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[C.P.]

Thank you, Shaitarn! I will be going through your list and checking all of these out. I'm sure I will find something in here. :)

And thanks, Tammie! I hadn't thought to check for a list. I will check these out.

[Karishma]

Tammie wrote: "Karishma wrote: "Hi !

Can anyone give me some good recommendations for some mysteries or action/adventure books?

I have a lot of fantasy reads set up but I would love to diversify a bit too.

Tha..."

I have no idea why I did not get any notification for this.

Better late than never I think. Thank you so much. Those are really good recs and I'm looking forward to them.

Will go and check out which one's I can get!

[Shari S]

Hello all!

I’m hoping to get recommendations for fantasy books. However, I have certain criteria (yes, I realize beggars can’t be choosers) but I’m picky (but appreciative).

Ok, here are my requirements:

It must be a series (a trilogy at minimum)
Each book must have at least 400 pages
Magic is good
No teenage angst
No insufferable romance
No sex scenes
No excessive fighting (some swordplay is ok)
Must come highly recommended by you!

I’ll reciprocate with my own recommendations

Thank you!
😉

[C.P.]

Have you read any Brandon Sanderson, Shari? He fits your criteria very well and is fantastic. The Mistborn trilogy would be a great place to start his books if you haven't already read them.

I also enjoy Brian McClellan's Powder Mage books a lot. The continuation series has also been very good so far. Those may be more fighting than you want, since they are military based books.

[Nicole]

Shari, you might like either the Benedict Jacka Alex Verus series (depending on your feelings about Dresden-ish urban fantasy) or Robert Jackson Bennett's Divine Cities. As I recall, neither has much in the way of romance, although they might involve more combat than you want.

I'm hunting for recommendations for thief/rogue/pirate-type books myself (think Among Thieves, Lies of Locke Lamora, etc.) Flewelling was a little overly twee for my taste, but Low Town was more grimdark than I was looking for. Any thoughts on something that threads that needle?

[Rob]

Ok need help deciding which to tackle first of these three - all are out from the library and some probably have holds on them so I won't be able to renew!

Legion: The Many Lives of Stephen Leeds - Sanderson
Bloody Rose - Eames
The Labyrinth of the Spirits - Zafon

I probably just put that unintentionally in ease of reading order which may be my best bet :)

[Niki Hawkes, I made it past GOTM... barely]

I was thinking: the way you have them listed looks perfect lol. That would be my priority too.

I'm having similar issues with too many coming at once. I can't get to them all. 😩

[Karishma]

Legion first!

[Angela Jr.]

Hey guys! I'm currently struggling a bit with reading... I'm not really into any of the books I'm working on at the moment, I'm really just reading for the sake of it 😬

So, I'm looking for some recommendations for extraordinary books that totally suck you in! I want that feeling of completely forgetting the world outside of the story... It's been a while since I've found a book like that and i feel like i need to kickstart my love for reading again.

Here are some books that managed to do that for me, so you can get a vague idea of my reading taste (basically scifi and darker contemporary... though i do love fantasy, and especially urban fantasy, too):
The martian by andy weir
Ready player one by ernest cline
We are the ants by shaun david hutchinson
The seven husbands of evelyn hugo by taylor jenkins reid
The chaos walking trilogy and
More than this by patrick ness
Red rising by pierce brown
Everybody sees the ants by a. s. king
Etc.

I don't like romance heavy books at all, unless it's done extremely well (and that almost never happens...)

Recommend me some top notch escapism please 😊

[Angela Jr.]

That's a much longer comment than i intended.... Oh well 😅

[Anni]

From your to-read list, I really enjoyed Nevernight and Six of Crows, but the later doesn't seem to be the best idea as you're reading the Grisha trilogy right now :D

I haven't read much scifi, so I'm affraid I can't help you there. But a general thing that helps a lot when I'm struggeling with my reads is re-reading favourite books, especially all-time favourites. Mine are books by Michael Ende like Momo and The Neverending Story and the Waringham books by Rebecca Gable starting with Das Lächeln der Fortuna (I think only the first book out of the series is available in english, but luckily I can recommand you the german one, too :)). The later is pretty long, but I love the writing style and the characters, it's very intriguing and mostly without the cheesy romance a lot of historical fiction focus on 😅

Edit: Haha, my comment also turned out longer than intended :D

[Christine]

Angela I think Steelheart has a good mix of things you're looking for. I also highly recommend Vicious.

[idiffer]

I'm way past individual recs, soooo... are there any ppl here with fantasy shelves above 300? preferably light on UF and PNR.

[Pat the Book Goblin]

Hey Angela, if you like dark fantasy I’d say read the Child Thief by Brom or the Drizzt books by Salvatore. I think Homeland or Soljorn is the first one. It’s not dark but I loved The Lies of Locke Lamora series by Scott Lynch. And anything by Brandon Sanderson. Start with Elantris or Mistborn.

If you want a good sci-fi (I didn’t read your list so I’ll just name a bunch I enjoyed) I read:
Enders Game
Dune by Frank Herbert
Hyperion by Dan Simmons
Dark Matter
Old Man’s War by John Scalzi
Leviathan Wakes by Corey
Anything by Arthur C Clarke or Isaac Asimov.

I hope that helps!

[Laura]

Can anyone point me towards a few great collection of short stories please? I'd like to read a few this month. I got lucky with That Way Lies Camelot and Evil is a Matter of Perspective and I want more great stuff like that but don't know where to look.

[Graeme]

Hi Laura. Check out this group.

https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...

[Virginie]

I can't be sure of my recs since I haven't read 'em yet (I barely started to really read short stories!) but I heard great things about those 2018 releases:



Also, you can't go wrong with anything Neil Clarke edited: Clarkesworld Magazine (available online for free!), Forever Magazine and a few interesting anthologies as well (like Upgraded).

Like Graeme said, checks the Spells, Space & Screams group; most of my reads were recommended to me by Lena who's a Mod there :)

[Shaitarn]

I'd recommend the original Thieves' World anthology - a really interesting shared world idea. The second one Tales From the Vulgar Unicorn isn't too bad either, but after that the stories started getting longer and perhaps not as much fun.

You may also find the Sword and Sorceress anthologies a good read - they're stories with a female protagonist, but certainly not any sort of feminist propaganda. There are loads of volumes of these - I think close to 20 now!

[Chris]

Laura, since you read Evil Is a Matter....

Knee-Deep in Grit: Two Bloody Years of Grimdark Fiction

[Niki Hawkes, I made it past GOTM... barely]

The book of enchantments by Patricia wrede was a fun collection.

[Laura]

Thank you everyone for the great recs. I'm planning to read a short story a day from now on (Virginie's fault that :D She made me want to start reading them :))

I'm going to make a separate shelf and try to read all those titles above. The problem is I don't quite get new releases here in my place so easily. Well I do, but with a solid price so I'd rather wait them out a few months to be able to buy them.

@Graeme - thank you for the group. :) I'll check it out.

[Virginie]

Oh, in that case... May I suggest those two:


Both are free to download as ebooks. Lost Lore has stories from lots of well-known authors, and Dreams from Beyond contains translated stories, if you want something a little different :)

Don't know if you like audiobooks, but if you do, take a look at the podcasts over at Escape Artists. They've got four podcasts: SF, Fantasy, Horror and YA; there's one story per episode and it's all free :D

(and muhahaha at spreading the short stories virus :p)

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Laura wrote: "Thank you everyone for the great recs. I'm planning to read a short story a day from now on (Virginie's fault that :D She made me want to start reading them :))

I'm going to make a separate shelf ..."

Lena took over that group earlier this year, and made it about anthologies... now they do a different anthology every month, and it can be treated like Virginie's daily short story thread, I think... I don't make time for short stories, so I don't really participate... I tried and failed once... like I tried and failed somewhere else in the past...

For cheap anthologies, Amazon has a decent free collection, I think (or is that just full novel collections for free?) and the places Virginie gets her short stories for her thread: Tor, ezines, etc...

I went and wrote all this, only to notice I'm mostly repeating people...

If you want to read short stories in established worlds you like, check author websites and newsletters... some authors like Seanan McGuire, Nalini Singh, etc, churn out a ton of free short stories that are available on their website or in their monthly newsletters, to get a quick dose of favorite characters...

[Laura]

@Iain - it's first in series collections not short stories. And thank you for the tip with the sites. I didn't think of that.

@Virginie - I bookmarked those sites and will read from them also. Thanks. In between, I got those last 2. :)

As for the rest of the recommended titles, I just collected:
Thieves' World
Tales from the Vulgar Unicorn
Knee-Deep in Grit
And I hope will get even The Book of Enchantments this week.

[Virginie]

Between all of this, you should be set for a while. I'll let you know if I come across some shorts/anthologies I think you'd enjoy :)

[✨ A ✨]

I've only read YA fantasy and I really want to branch out. The only adult fantasy I've read is A song of Ice and Fire.

So any recommendations for fantasy books to gently usher me out of YA (please don't throw me in the deep end) would be really appreciated : )

[Tammie]

Azrah wrote: "I've only read YA fantasy and I really want to branch out. The only adult fantasy I've read is A song of Ice and Fire.

So any recommendations for fantasy books to gently usher me out of YA (pleas..."

Riyria Revelations by Michael J. Sullivan. Very easy to read epic fantasy and great characters.

[Jenna, I'd be free if not for Temper & Edgewalker]

Tammie wrote: "Riyria Revelations by Michael J. Sullivan. Very easy to read epic fantasy and great characters. "

Yes, second this nomination! I always recommend Riyria to people starting with adult fantasy. :)

[Scott , Karsa Orlong]

Azrah wrote: "I've only read YA fantasy and I really want to branch out. The only adult fantasy I've read is A song of Ice and Fire.

So any recommendations for fantasy books to gently usher me out of YA (pleas..."

Comparing books and what you have for your TBR:

An Ember in the Ashes - This is a YA series but it's on the dark side and really well written. If you've made it through ASOIAF you'll be fine.

Hope and Red - Another YA series that is a little dark and has adult themes to ease you into it.

Promise of Blood - Powder Mage series is an easy to read series with fast action.

There's tons more and I'd also recommend Ryeria like the others.

[Bea]

Azrah wrote: "I've only read YA fantasy and I really want to branch out. The only adult fantasy I've read is A song of Ice and Fire.

So any recommendations for fantasy books to gently usher me out of YA (pleas..."

Nevernight - I think it's written in a way that makes it very appealing to YA-readers :)

Assassin's Apprentice - it's a beautiful coming of age story and not that hard to read

The Lies of Locke Lamora - a very fun adventure, maybe takes about 50 pages to get in, though

[✨ A ✨]

Thanks so much for the recs guys 💐💐💐

[Berto]

I'm looking to get back into reading fantasy but don't know where to begin.

Any recommendations for something like the Middle Earth series? I'm open to try anything that has a similar feel to it.

Or maybe something very King Arthur.

Any ideas? 😅

[Ahdam]

Hello everyone

I want to do some "research" on young adult middle grade books and I was hoping if there are any books like Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone The Ruins of Gorlan The Lightning Thief etc etc


Any recommendations where the main character is taken somewhere to become something more or better and to fight evil type stories. Any of that will be helpful also it would be good if they were a modern young adult story as well

Hope I was clear cheers guys

[Aakash]

@ahdam
The Merchant of Death This is the exact book which you want. It is really very interesting book and I am currently on book 8 of this series so you can understand how much great book it is and how much I am in it.

[Maria]

Hey guys. Could you recommend a book - preferrably a short one - with a land animal on the cover? It's for a challenge I'm participating in. I'd like it if were a classic, or at least popular enough to be available at my local bookshop... Thanks!

[Shaitarn]

Maria wrote: "Hey guys. Could you recommend a book - preferrably a short one - with a land animal on the cover? It's for a challenge I'm participating in. I'd like it if were a classic, or at least popular enoug..."

Most of Mercedes Lackey's Heralds of Valdermar series have a white horse on the front.

[Maria]

Shaitarn wrote: "Maria wrote: "Hey guys. Could you recommend a book - preferrably a short one - with a land animal on the cover? It's for a challenge I'm participating in. I'd like it if were a classic, or at least..."

Thank you, Shaitarn! I'll check them out

[Virginie]

The only thing that jumps to mind right now is Flowers for Algernon.
It has a mice on the cover, is somewhat of a SF classic and is faily short (around 250 pages).

Otherwise, you can check the cover challenge. There are animal categories so you can get some ideas by looking at what people read for those categories :D

[Maria]

Thanks, Virginie! :) also, that sounds like a cool idea - and you're right, I might get some ideas there

[Virginie]

You're welcome! I hope you'll find a book for your challenge there :D

[Jessica]

You could try The Book of Three, it has a horse on the cover. It's a classic so there's a good chance that your library will have it. Plus it's pretty short.

[Aakash]

Maria wrote: "Hey guys. Could you recommend a book - preferrably a short one - with a land animal on the cover? It's for a challenge I'm participating in. I'd like it if were a classic, or at least popular enoug..."
I think The Call of the Wild is a good book and a short one. It has a dog on a cover page.

[Ahdam]

I forgot to say cheers for the recommendation Aakash I’ll definitely check it out

[Aakash]

Yeah. It is worth it.

[Maria]

Aakash wrote: "Maria wrote: "Hey guys. Could you recommend a book - preferrably a short one - with a land animal on the cover? It's for a challenge I'm participating in. I'd like it if were a classic, or at least..."

Thanks, Akash! That's a good one!

Jessica wrote: "You could try The Book of Three, it has a horse on the cover. It's a classic so there's a good chance that your library will have it. Plus it's pretty short."

Thank you, Jessica! Just checked it out and it sounds so fun and right up my ally! Thank youu!

[Aakash]

Hello guys,
I want to start reading Brandon Sanderson book but I don't know where to start? He had written many series. I am little confused, so any suggestions?

[Jenna, I'd be free if not for Temper & Edgewalker]

Aakash wrote: "Hello guys,
I want to start reading Brandon Sanderson book but I don't know where to start? He had written many series. I am little confused, so any suggestions?"

I would recommend starting with The Final Empire, the first book in the Mistborn series. It's his most popular series and a good introduction to his work. :)

[Aakash]

Thank you Jenna for the suggestion. I will check it.

[Carrie]

My first Sanderson was Elantris and I savored it, it was that good. Mistborn: The Final Empire is also fantastic.

[Aakash]

Thank you Carrie. I will check it out and if I wilk enjoy Final Empire then eventually I will try to read every book by Sanderson.