The Bartemaeus Sequence is a modern fantasy that I loved in high school. Fantastic reads.
The Windup Girl is a newish sci-fi novel in which the consequences of untested genetic engineering come back to haunt humanity, and artificial intelligences require us to question how exactly to define "human." I liked it, despite the fact that it can be seen as having played to some stereotypes.
Someone mentioned Name of the Wind; I second that.
Dune is classic sci-fi. I enjoyed that one quite a bit.
Try some of the early Dragonlance books I enjoyed them quite a bit.
The Lies of Locke Lamora is excellent
John Marco has a few well written books. The wheel of time author has written some great Conan The Barbarian stories as well. Might of only written one, can't remember. That Drizzt series is pretty good as well. Can't remember authors name at the moment. There was another series, main character was called Erevis Cale, can't remember authors name on that one either. Somebody here probably knows what I am talking about.
R.A. Salvatore is the Author of the Drizzt novels (: And you can't go wrong with Conan
Last Call by David Okrent
It's a history of Prohibition in the United States--sad, funny and altogether insane. The book and it's author are major sources for the Ken Burns documentary mini-series Prohibition.
Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets by David Simon
This nonfiction book inspired the TV series Homicide: Life on the Streets and The Wire. It's very brutal stuff, but incredibly insightful.
*Mistborn and it was written by Brandon Sanderson, who also wrote the ending to the Wheel of Time series.
If recommending Terry Pratchett's series Discworld I wouldn't recommend that movie (it kind of sucked). If you want a taste of this book series I would recommend movies such as Going Postal or Hogfather, because they are actually well executed and are very close to the books.
Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy - Douglas Adams
Red Dwarf (based on the BBC series of the same name) - Rob Grant and Doug Naylor
Colony, Fat, Incompetence - Rob Grant
Sprawl trilogy, Bridge trilogy, Difference engine - William Gibson
Ready Player One - Ernest cline
Upload - Marc McClelland
Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson
Check out The Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson.
I would like to recommend some of the classic adventure books. Pretty much everything by Jules Verne, Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, Robinson Crusoe, King Solomon's Mines , The Count of Monte Cristo. Stuff like that. Can't go wrong with 19th century adventure fiction.
As a child I also loved westerns. Still do. If you're into westerns and/or adventures then check out Karl May's books. The Winnetou trilogy is pretty amazing.
I got you broseph. Two series, one dark fantasy and the other scifi.
I super-duper-highly recommend The Witcher series by Andrzej Sapkowski. So far, only three books are translated in English, but the rest of them have been translated by fans. The translations are very well-done, despite being riddled with very minor typos and grammatical errors. It's not enough to detract from the reading experience. If you're a fan of the games at all, then the books will simply blow your mind. The author considers the games to be an alternate version of Geralt's story, and doesn't at all consider them canon. But chronologically speaking, the games take place after the final novel.
Start off with The Last Wish. It's a collection of short stories designed to introduce Geralt and other important characters. After that, read Blood of Elves, the first novel, then Times of Contempt, which was recently translated. After that, Baptism of Fire, then Tower of Swallows, and finally Lady of the Lake. There's also another collection of short stories entitled Sword of Destiny, which you can read last. It bridges a few gaps and introduces a few new and interesting characters. It's not necessarily integral to the overall story, but it's a great read regardless.
Here's a link to the translations, in PDF format:
http://en.thewitcher.com/forum/index.php?/topic/20967-our-community-fan-translations/
Obviously these don't include The Last Wish or Blood of Elves since they're already translated officially. I personally recommend downloading the PDFs and using Foxit Reader to read them. If you aren't partial to reading e-books, I can understand. Sometimes it's just nice to have an actual book in your hands. Probably better for your eyes too...
I also recommend any of Larry Niven's dozen or so books that are part of his highly received Known Space universe. That includes all the Ringworld books (which Halo was inspired by, no doubt), Fleet of Worlds books, and the Man-Kzin Wars books . I've only read the first Ringworld book and I just recently purchased the first two books of the Fleet of Worlds series (which consists of five books alone). All of that will keep you PLENTY occupied with reading.
Of course, I wouldn't expect anyone but the most dedicated reader to be able to read a dozen books of the same universe without burning out. And it can be tough to bounce between two different series and maintain the flow. But there you go. That's damn near 20 really good books for you to read. Too much? Read just the Witcher books then. They're incredible. :0
Hi!
A friend of mine is builing a homepage that suggests what books you will like if you have rated a few.
If you like, you can check it out at www.readgeek.com (I think it's still some kind of beta, but it already works pretty well)
Anyway, my favorite book is "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell" by Susanna Clarke. Never heard about it until I got it in exchange for sth else in a hostel and I couldn`t put it away until I was done. Funny and exciting...