3

Have you read Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson and the Olympians series? I read all the books to my daughter at about the same time that she was reading Harry Potter and I don’t know which one of us was more excited when we got each new book.

4

Narnia is fun, especially Silver Chair and Dawn Treader. It’s fantasy, but really good.

5

I didn’t like Martin, loved Potter, and am a huge fan of 19th century novels. So, with that in mind, my suggestions are:

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, by Susanna Clarke.

The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde.

The Curse of Chalion, by Lois McMaster Bujold.

And Sailing to Sarantium, by Guy Gavriel Kay.

All four of these suggestions are fantasy, simply because there wasn’t a ton of data otherwise in the OP. Apologies if it’s off the mark.

6

I’ve been listening to the Physick Book of Delivernce Dane on my commute http://www.amazon.com/The-Physick-Book-Deliverance-Dane/dp/B003WUYROK. It’s a lot of fun, if not spectacular writing.

7

That series is downright odd…

Loved The Hallowed Hunt, which isn’t really a sequel to Chalion but is set in the same world.

8

For any Harry Potter fans, I strongly recommend The High House, by James Stoddard. It’s an old-fashioned fantasy set in a magical Victorian-era mansion with dinosaurs in the attic and tigers in the basement. The writing and descriptions are wonderfully lavish and the plot and characters are excellent. As an added bonus, it has the best cover art I’ve ever seen.

9

18th/19th century realism? Maybe shift to a nautical setting and take on the Aubrey and Maturin series by Patrick OBrian?

10

Diana Wynne Jones. That’s all I’ve got to say.

11

I’ll be reading World Without End by Ken Follett probably till Thanksgiving.

12

In the fantasy vein, I’d second Jonathan Strange & Mr Norell.

For something different but also excellent, the Parade’s End tetralogy by Ford Madox Ford. Available in several one-volume editions. If you really care about writing…

13

Thanks for the suggestions, everyone. I have a lot to look into! I find it hard to describe what precisely I’m after… basically I’m after series of books that are so interesting and magical that they suck you in. Things that tend to spoil that for me are:

  1. Plodding narration
  2. Poorly drawn characters
  3. Political correctness, esp. in historical fic
  4. Ignorance of stuff I know, in historical fic
  5. Poorly written faux-dialect in historical fic
  6. Magic because it’s “cool” rather than there to drive the plot

FWIW, I have far less patience for the Victorian triple-deckers than I used to. Also for many of the Booker prizewinners that used to be my favorite books (I can’t get three pages into One Hundred Years Of Solitude anymore) (that one about Thomas Cromwell sounds promising though. I love machination). I want to be ENTERTAINED dammit!

14

I think you might really enjoy Neil Gaiman’s American Gods. IMHO, he’s more “literary” than your average modern author, but he creates amazing characters and draws you in. And if you like it, there’s the follow-up Anansi Boys, which is set in the same universe, but is lighter in tone and at the same time I think a tighter story overall.

I second The Curse of Chalion.

Speaking of, you might find something you like in my thread asking for stuff that has political machinations and plots like ASOIAF.