Diane Duayne’s Young Wizard series, at least the first three books. I have really good memory of books and so it’s difficult for me to read any book more than once but I’ve read them tens of times.

There’s always something new to discover. It’s honestly a really good and well-written series.

Lucky Wander Boy.

Great book, but the “ritual” scene bars it from ever being a masterpiece.

The second book in the enders game series.

Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy

My favorite book is Galactic Pot-Healer by Philip K Dick. Objectively, it’s not even his best book, but it’s the one I personally connect with most strongly. It’s lovely and heartbreaking and funny and very quotable.

Gaijin Smash by Azrael. It was a blog, but you can read it start to finish now. A key read if you wanna move to Japan.

My Losing Season by Pat Conroy. The best sport book I’ve ever read, but it’s not famous.

We are Legion (We are Bob). It’s probably the most fun I’ve had reading science fiction. It’s not a masterpiece, but damn is it entertaining! The whole series is pretty great, and there’s another book coming any month now.

The Ethical Assassin by David Liss

The Percy Jackson series. You can tell Riordan likes taking his liberties, and there’s a lot of Americanism mixed in with the Greek way of thinking that is supposed to come from tales of Greek gods, but it says something that I like it better than the actual legends from Greek culture.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind. I read it years ago and still remember how gripping it was, not sure how well the movie has aged, but it was a fantastic book.

Oh sweet I get to vent about The August Few: Amygdala by Sam Fennah.

So Sam is primarily a youtuber, he makes animations with these very unique and somewhat disturbing characters and over time he made a bit of a narrative using them, eventually he made it into a 1000 page book. As one might expect looking at his animations this book is very weird, it’s got some extremely interesting and alien worldbuilding which challenges the reader a lot. As a piece of art this book is incredibly effective in that it makes the reader reflect on it’s far reaching themes, but as a book I really kinda hate it.

At the core of the book is the question of what the ideal society is, but only one option is ever really presented, what I can only describe as anarcho-dawinism. When one character opposes this state and proposes the possibility of a kinder and more inclusive society she is betrayed, hung from a balcony over a crowd, she orgasms while choking to death, and “When the body was lowered, it was groped, defiled, spat upon, split.” This is not presented as a bad thing, simply as the people rejecting her idea, the language used is very “marketplace of ideas.”

At the start of the book Sam tries to disavow himself of what he wrote in an author’s note, part of which reads: “The views of the characters are not the views of the author. This book is not a promotion of ideas, but an exploration of ideas.” Sam did not need to make the characters orgasm when they died, he did not need to make them reproduce via necrophilic rape, he did not need to make every characters a literal baby eating cannibal, and he did not need to present social-darwinism as an ideal society, but he did, he choose to write these things.

I hate this book, I read it over a year ago and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it, it is a great piece of art.

The Long Earth series

My favorite book is The Golden Ass by Apuleius, it’s not qualified as a masterpiece but it is one I guess.

I’ve been reading some litrpg-genre books, and a lot of the better books in that genre are extremely enjoyable despite obvious literary flaws.

Some top recommendations are He Who Fights with Monsters and Defiance of the Fall.

I liked the Dresden Files. Just campy magic gumshoe stuff.

Also a fan of Lamb and Blood Sucking Fiends. Good reads, but not any big huge life shaking moments like other books. But I remember loving the style.