Aaaand...We're Back

So it’s been a while since I posted here.  Okay, it’s been a long while.  I got a little sidetracked finishing grad school and moving and job-hunting and all that jazz.  I stopped keeping up with reviews, but I certainly didn’t stop reading.  

I also didn’t stop looking for ways to share my thoughts about books, and to hear what others think about what they’re reading as well.  Last summer, a friend of mine took that challenge head on when she put together a long-distance book club.  Participants exchanged books, or book suggestions, via post or the Internet, and had a grand old time finding something new and fun to read.  This year, she got even more ambitious, and it became a Blind Date with a Book Club.  The idea was that recipients would have no idea who their book was coming from, or what they might be receiving.  We all submitted our reading preferences and waited with bated breath.

I chose to send my partner a copy of The KitchenHouse.  Hopefully she enjoys it!  My Blind Date came in the form of Leigh Bardugo’s Shadow and Bone.  But since we’re all reading something different, part of the idea of the Blind Date with a Book Club was that we would share our thoughts on what we read.  For me, the obvious choice was dusting off this poor, neglected blog, and doing a little reviewing.  I can’t promise that it’ll be a regular thing again, but I had forgotten how nice it is to set down one’s thoughts about a story in writing.

Want to know more about what the Blind Date with a Book Club is reading?  Check out social media for the hashtag #bookswithbenefits.  (Cute, right?)

They Make It Look Easy...

I had intended this post to be related to a Huffington Post article on the state of reading in America, but after a couple weeks' hiatus and a whole lot of those weeks spent writing in other contexts, I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge how hard it is to write well. 

The revelation came to me as I sat finishing up an article for a newsletter this evening, after throwing together various eleventh hour midterm essays (ah, the joys of still being a student).  Some of my work was researched from journal articles and reports, while the article was based on recordings and notes from an interview I'd conducted.  The style was prescribed, the vocabulary and voice predefined by expectations, and yet, I still had to take this information and tell stories with it.  Not just comprehensive stories, clear-cut and well defined, but articulate stories.  And this was just for 700 word essays that, with any luck, no one will ever be forced to read. 

Now imagine your favorite book.  There was no grading rubric there, no starting scaffold conveniently laid out by thoughtful instructors.  Imagine the wealth of information that went into that book, and how much more there must have been that spilled out of the pages and ended up in the wastepaper bin.  Imagine how complex it was for that author to sit down and string all of those pieces together.  Imagine how many times it took before that stringing and piecing resulted in something worth polishing, and imagine how many hours were spent in agonizing, tedious polishing.  Savor how much effort went into this final product that you're holding, understanding that even now there are probably still passages that give the author fits to read them over.  If you're anything like me, you read voraciously, book after article after story.  How often do we really take the time to consider how much went into the little paper packet or digital file before us?  Whether you like the book or not, you have to know that somewhere, someone cried over it, tears of frustration, or rage, or simply relief that the herculean task of creating such a thing was done. 

Today, I challenge you to do this.  Take a moment.  Thank your favorite authors, journalists, or screenwriters.  In a world of social media, it shouldn't be too hard to do.  Thank the people whose vision has helped shape the wonderful stories that fill our lives.  It's not an easy task, and, if it's done right, it's a thankless one.  See, it's never about the storyteller.  It's all about the story, in every gory, aching, exquisite, infinitesimal detail.  Writers are remarkable people doing remarkable work.  Don't they make it look easy?

On the Collaborative Nature of Storytelling

So in addition to being an avid reader, I'm also a writer.  Obviously, right?  But in addition to blogging about books and reading, I also write fiction, some non-fiction, and poetry, which means that storytelling is something I think about a lot.  There's an art to putting words on paper that make readers feel for the characters they describe, but it goes beyond knowing what words to chose.  Stories are designed to capture the human experience; in essence, they're holding a mirror up to nature (to paraphrase the Bard).  They let us see on the page what we're too preoccupied to notice on the way to work or sitting around the dinner table. 

Do you know what I see in that mirror?  People.

See, storytelling cannot be completed in a vacuum.  The very act of "telling" requires an audience to hear.  Anyone who's ever told a story, of any kind, knows that audience matters.  It isn't just a matter of who hears what, but of how your audience responds to what you say.  This leads me to the thing that I love and hate most about stories. 

The story I tell you is not the story you hear. 

What you hear is a glorious product of your own imagining.  Yes, perhaps it was my prompts that conjured them, but the visions are all your own. 

Think of it like this.  Every day, we're bombarded with stimuli: things that make us happy, angry, frustrated, indignant, elated.  Each of these little reactions bubbles up within us only to fade away, replaced by the next response.  Now along comes a storyteller.  He presents you with characters and you find yourself able to envision them.  Do they look exactly the same in your head as in the storyteller's?  No.  But there they are, just the same.  The storyteller goes on to have these characters move and breathe and live and love before your very eyes and you feel for them, because, after all, that is the point.  Now all those little gems of feeling, instead of drifting away, are strung onto a cord of words that holds them tight.  You and he have created this together.

And he never gets to see it.

Our experience of the world is what we make of it.  We all have our lenses through which we see the world.  Thusly, no story, whether written, told, or viewed, can ever be experienced in quite the same way.  Our response is uniquely our own, each and every time.  This is one of the great joys and frustrations of being a writer.  I can create something and send it out into the world, but no one will ever quite see what I do.  For some, it will be infinitely better than anything I could have written, and for others, the resonance just won't be there.  I can't make them see what I do.  Nor would I want to.  I love to talk about stories, my own and others', because I love to see how differently the same words or pictures can come across to different people.  I love to pick them apart and see what makes them tick.  It's an interesting exercise that's taught me as much about people as it has about storytelling.  But perhaps that's less of a distinction than it seems.  I try to keep that in mind when I'm surfing book review sites and see some of the cruel things people say to one another when opinions clash.  The irony of the statement "Were you even reading the same book?!?!" seems lost on them.  Of course they weren't reading the same book.  No one ever is.  Yet without the author, there would have been no place for anyone to start.  In the end, it's a deeply personal thing, relating to a story.  The funny thing is, it can never be done alone.  We're all in this together. 

On the Foibles of Technology

If anyone out there follows this blog on a regular basis, you've likely noticed that your beloved past-time has been somewhat less delightful of late.  It's not, I assure you, for lack of reading, but rather for lack of cooperation on the part of more advanced technologies.

I worked this summer as an administrator at one of the country's largest fine arts summer camps.  I worked an average of 15 hours a day and absolutely loved every minute of it.  This was not, however, conducive to posting reviews of the books I read by flashlight each evening.  Internet access is hard to come by in the midst of picturesque wilderness.  Go figure.  I kept writing the reviews, keeping them stashed as a document on my flash drive, waiting for the opportune moment to snag a WiFi signal.  This past week, I finally got that opportunity, only to discover that my flash drive has gone the way of the word "tirled".... which is to say, of course, it's obsolete.  Defunct.  Kaput.  No longer functional or useful in any way.  Actually, that's not fair to tirled, which is a verb meaning to rotate or twirl, or, alternately, to make a noise by such motion.  Tirled can still be used, though it's likely that no one (except your fellow blog followers) will know what it means.  My flash drive won't even make a decent paperweight.

Now I face the odious task of trying to remember which books I read (and listened to!) this summer and precisely how I felt about all of them.  It's odious only because I feel that now I'll be doing all these books and authors a disservice, trying to recapture the feelings they evoked without holding the book in my hands.  So many of them were borrowed and have since been returned, and though I don't need to re-read them to provide my opinion, I like to write my opinions down with the book sitting next to me, the very sight of it helping to spark memories of the best, or worst, traits of the story.

Here I could take the opportunity to segue into the merits of digital book formats and the relative pros and cons of paper versus digital.  Let me just sum it up here: people will read what they like to read how they like to read it.  I've found that a combination of both paper and pixels works for me, my lifestyle, and my budget, and while I'm certain that there are purists on both sides, the introduction of new reading technology is a matter of personal preference.  There's no right or wrong way to read a book, which is one of the reasons I've started reviewing the audiobooks I listen to as well.  Technology is great, and so is tradition.  Maybe I'll keep that in mind the next time I'm away from my WiFi tether and keep a paper copy of all my reviews!

Books for Boys

Supposedly, boys are pickier readers than girls are... I'm not sure where that assumption came from, nor do I have any statistics to back it up.  I do, however, have quite a few friends and family members who are English and Language Arts teachers, and they report a certain luke-warm attitude toward reading among their male students.  I, of course, believe that everyone is a reader, and if someone claims not to be, he (or she!) just hasn't found the right book yet.  That being said, here are a few suggestions that might appeal to the gentlemen:


Historical Fiction:
       The King Raven Trilogy by Stephen Lawhead
       Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold
       The Song of Albion Trilogy by Stephen Lawhead
    
Fantasy/Science Fiction/Horror:
       Abarat by Clive Barker
       Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
       American Gods by Neil Gaiman
       The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer
       The Myth Hunters by Christopher Golden
       The Magicians by Lev Grossman
       A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin
       The Road by Cormac McCarthy
       The Abhorsen Trilogy by Garth Nix
       The Matt Cruse Trilogy by Kenneth Oppel
       The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud
       Darwinia by Robert Charles Wilson
       Dragon and Thief by Timothy Zahn
       Fire Bringer by David Clement-Davies
       Peeps by Scott Westerfeld
       Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld
       The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness
       Unwind by Neal Schusterman
       The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
       Retribution Falls by Chris Wooding
       Feed by M. T. Anderson
       The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
       From a Buick 8 by Stephen King


Mysteries/Thrillers:
       The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown
       Thr3e by Ted Dekker
       The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larson
       The Devil All the Time by Donald Ray Pollock
       Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind
       Acceleration by Graham McNamee
       The Knife and the Butterfly by Ashley Hope Perez
      

Nonfiction/Memoir/Biography:
       Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
       The Hot Zone by Richard Preston
       The Demon in the Freezer by Richard Preston
       A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
       Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell
       Puppies, Dogs, and Blue Northerners by Gary Paulsen

What I read

In some of these other rather editorial posts, I've talked about where I get my books and why I read in the first place.  I've been thinking lately about why I read what I read.  As I write reviews, I tag each post with genre labels, which pop up in the label cloud over on the right there.  Go ahead, take a look.  The size of each word corresponds to how many posts I've tagged with that particular label, so it's become abundantly clear where my reading has taken me of late: young adult fiction.

Part of the reason so many of these books are for young adults relates to why I began this project in the first place.  This has a bit of back-story, so bear with me for a sentence or four.  My mother is a high school English teacher, and a rather spectacular one at that.  You don't even have to take my word for it; she was voted Best English Teacher of 2012-13 by the Michigan Council of Teachers of English, an award also recognized by the National Council of Teachers of English (you can read all about it over here).  Ah, but I digress.  As part of her inventive English teaching methodology, she wrote and received a very large grant to build a classroom library full of high interest books for young adults.  Soon, Amazon.com was receiving thousands of dollars in orders from her and the library began to grow.  But here's the catch, which is also where I come in.  She doesn't put books into her classroom library that she hasn't read or knows nothing about.  This isn't to censor the content; she feels, as I do, that students should read what they like to read as often as possible, regardless of her own opinion on the book.  Rather, she likes to know what's in the library so that when a student comes to her and says, "I just finished Peeps by Scott Westerfeld and thought it was terrific.  Have you got anything else like it?" she can reply, "Well, if you'd like another take on vampires, try Robin McKinley's Sunshine, or maybe some nonfiction about disease, like The Great Influenza by John M. Barry."  It's not quite feasible to ask one person to read an entire library, however.  Though it was indeed a terrible burden to be asked to dive into boxes of books, brimming like treasure chests filled with jewel-like paperbacks and glossy new hardcovers, and to read whatever I wanted, as much as I wanted...well, I figured I could grit my teeth and deal with it.  You know, for the good of the cause.  The guest room in my parents house became a bibliophile's dream: stacks of books knee high, teetering in towers across the floor because the wall of shelves simply couldn't hold them all, books waiting for their sign-out cards, books in heaps labeled Read and Unread, books in no particular order at all.  It smelled like a book shop, dry and papery with a sharp undercurrent of ink.  I started reading, and then I started writing.

So there's a long-winded explanation as to why I've read so much young adult fiction, though in truth there's a shorter one.  Here it is.  I like it.  The market for YA Fiction is huge and growing, despite claims that "kids these days" don't read.  Authors in this genre are wildly inventive and delightfully subversive, and while books geared toward older readers can certainly have these qualities as well, I find they often don't push the boundaries in quite the same way.  Young adult readers are considered more willing to suspend their disbelief at fantastical scenarios, so whether it's taking a flying car to Hogwarts or the actions of a teenage sleuth, nothing seems to go too far for these readers.  Psychologically speaking, teens and young adults feel things a little more vividly.  There's more black and white and less grey; the stakes are always a little higher.  This translates in both the writing and the actions of the characters in this genre.

Frankly, this is what I like about reading.  I like to find stories that take me to places I will never be able to see, and that paint these places in vivid technicolor.  I'd like to live dangerously, but as I'm far too timid, I'll settle for the vicarious experience of reading about daring characters.  I want to see characters who will risk it all and who struggle with good and evil without the shades of grey that cloud reality.  Maybe it's a search for simpler answers, even if they aren't easy answers.  Maybe it's because I never gave up on fairy tales or finding hidden worlds behind everyday doors.  Maybe it's just the way my brain works, but I find a lot of what I'm looking for in young adult fiction, and I know I'm not alone.

I don't think there's any shame in reading.  Not at all.  Not "guilty pleasure" romance novels.  Not slick-fiction sci-fi.  Not fan fiction.  Not made from television serial books.  There's no shame in "jumping on the bandwagon" and reading a runaway bestseller.  There's no shame in finding solace in Shakespeare.  And there's certainly no shame in 30-somethings, 40-somethings, or any-somethings reading young adult fiction.  Readers should never feel as if they have to justify their taste in stories.  Will others disagree?  Of course.  But that doesn't make any of what we read less right for us.  And with any luck, the disagreement will spark interesting conversation and still more stories.

In short, I read what I like, and I think you should to, whatever it is.  Hopefully whatever it is includes this blog.  Happy reading!

My Book Addiction

So I finished off the last book in my latest stack of library acquisitions just over a week ago, and with the prospect of final exams looming, I decided it would be in the best interest of my degree if I refrained from another trip to the hallowed library halls for a bit.  While it may have freed up some time in my hectic graduate-student schedule to cram in all the lessons I should have been learning all semester long, it also left a gaping hole in my life that I hadn't quite expected.  It wasn't until last night that I realized that I am almost never without my next literary conquest.  Even if I don't have time to read it, I've almost always got my next book on hand, taunting me from shelf or nightstand, reminding me that it'll be waiting when I get my homework done or when I get home from work.  One week bookless was enough to drive me just a little more insane.

Oh, I wasn't entirely bookless, of course; in a pinch, I can make do with the well-read friends on my shelves.  But I am hopelessly addicted to storytelling, and there's something about the way a book sounds inside my head that nothing else can fill.  Believe me, I've tried this past week.  I've blazed through episode after episode of television series on Netflix, scrolled through pages of Pinterest finds, flipped through every page of every magazine in the house...which offered meager pickings given that I only subscribe to a weekly news summary and a monthly science and technology mag.  None of it worked.  Something was missing, even with all the stress of final exams, presentations and papers.  I wasn't whole without the banked embers of a story in the back of my brain.

I caved in today.  I was trying not to check out any library books that I'll have to remember to return over the summer, given my hectic new work schedule, but I figured "just one can't hurt, can it?"  I was so proud of myself when I walked out of the library with, yes, just one book.  I sat in the sun, enjoying a well earned chocolate and caramel tart from a local bakery (a true genius decided to put the farmer's market between work and the library... I try to avoid that walk on days when the market is running, since my relationship with baked goods is similar to that with books) and dove into a story.

I was trying to discuss this with my mother this evening.  She's a high school English teacher (whose students used my "Why I Read" post for a class exercise...thus all the comments) and in general she understands exactly where I'm coming from, but tonight I got so tongue tied I'm not sure even she understood what I meant.  I was describing the voice in this new book, Jo Walton's Among Others.  Not the voice of the narrator, per se, but rather the voice of the book itself, the way it sounds and feels in my head.  "Most fiction," I said, "feels very dense and layered and sort of furry, like velvet, or a tapestry with all these different threads woven together.  It sounds in my head like a soundtrack that's been expertly edited and balanced so that all the pieces fit together.  It doesn't sound like reality."  I went on to explain how my new read is different, but part of my brain fixated on that description.  I'd never realized it before, but it's true.  There's a place in my brain where stories play out, and though they all feel different or sound different, they're all staged in the same place.  To butcher some biochemistry, it's like books are their own special kind of neurotransmitter, and though I can try substitutes (television and movie stories, articles), my brain knows they're substitutes.  Eventually it starts craving the real thing.  I am addicted to books in ways I never even realized.  Maybe that's good, maybe that's bad.  Either way, it makes for an interesting finals week.

On Libraries, Private and Public

It might surprise readers to learn that my personal library is very small.  I have copies of some classics: Anna Sewell's Black Beauty, Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden, and two copies of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.  One copy is a gigantic single volume with the movie covers I bought out of desperation, as the final book had been checked out of the local library for ages; the other is a gorgeous boxed set of the illustrated trilogy with artwork by Alan Lee, one of my favorite fantasy artists.  Speaking of Alan Lee and fantasy art, I also have several books of art by both him and Brian Froud, the creative mind behind the Jim Henson films Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal.  He also did the inspiring artwork for a book by Patricia McKillip, Something Rich and Strange.  McKillip is also the author of the Riddle-Master trilogy, which I have in one volume, wedged between Spindle's End and Sunshine by Robin McKinley and The Ropemaker by her husband Peter Dickinson.  All seven Harry Potter books are lined up in order (hard cover, with the original dust jackets, of course), and an assortment Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern books have their own section as well.  There are dictionaries in English and Spanish and a well-thumbed thesaurus.  As I am also a student, a large part of my limited shelf space is given over to text books on statistics, environmental health, cellular biology, and (tangentially) literature and writing.  I have copies of the literary magazine See Spot Run, for which I was the editor-in-chief.  There are also copies of Cicada magazine, which I subscribed to in high school, back when it was perfect bound (like a little paperback book).  But really, that's it.  If you scan through the books I've reviewed recently, you might notice something.  I don't own a single one of them.

My private library may border on pathetic, but thankfully, that's where the joys of the public library come in.  The last time I went to visit those hallowed halls, I had three books I'd planned to grab... 45 minutes later, I walked out with eight I just couldn't leave behind.  I've used inter-library loan to hunt down historical sources and to borrow $50 pattern books to fuel my dressmaking hobby.  It's often my go-to printing spot when I'm away from home, and a great resource for music and movies.  As an undergrad, Friday nights found me and my roommate perusing the DVDs in preparation for Roomie Movie Nights.  I'm even a fan of library discards; I make altered books and journals in my free time, and old engineering textbooks are one of the few books I don't feel guilty tearing apart and painting.

When I moved on to my graduate studies, I was a bit surprised to discover the zeal with which the university libraries were guarded.  True, they are treasure troves: a ten story tower of stacks at the main library alone, separate law, health, and theological libraries, rare books and manuscripts.  In undergrad, the library was one of the few places where the local community and the college met.  Everyone was welcome.  Now, as a master's student at a large university, I've found that students have to card their way past turnstiles to even glimpse the wealth of pages within.  I understand that the libraries exist for the students and faculty, and survive because of the funds these students bring, but it still seems miserly to hide such a wealth of information and storytelling away for only a select group.  I consider myself lucky to still be in that group; the sheer number of books at my disposal are astonishing.  Even if it does feel a bit like sneaking past a dragon every time I swipe my card and climb into the ten stories of stacks, the riches I find are worth it.  And, of course, so is the pleasure of finding a little gem to share here with you.

A Note On Why I Read

Why do I write a book review blog?  Aren't there enough of them in the world by now?  Do I really believe my opinions make a difference?  Surely, if you've stumbled across this blog, these thoughts might have flitted across your mind, as they have across my own.

I am a student at the moment, pursuing my Master's degree.  I'll not go into detail, but suffice it to say, it's not an enjoyable process.  It's hard.  It's soul-crushing and mind-numbing.  It reduces me to irrational frustration on a regular basis.  It could be worse, of course, but there are days that even being reminded of that fact makes me want to break things with wanton abandon.

So where does reading fit in?  As the Bard once wrote, "Aye.  There's the rub."  When I've had enough of statistical analysis and computer programming and journal articles and literature reviews and traffic and bus commutes and coming home to find my dog has, once again, chewed the spine off an overly expensive textbook, I know that I have an escape hatch.  A whole shelf of them, actually.  I can flip open a book and walk out of this world into another.  I can change my story.

We are creatures of story.  Think about it.  We revere actors and screenwriters, authors and playwrights.  We gather around campfires, dining tables, and water coolers to tell our own tales.  We text and Tweet, we email and post.  We tell stories.  It's all we ever do with our lives.  And if you think of it this way, as one big story, well, then what we read is just a part of it.  Middle Earth is the place you spend your weekends.  Narnia's the break room at work.  The time you stood, invisible, beside a beloved character and watched him grieve for lost love... is that time really any different from the time you spend listening to your sister tell about the night her husband walked out on her?  Think about it!  We're hearing a story, told by someone else.  The same parts of our brains are active, if you must think of it scientifically.  We feel in exactly the same way.  No wonder stories can make us weep and laugh and rave just as flesh and blood people can.  In those moments, how can any story be greater than any other?  How can anything be more real, or more worthy, than the story?

This is why I read.  I read to feel.  I read to know myself and to try to know others.  I read to learn what is inside of me and every other person, and what is outside of us, and strung between us like invisible, silky-sticky lines of spiderweb.  I read to get out of this world, and to get into it.  I read to know that the story in which I find myself when I open my eyes in the morning is just a chapter of this great big story in which we are all merely players.  And then I come here, to this blog, and I tell you, dear readers (if there are, indeed, readers of this blog), what I found.  "Here," I say.  "Let me tell you about this wonderful place that I went."  Or perhaps, "I took a trip this weekend into another book, and I don't intend to visit again."  Look where we are again, off on another story-telling adventure.  Here I have a chance to tell my stories, and to tell you about the tales of other tellers, wondrous tales that I could not hope to do justice, tales you'll just have to explore for yourself.  Perhaps this sounds pretentious.  "All one great story, etc. etc. etc."  But why not be just a little pretentious, dear readers?  You (yes, you!) are the greatest audience a storyteller ever had.  Without a listener, our words are sound and fury, signifying nothing.  Without someone to share with, we are trapped in our own stories, echoing around our own heads like prisoners, muttering lunatic monologues.  You are unique, dear readers.  Every adventure though a book is a singular experience, an all-night conversation with the author and the characters he or she has, with your help, brought to life.  It is an adventure you can never duplicate.  But you can tell us about it.  And I hope you will.

That is what I do.  I am a student of the universe, learning chapter by chapter in this story we're in, and sharing what I find for the sheer glee of being able to do so.  Join me, won't you?  Let's sit by the fire tonight and tell our stories.  We have all the time in the world.

If You Liked This Bestseller, Then...

 When a book hits the top of the bestsellers' lists and decides to stay there a while, chances are people will hear about it.  When people hear about it, it gets read.  This, of course, is great for all involved.  Really wonderful books get discovered that way.  But there are some real gems that no one ever hears about, books that, in my humble opinion, deserve just as much attention and readership.  To that end, I've decided to pick a few of the big name, easily recognizable blockbusters of the literary world and let you know about a few of the unsung heroes that have quite a bit in common with them.  If you're looking for an excellent read, these are a few good places to start.

If you liked the Harry Potter Series, try:

The Magicians by Lev Grossman
Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede
Darkhenge by Catherine Fisher

Thirteenth Child by Patricia C. Wrede
The Sea of Trolls by Nancy Farmer
Into the Land of the Unicorns by Bruce Coville

If you liked the Lord of the Rings, try:

The Paradise War by Stephen Lawhead
The Riddle-Master of Hed by Patricia McKillip
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
Tailchaser's Song by Tad Williams
Thomas the Rhymer by Ellen Kushner
The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley

If you liked The Hunger Games Trilogy, try:

Unwind by Neil Shusterman
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Mortal Engines by Phillip Reeve
Airborne by Kenneth Oppel
Feed by M. T. Anderson
Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

If you liked Twilight, try:

Peeps by Scott Westerfeld
Sunshine by Robin McKinley
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
Firethorn by Sarah Micklem
The Ruby in the Smoke by Phillip Pullman
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

If you liked The Da Vinci Code, try:

Codex by Lev Grossman
Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
Labyrinth by Kate Mosse
A Bone from a Dry Sea by Peter Dickinson
The Calcutta Chromosome by Amitav Ghosh

Happy Reading!