General Discussion

@Areater
If you're into death/serial killer type stuff, I'd say go for Stephen King. The Dead Zone and The Dark Half were really good.

Otherwise I'll always recommend my favorite book: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
It's told from the point of view of Death and it's about this girl in Nazi Germany and her foster family is hiding a Jew.

OOH OOH also Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake. That's also one of my favorite books and it's awesome! It's about this guy who's basically a ghost-hunter and he goes around killing ghosts. It gets really intense though and I recently reread it and noticed all the foreshadowing o_o

For nonfiction, In Cold Blood by Truman Capote is very interesting. It's written like a novel, but it's a true story.

@Areater

I think I skew a little more dense/long/tedious than you so I've sorted these roughly from easiest to hardest to read. These are all fantasy books/series that I liked at some point in time:

1. Tales of the Otori (Lian Hearn): it's a trilogy, plus a prequel and a sequel. It's set in a feudal Japan-ish fantasy world with low-ish magic. The sequel one is the best of them IMO.

2. The Assassins of Tamurin (SD Towers): it's a single book. Not sure how to describe the setting, it's very low magic and the cultures seem fairly well fleshed out.

3. The Black Magician Trilogy (Trudi Canavan): Trilogy (duh), high magic (somewhat duh), fairly standard fantasy setting (vaguely old-timey cities with a magicians' guild). The 2nd book is my favorite of the three.

4. The Cloudmages series (SL Farrell): it's a trilogy with high magic in an Ireland-ish fantasy setting. This is easily my favorite of the books I've listed here, and the 3rd is my favorite of them. The world is well fleshed out with multiple religions and an extensive history. Each book is set one generation after the last.

5. Dragonriders of Pern (Anne McCaffrey): I've actually only read the first book of these but it seems to be a huge series. I almost want to leave it off the list as it is maybe a bit dense, but I decided to throw it in since people are recommending books based partly on their dragon content. Anyways, this is another book where the world seems well-thought-out and made to feel lived in.


LMK if you'd like more info on any of these! I left the descriptions pretty bare-bones since I'm kind of bad at deciding whether or not things count as spoilers.

@Areater

Warning long list of books incoming

Also some of these are series or trilogies but I'm just gonna put the first book

1. Jinx by Sage Blackwood

2. The Vengekeep Prophecies by Brian Farrey

3. The Floating Islands by Rachel Neumeier

4. Ranger's Apprentice by John Flanagan

5. The Neverending Story by Michael Ende

6. A Murder for Her Majesty by Beth Hilgartner

7. Black Horses for the King by Anne McCaffrey

8. otto of the silver hand by Howard Pyle

9. The Book of Dragons by Edith Nesbit

10. Worm by wildbow
for this one it's only online but if you search up worm it will be right under the wikipedia for worms

11. City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau

12. The Hero's Guide to Saving Your Kingdom by Christopher Healy

13. The Lost Years of Merlin, Merlin's Dragon, and The Great Tree of Avalon by T. A. Barron

14. Shadow Spinner by Susan Fletcher

15. The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi

16. Fortress of the Golden Dragon by Homa A. Garemani

17. Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson

18. Red Hugh, Prince of Donegal by Robert Reilly

19. The Puppeteer's Apprentice by D. Anne Love

20. enchanted forest chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede

21. A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park

22. Dragon Slippers by Jessica Day George

23. Sun Moon Ice and Snow by Jessica Day George

24. Redwall by Brian Jacques

25. Tuesdays at the Castle by Jessica Day George

26. The Golden Goblet by Eloise Jarvis McGraw

27. The Five Children and It by Edith Nesbit

And I can't think of anymore right now but hope you can find something you like!

@Areater
You should read 'Varjak Paw' by SF Said.

It's a pretty short book to read, but it's about a cat's family who is related to a famous and strong ancestor, but now lives with humans. But then Varjak Paw escapes his home and learns powers via dreams with his ancestor.
There's also a sequel to it called 'Outlaw Varjak Paw', but I haven't read it yet.