I need a book to read; no wait I need twenty

[Daveman]

read books by Richard Dawkins (not fiction I know but they're interesting apparently), I personally haven't but my friend who is a devout christian said he quite enjoyed them.

I think also it could be a good time to learn something new, so just grab a textbook or something on a subject of your choice.

 

[AndyFromMonday]

The Lord of the Rings books. They're damn awesome, WAY better than the movies. Not that the movies are bad or anything.

 

[UberMore]

The Bible.

Awesome.

I recommend Sabriel, but seeing as you're a Nix fan, I'm assuming you've read it.
The Magician's Guild, The Novice and The High Lord are all good books, all in a series by Judy Canavan. She recommends Nix, and I think he's recommended her, so it kinda works.
I'd say the above 4 are all un-put-down-able. I managed to read The Novice and The High Lord in 2 weeks, 4 days on The High Lord. (doesn't sound an amazing feat, but I was revising for exams and sleeping alot aswell).

 

[OnTheRocks]

Most of mine are Historical Fiction, but I'll shy away from recommending them. (There are a lot.)

Try:

The Agent Pendergast Series by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. Though the actual "series" starts with my favorite of their books, Cabinet of Curiosities, The Relic is the first book Pendergast appears in chronologically.

Ballad of the Whisky Robber: This is a nonfiction book about the greatest bank robber in Eastern Europe, who hit banks while working by day as a professional hockey goalie and being pursued by a robbery detective that trained his squad by showing them Hungarian-dubbed episodes of Columbo. No shit, it's real. One of the funniest nonfiction books I've ever read. (Another good one in this vein is the excellent Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil)

Dan Abnett's Warhammer 40,000 fiction is always a slam-bang good time. Try the Eisenhorn or Ravenor trilogies (which are now omnibuses).

James Ellroy, if you can stomach the corruption, violence and racism of America's criminal underworld of the 1930s-1960s. Ellroy is one hell of a storyteller. The LA Quartet is a good place to start- The Black Dhalia, The Big Nowhere, LA Confidential, White Jazz. Finish that, and you can graduate to the American Underworld Trilogy, American Tabloid, The Cold Six Thousand and the upcoming Blood's a Rover. Pick them up if you dare, put them down if you can, and forget everything you thought you knew about the Kennedys, Howard Hughes, J. Edgar Hoover, Jimmy Hoffa and America's golden age.

 

[pigeon_of_doom]

If you're thinking of expanding to historical fiction, then Shogun or King Rat by James Clavell would be excellent choices, particularly if you're interested in Japanese culture. Bernard Cornwell novels a good enough if all you want is a medieval yarn.

For straight up fantasy (most of my favourites are in your list anyway), anything by Robin Hobb or G.RR Martin is worth checking out. Lian Hearn's Tales of the Otori is a decent read too. Hyperion is a good sci fi novel too.

If you're not into comics/manga, then that's a shame as you're missing out on some great stuff that appears to match what you're looking for. Epic hilarious fantasy in Bone, Y the Last Man's interesting premise and constant pop culture references, Nausicaa's... well, it's by Miyazaki, enough said. Watchmen, Maus, Jimmy Corrigan, From Hell, Strangers in Paradise, Starman, Batman Year One, Tezuka's masterpieces, there's something for everyone. Don't overlook an entire medium.

 

[coldfrog]

I know some have been mentioned but I will gladly second these:

Hyperion series, Dan Simmons: Amazingly literature-bound science fiction that is probably my favorite far-future series that is still extremely grounded in the classics. If you appreciate the old greats as well as harboring your love of Sci Fi that you've expressed, this couldn't be more amazing.

His Dark Materials series, Philip Pullman: Aside from what I thought was a little overwrought ending, I love the science laid out in this book, as well as the way it is not as morally well-defined as some other children's series (Namely Harry Potter, which I liked, but with the exception of Snape it was pretty black and white when it came to good and evil).

The Death Gate series, Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman: A rather light, easy reading series that nevertheless delves deep into its world's history and science, I particularly like the take it has on the universe it lays out for you. Again, as is my style, it is not full of black and white morality, though the situations aren't quite as complex as some others.

Malazan Tales of the Fallen series, Steven Erickson: While the writing can be a little thick and tough to get through sometimes, this is one of the most complex and unusual worlds in pretty much any series I've ever seen. This guy has got to have the most bizarrely creative ideas, his concept of magic, the different races, the immense history spanning hundreds of thousands of years of the world, almost everything is like nothing I've experienced before. You have to dedicate a lot of time to this though, the books start at 600 pages and don't get any shorter. There are... 8 or 9 available right now I think, and he's not finished with the series either. Many can be read standing alone though.

Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson: A book with a bizarre sense of humor and an unusual take on religion, computer programming, governments and the internet. It is a fast read but very intense. He does a lot of research and, in this situation it's easy to tell the difference between when he's writing and when he's taking down information from sources, but it's still probably my favorite of his novels. I'm also reading Diamond Age right now, and while I haven't finished it I think I'm willing to recommend it as well.

Perdido Street Station (and the rest of his books), China Mieville: I was told to get this because someone compared it to Discworld. While the only thing that they even remotely have in common is that they live on a flat planet, I will say that the books are shockingly good. Again, like Erickson they can be a little thick and tough to get through (and for the first time in a while I found myself looking up words in a dictionary) but I think the situations he sets out are amazing and disturbing all at once. I recommend Perdido Street Station first, as it is the first he wrote and I well know that this series is not for everyone, but I still have to recommend it as one of my favorite sort-of series of books that are set in the same world. The Scar and Iron Council are the other two set in that world.

 

[son_of_khorne]

I personally recommend the Ciaphas Cain series by Sandy Mitchell.

 

[ICantBelieveItGoesBoom]

The Merde series by Stephen Clark and his spin-off book "Talk to the Snail". You most likely won't really "get" it unless you're British though.

 

[Ajna]

It'd be more useful to have an age (or at least an "ish") to help, but I'm assuming that if you're into Chris Paoloni, you're somewhere in the realm of High School (that's where his audience tends to be).

Two amazing serieses (serii? That plural has always bugged me. Please help.) are:

The Wheel of Time [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wheel_of_Time] series (an eleven book series, with a twelfth that will be split up to come soon, by another (more alive) author). I loved that series, plan on buying the last book, and am a teensy bit gay for Robert Jordan (if you take a peek at his author photo, you may be too. He looks like a pimp: Cane and all.) The first book is named "The Eye of The World". If you don't like waiting on the author to write the next book in a series, though, you may want to put this on hold. (I love it myself, and everyone I've shown it to has loved the series. I recently handed a copy of the first book to my mother, so I can give an opinion from an older audience in a while.)

And:

The Sword of Truth [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_sword_of_truth] series. An eleven book series (I must have a thing for the number "eleven"), it's classified both as "romance" and "fiction", and is notable for the fact that it has quite a few "smutty" parts in it. Such as a part where a man tries to rape a woman in jail, and nearly gets his nuts ripped off (in a way that positively screams "poetic justice"). Might be a bit awkward if, say, your parents end up reading it, merely for it's overtly sexual sections, but it's nothing pornographic (just honest). It has quite a bit of violence in it, and... I really can't rave enough about it. I highly recommend it. I was hooked on it to the point where a signed copy of "Confessor" (the last book) at roughly 3 times the normal price was a serious consideration on my part. I still regret my decision against it.

Both seriess (Nope, that's wrong too. Christmonger!) are notable for their length. And not just when it comes to book-count. I own a paperback copy of "The Stone of Tears" (second in the SoT series), and it's 1012 pages long.

The Sea of Trolls was a decent book, but the sequel made me want to vomit. I suppose that the "TTYL" series of books (chick books, but you said you were fine with those) were interesting, less for the story (which was mundane enough to be plausible), but for the way it was presented, which I've never seen something similar to before. There was a similarly interesting book I read a while back (but can't recall the title) that was told entirely through written notes (after the character took a "vow of silence" when he realized he screwed everything up when he talked).

If I recall any other decent books, I'll PM you them.

 

[shwnbob]

Choke, Fight Club- Chuck Palahniuk
Every Harry Potter book
Circue Du Freak series
This should keep you busy brother.

 

[GOATOFRAGE]

homers odyssey is a great read

 

[Naeo]

Not sure if when you say "Earthsea - LeGuin - All" you mean just all Earthsea, or all everything she's witten. If you haven't read any of her other stuff, why. The. Fuck. Not? She has a lot of other stuff she's written, and, personally, I think a lot of it is better than Earthsea (don't get me wrong, Earthsea was amazing).

"Siddhartha" by Herman Hesse. It's short, though (like, 100 pages). But it's a good read.

"Ishmael" by Daniel Quinn. A fast, but highly interesting read. This and Siddhartha are pretty deeply philosophical.

"Flowers for Algernon" by Daniel Keys. Short, and the end was depressing (for me), but just the way it's written is worth reading it to see.

Anything by H.P. Lovecraft. It's pretty dark stuff, extremely unique, written mostly in the 1920s and '30s. But, this might classify as "makes you want to slit your wrists" depending how easily creeped out (not scared, but creeped out) you are. I think some of his stuff has expired from copyright, so you should b able to find it on Project Gutenberg.

Th Pendragon seris by D.J. MacHale.

Please, dear God, don't tell me you've never read any Arthur C. Clarke. He's up there right next to Asimov in the "sci-fi genii" hall of fame.

On the same note, Micheal Crichton has a bunch of good books. Not the greatest literature ever, but it's good stuff and it turns pages. If you've never read anything by him, you should be ashamed of yourself.

Anthony Burgess' "A Clockwork Orange". Oh god, the language. He uses made-up words and it can be tricky at times, but it's great none the less. Short, though.

"One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" by Ken Kesey. Just a good story about some crazy people, but kind of short.

Steven King has a couple of shining jewels. "The Stand" (get the unabridged/longer version, it's like 800 pages) was one I just loved. "The Shining", of course, is great too, but a bit creepy at times. "Cujo" was interesting.

Nancy Farmer's "The House of the Scorpion". Semi-long, pretty good.

"Dubliners" by James Joyce. It's not impossible to read- I read it in 7th grade, but should probably re-read it. It's short, though, just a collection of short stories. A pretty Modernist piece- not much definite plot in some of the stories, just everyday-ish situations.

If you're into denser non-fiction at all, I found Gandhi's autobiography very interesting. But it can be a hard read for a lot of people, so no love lost if you don't like it/don't want to read it.

 

[Ghadente]

Kushiel's Legacy by Jacqueline Carey

 

[Lord Beautiful]

The Sword of Truth [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_sword_of_truth] series. An eleven book series (I must have a thing for the number "eleven"), it's classified both as "romance" and "fiction", and is notable for the fact that it has quite a few "smutty" parts in it. Such as a part where a man tries to rape a woman in jail, and nearly gets his nuts ripped off (in a way that positively screams "poetic justice"). Might be a bit awkward if, say, your parents end up reading it, merely for it's overtly sexual sections, but it's nothing pornographic (just honest). It has quite a bit of violence in it, and... I really can't rave enough about it. I highly recommend it. I was hooked on it to the point where a signed copy of "Confessor" (the last book) at roughly 3 times the normal price was a serious consideration on my part. I still regret my decision against it.

I would recommend this series as well. In spite of its flaws, it is a great series of books.

However, there is a book that I recommend above all others, and that is The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. As much as I can nitpick flaws in other books, I can genuinely say that the number of flaws in Rothfuss's writing are so few that it borders on flawless. Not only that, but the story is fantastic. Please buy this book so that Mr. Rothfuss will have enough money to write more books.

 

[MageVortex]

1984/Animal Farm by George Orwell

I never read Animal Farm (saw the movie show...or maybe i did read it for class....i just remember the plot line very well)
But 1984 will make you want to slit your wrists. a solid read....but it put me in a depressed mood for 2 days after finishing it. Good to read, but not entirely enjoyable.

Personally, I love Stephen R Lawhead's books!
http://www.amazon.com/Stephen-R.-Lawhead/e/B000AQ4NUC/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1
His Pendragon cycle series, as well as his King Raven Trilogy and 'The Celtic Crusades' series...oh, and of course his 'Song of Albion' series! Man...He is my favorite author. Solid stuff.

 

[MageVortex]

However, there is a book that I recommend above all others, and that is The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. As much as I can nitpick flaws in other books, I can genuinely say that the number of flaws in Rothfuss's writing are so few that it borders on flawless. Not only that, but the story is fantastic. Please buy this book so that Mr. Rothfuss will have enough money to write more books.

This book is in fact awesome. I loved it. I can't wait to read his next book. It better be a trilogy or I'll be very sad/angry/upset/mad/disenchanted/disgruntled. I thought the next one was supposed to be out already, but i've checked books stores multiple times to no avail.. ACtually, sinc ei now have the authors name, i'm going to go look it up!
While I do that, get this book.

 

[The_Echo]

Pendragon by DJ MacHale. Ten books, plus a prequel trilogy which is subpar and not even written by the original author. Meh. I read quite a bit and it's probably the best series I've ever read. A million times better than Harry Potter (That and Twilight seem to be the most popular among people right now... I dunno why, though.)

Code Orange by Caroline B. Cooney is also a good stand-alone book, but it's rather short. It's realistic fiction (not my favorite genre...) but it's still a great read.

And I'm gonna have to offer up a classic, Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck.

 

[G1eet]

Matt Reilly and James Rollins are good technothriller authors. Matt Reilly is more militarily-based, but it kept my attention just fine. As for Rollins, I started with Subterranean, which was pretty mind blowing. A lot of his other books, including Subterranean, include some horror, which I found to be great.