You're welcome. Let me know if you'd like any particular recommendations, although to be honest they're all brilliant.
I don't quite understand why the Harry Potter books are so popular, when there are people (Alan Garner, Joan Aiken and DWJ herself, as well as newer writers like Garth Nix and Frances Hardinge) who write much more original and interesting children's and young-adult fantasy fiction. I mean, the Harry Potter books are kind of fun to read, and I do respect J K Rowling for what she's achieved, both in terms of her own success (which she's worked extremely hard for), and also in encouraging children to read. But as a writer, she's just not in the same league as DWJ, whose books have more originality, characterisation and plot in a single page than you find in all of the Harry Potter books put together.
In the case of HP, I suspect it's partly an effect of marketing and snowball phenomenon. But I also suspect the easiness-to-read and the frankly derivative nature of much of them has also helped - my dad described them as "Tom Brown's Schooldays meets Pratchett and Tolkien". He's not a great reader of fantasy, but he was even less impressed by the HP steamroller ...
I think you're right about them being readable, but not especially memorable. I bogged down partway through Order of the Phoenix, and haven't managed to pick it up since. Then again, I don't read nearly as much as I used to.
I'm not sure which of her books to recommend first - they're all good (in fact they're all so good that I've never quite understood why the Harry Potter books have become so popular). Even the ones which are ostensibly for younger readers (such as Wilkin's Tooth or Black Maria) are eminently readable by older readers.
There are several (Charmed Life, The Lives of Christopher Chant, The Magicians of Caprona, Witch Week, etc) which feature a nine-lived enchanter called Chrestomanci. These can all be read individually, in any order, but some of them have little, non-plot-specific references to each other.
Lots of her books incorporate elements of mythology and folklore: Eight Days of Luke has Norse gods wandering around in modern-day suburbia. Fire and Hemlock is based on the ballad of Tam Linn. Archer's Goon is about a town being run by seven wizards, and the writer whose work is apparently causing them to be trapped there. The Time of the Ghost is pretty spooky, and is largely told from the point of view of an
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I don't quite understand why the Harry Potter books are so popular, when there are people (Alan Garner, Joan Aiken and DWJ herself, as well as newer writers like Garth Nix and Frances Hardinge) who write much more original and interesting children's and young-adult fantasy fiction. I mean, the Harry Potter books are kind of fun to read, and I do respect J K Rowling for what she's achieved, both in terms of her own success (which she's worked extremely hard for), and also in encouraging children to read. But as a writer, she's just not in the same league as DWJ, whose books have more originality, characterisation and plot in a single page than you find in all of the Harry Potter books put together.
Reply
In the case of HP, I suspect it's partly an effect of marketing and snowball phenomenon. But I also suspect the easiness-to-read and the frankly derivative nature of much of them has also helped - my dad described them as "Tom Brown's Schooldays meets Pratchett and Tolkien". He's not a great reader of fantasy, but he was even less impressed by the HP steamroller ...
I think you're right about them being readable, but not especially memorable. I bogged down partway through Order of the Phoenix, and haven't managed to pick it up since. Then again, I don't read nearly as much as I used to.
Reply
I'm not sure which of her books to recommend first - they're all good (in fact they're all so good that I've never quite understood why the Harry Potter books have become so popular). Even the ones which are ostensibly for younger readers (such as Wilkin's Tooth or Black Maria) are eminently readable by older readers.
There are several (Charmed Life, The Lives of Christopher Chant, The Magicians of Caprona, Witch Week, etc) which feature a nine-lived enchanter called Chrestomanci. These can all be read individually, in any order, but some of them have little, non-plot-specific references to each other.
Lots of her books incorporate elements of mythology and folklore: Eight Days of Luke has Norse gods wandering around in modern-day suburbia. Fire and Hemlock is based on the ballad of Tam Linn. Archer's Goon is about a town being run by seven wizards, and the writer whose work is apparently causing them to be trapped there. The Time of the Ghost is pretty spooky, and is largely told from the point of view of an ( ... )
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