Suggestions for great/fav books/series to read?

The Name of The Wind easily one of the best books I have ever read

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drenai_Series

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elric_of_Melnibon%C3%A9

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Company

There's also three trilogies of books that are all inter-related by Robin Hobb

all 10/10 imo

Oh just remembered, the Night Watch series, Day Watch and Twilight Watch are the other 2, I also heard there was another one but I'm not sure, I never checked it out. They are from a Russian author who's name escapes me right now. Sergei Lukyanenko.the 4th, and last, book in the series is called The Last Watch.

The Well World books by Jack Chalker. It's some pretty crazy shit.

Frank Herbert's Dune series - An absolute classic of science fiction and very imaginative and original series, especially the first book is something you definitely should read if you haven't already.

William Gibson's books, Neuromancer and such or short stories in Burning chrome.

And then there's a lot of stuff like Clive Barker's Coldheart Canyon or short story collections named Books of blood, Neil Gaiman books or perhaps some more classic stuff by Heinrich Mann's really funny Professor Unrat or Herman Hesse's Steppenwolf, Thomas Hardy's Tess

If you want something really interesting and very exotic you can try Ma Jian's Stick out your tongue. It's a collection of short stories placed in Tibet.

Geez there's so many books and so little time.

What do you like? If you tell us that we could make better recommendations.

• Song of Fire and Ice
• Treasure Island
• Alice in Wonderland (if you don't mind a trip through someone else's mind-fuckery...)
• Dracula*
• Lord of the Rings Trilogy (& read the Hobbit first if you haven't already)*
• War of the Worlds
• Clive Cussler's NUMA Files / Oregon books (2 different series, both very good)
• Frankenstein*
• South by Ernest Shackleton (if you don't mind reading a re-count of his legendary expedition to the South pole. I found it was a fascinating read to see what they had to go through!)
• Touching the Void*
• Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
• Joseph Delaney's Spook's Apprentice series*
• Angie Sage's Magyk series
• Hungry City Chronicles / Mortal Machines series
• Trudi Canavan's Black Magician series / Kyralia series*
• Canavan's Ithania series*
• Cirque du Freak / Darren Shan books were good, but a bit weird.
• The Sherlock Holmes books
• Alpha Force books by Chris Ryan
• Code Red books by Chris Ryan
• Anthony Horowitz's Alex Rider series
• Johnathon Stroud's Bartimaeus Trilogy
• Charlie Fletcher's Stoneheart Trilogy
• Christopher Paulini's Inheritance Trilogy
• His Dark Materials Trilogy
• Garth Nix's Abhorsen Trilogy

\The ones with the asterisk (\) I haven't read, but are classics, and I want to re-read LoTR (and Black Magician and Ithania and Spook's Apprentice) - it's been too long since I last read them.

If I had to pick just one, I'd be stuck picking between Cussler's Oregon Files or Martin's Song of Fire and Ice or Adam's Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. FUUUUUUU as I keep remembering awesome books I've read this list gets longer. Add the Spook's Apprentice and Kyralia series in there as well. And Inheritance series. And Abhorsen.

Xanth is fun have you tried the Incarnations of Immortality series? I loved the first 3 I think the first 5. Great stuff.

I'm reading the Mortal Instruments series and ... pass.
I do recommend the Divergent series. it fixes a lot of the problems with The Hunger Games.

It's young but i really kinda like Deviants series. I've been out of the mystery book game for a while so I won a book and I really enjoy The Charity Deacon series

I can't recommend books without mentioning When the Hero Comes Home it's fantastic. One of my favorite anthologies hands down. It really needs more visibility. I can't wait to read the sister anthology

Everworld is a classic series (I assume you've already read Animorphs) and I like it about the same as Animorphs. It's better written but Animorphs has fewer pop culture references so it doesn't hold up quite as well but it's more adult, more violent and it's just really really good. Except for the last two books which were obviously rushed.

I hear good things about Farsighted which is supposed to be a handicapable series if I recall. Blind kid gets powers... should be fun.

If you don't mind vampires I liked the Vampire Academy series. I haven't seen school yard insults handled so seriously since that one George Lopez episode where his daughter got called a slut by some dick boyfriend. I'm much less excited for the sequel series but Vampire Academy was fun.

I'd highly recommend The Lies of Locke Lamora, by Scott Lynch, and it's sequel, Red Seas Under Red Skies.

The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck. I absolutely love that book, and manage to read it a few times a year, and I've had it for a good many years now.

Depending on your prefered genre I have several recommendations (other than in the previous comments):

• William Gibson (Neuromancer) and Neil Stephenson (Snow Crash and Diamond Age) if you like Cyberpunk. They defined the genre but are competent in other genres as well
• Larry Niven (Ringworld) if you are fascinated by hard SciFi
• R. A. Salvatore (Forgotten Realms) for pop fantasy
• Daniel Suarez (Demon and Darknet) for awesome videogame related SciFi. If you like that, follow up with Tad Williams Otherworld and Ernest Clines Ready Player One.
• I don't know about the english translations, but Andreas Brandhorst is one of the most recognized german language SciFi authors
• Science Fantasy? Hell, yes! Science explained by Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen in colaboration with Terry Prattchet and the characters of Discworlds Unseen University.

Any Sherlock Holmes book.
Animal Farm.

I've been enjoying Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series lately - if you like things a little odd I recommend it.

I've lately been reading the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever. Not the most literary intense, but entertaining nonetheless. Otherwise I strongly suggest the Song of Ice and Fire series by George RR Martin. I haven't read the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo yet, but it is on my list. Also, Ender's Game is always a good read.

TL;DR: Lots of books are very good. I wish I had more time to read them.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - if it's been more than two years since you last read it, do it again and be amazed at how many good jokes you missed and/or forgot.

The Hunger Games - I liked it more for the world-building and underlying theme of the impact of media and propaganda than for the main plot though.

50 Shades of Grey - because I feel like adding some trolling to an otherwise honest post.

Good Omens - because combining Neil Gaiman's imagination and Terry Pratchett's sense of comedy is a winning combination, and probably gives the funniest story about the Apocalypse ever.

Charles Stross' work - for entertaining writing style, and for somehow being able to mix hard sci-fi with Lovecraftian horror.

And of course HP Lovecraft's work - for the archetypical psychological horor,

Probably this has something to do with the great website goodreads, which recommends books based on subject, author, title, keywords, other books you've read, comparisons, etc. It's rather an awesome website, and I suggest you check it out.

Is for recommendations, well, hmm. I think I'd have to recommend Tian Shu or The Voynich Manuscript

Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption

And Fallen Angels by walter dean myers

The Darwath books by Barbara Hambly
Sword of Shadows Series by J.V. Jones, but the last one isn't out yet
Word & Void trilogy by Terry Brooks
Genesis of Shannara trilogy by Terry Brooks

Well I'm a classic Sci-Fi buff, with some fantasy leanings, so here are my recommendations:

--Sci-Fi--
Literally anything by Isaac Asimov. The man is a God in the world of print. If you want a more specific recommendation: The Foundation series is amazing

The Past Through Tomorrow by Robert A. Heinlein. A collection of short stories of the predicted future from the past. Heinlein was so accurate with his description of the space shuttle that landed on the moon (before the project became public), that the secret service ransacked his place and interrogated him to find out if he was getting leaked information, or a spy.

True Names - The book that (arguably) started the Cyberpunk genre

Ender's Game - Fantastic Sci-Fi book, one of the best of all times

Fahrenheit 451 - dystopian future of societal decay

... so many more, but that's a good start

--FANTASY--

The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan. Amazingly detailed (and long) series with minimal magical creatures. I personally don't like fantasy books with 100s of centaurs, elves, dwarves, etc.. etc.. The only magical creatures in The Wheel of Time were created by magical humans, and there are few of them

Sword of Truth - That ending man... that ending. I don't want to spoil it, but this series has one of my favorite twist endings of all time. It's also a fantastic series in its own right. The author uses prophecies and manages to keep all the various books and plots consistent. Quite a feat.

Sabriel by Garth Nix. A new twist on the 'Necromancer' archtype, and done very well. The plot is interesting and the writing is superb.

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. Probably the best fantasy novel/series I've ever read. The storytelling is amazing, the plot is engaging and the characters feel real. Can't give this one enough praise.

Right now I'm reading the Sword Art Online series. It's a fan translation, but it's been well done. I'd very much recommend the series if you are/were an MMO gamer.

The Discworld series!

Also, Good Omens may well be my favorite book. American Gods is right up there as well. And if you haven't read Hitchhiker's guide yet, you definitely should!

How about some Dean Koontz?

There are three of his more well known series.

Frankenstein (5 in total)
Odd Thomas (7 in total. #6 comes out real soon)
Christopher Snow (3 in total. Nobody knows when #3 will be released)

Chuck Palahniuk writes excellent books, I've been slowly making my way through his catalog and most of his books just blow my mind. You may have heard of a film adaptation of one of his works called Fight Club. Invisible Monsters and Rant are both good books to start with.

If you're into detective stories (actually, even if you're not), I'd recommend the Myron Bolitar series by Harlan Coben. I'm not a fan of the genre but I've enjoyed all his books so far.

Cal Leandros series by Rob Thurman and Lamb by Christopher Moore (Actually all his books but Lamb most of all)

I'm actually really sad no one has mentioned The Dark Tower series by Stephen King.

They have a cult following for a reason and they're not at all something you'd expect from Stephen King. An amazing fantasy series. I've read each of the books at least 4 times.