Harry Potter if you like magic and fantasy!

It would help if we knew something of your tastes- people tend to respond to different books and want different things from them. Maybe you could tell us what kind of films, TV, music or other media you tend to like, or what other hobbies you've got, and we could recommend something that might appeal based on that? Do you have anything in particular you want to get out of a book? (suspense, political comments, a moral, romance, humour, just sheer entertainment, relaxation or a challenge?) Give us some clues and I might come up with some suggestions!

The Harry Potter books are a smash hit for a variety of reasons but I would say find a subject that you are interested in and go to town on that. I, for example, have a bookshelf devoted only to North Korea, and others on the Japanese language. The rest are politics and my attempts to finally get myself into fiction. This is really a tough call to make because we don't know what you like, your hobbies, etc. Those are important when choosing which book to start out on.

Without knowing your age & personal taste, I have to agree that I've never heard of someone NOT liking Harry Potter. It has relationships, romance, magic, animals, conflict, tragedy...pretty much everything.

Try reading the book "Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card.

Well, if you don't read much, you might start with youth-age books. Many are equally as good as adult books, but shorter and easier reading. If you like fairy-tales with a twist, you might try Patricia Wrede's "Calling on Dragons" series, where in the first book a princess runs away to live with dragons and is very upset when 'heroes' show up to try to kill her dragon. Lynn Morris and Gilbert Morris write religious fiction. For fantasy that touches on more personal issues, you might try Andre Norton. For fantasy that gives you shivers sometimes, you might try Vivian Vande Velde. For romance, you might try Jayne Ann Krentz, Jude Devereaux, Elizabeth Lowell,and Danielle Steel just to get a feel for the wide range offered and which suits you best. Mystery has a few big names like Agatha Christie. Classics would include Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry, To Kill a Mockingbird, Where the Red Fern Grows, The Tale of Two Cities, or if you like doom and gloom and blood: Moby Dick Black history and American Indian History: Roots, and Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee Humorous Fantasy ranges from the Lemony Snickett series to Terry Pratchett and Piers Anthony For sci-fi, I would recommend David Weber, Elizabeth Moon,or Eric Flint For a wide range of other fantasy authors: Mercedes Lackey, Harry Turtledove, L.E. Modesitt, Megan Whalen Turner, Tamora Pierce, and Anne McCaffery I can't recommend much horror or Non-fiction, although a librarian certainly could.

action =warren murphy's Destroyer series, a top secret government assassin uses the ultimate martial art to protect democracy by violating the rights and lives of the criminal scum the law can't touch ,as well as some truly amazing bad guys that are just to much for normal means to handle. scifi = Steven Gould's "Jumper" and "Wildside" jumper is the basis for the movie jumper, while wildside is about a young man who inherits his uncle's land and the inter dimensional gateway hidden on it which leads to an alternate earth untouched by man. fantasy = R. A. Salvatore's Drizzt Do'urden novels, about a drow (Dark Elf) who rejects his peoples Evil ways and goes to the surface world where he becomes friends with a Dwarf, his human adopted daughter, a Barbarian and a halfling (think hobbit). romance = Bertrice Small's novels are hot, steamy and well written. horror = Laurel K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series, about a professional necromancer/ vampire exterminator is the best. ms. Blake my be small and human weak compared to the vampires and weres she deals with every day but her show no fear, take no prisoners attitude will put the creatures in their place. comedy = the castle perilous series is a side slitting romp through a castle with thousands of dimensional doorways into weird, fantastic and dangerous worlds. erotic short fiction = the best out there is "Sandcastles" by Nightshade which can be found at asstr.org. it's follws an ex government agent? as he lives the kind of life that you only see on cinemax after dark with his girlfriend, her teenage daughter, a middle eastern couple and many more exciting twists and turns. hope this helps.