Which book would you recommend me as my first ever book?
You could also try Discworld series by Terry Pratchett. It’s hilarious and easy to read (at least for me)
And for those confused about the numerous books and parallel storylines, there’s this neat chart
Good link
Do you know why Terry said to skip the first 2? Personally the only one I’ve read is the colour of magic and I loved it as an introduction to the world and can’t wait to read more (I read new books very slowly 9/10 unless my adhd decides to hyperfocus on them like it thankfully did with Dune)
No idea, but tbh I’d always bounce off Color of Magic when I tried to get into it from there. I haven’t read the Rincewind novels yet so I can’t compare them to others, but for me Guards! Guards! was a much better intro.
Like any artist, as he improved his craft, he grew embarrassed about his early work, and felt it wasn’t up to the quality of the later books. There are also some inconsistencies; most notably, Death is actively trying to claim Rincewind, when in later books He just facilitates the process of crossing over.
Notably, The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic both directly parody contemporary fantasy, and if you’re familiar with the books he’s making fun of, it’s pretty obvious. Equal Rites is where he went more into the allegory, satire, and social commentary which people tend to associate with Discworld.
Second Terry Pratchett books!
They started my love for books as a young teenager! Going to the library, looking for a discworld novel I didn’t know, yet… those were the times!
I’d second all the recommendations here, but I’d also want to know what reading level you’d be interested in, and also why you haven’t ever read a book for fun before? It would be helpful to know to be able to point to books that would avoid whatever your sticking points may have been. As far as introductory fun books I’d recommend:
- The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien (Not too long, it’s a classic and is one I’ve read multiple times over the years)
- Hatchet by Gary Paulsen (While it’s a YA novel, it was very formative for me as I read it in like 3-4th grade, is basically something that could have happened in reality but is a fictional account.)
- Cradle series by Will Wight (A bit off the path from traditional fantasy, it’s more properly in the subgenre of progression fantasy, which is basically what the genre of Dragon Ball Z would be, the unifying premise of these stories is that the MC starts fairly weak and then gets stronger over the course of the series, with generally an unlimited upper cap to how powerful characters can get through various kinds of training/levelling up/finding new gear/items/spells etc)
I second The Hobbit if you have interest in fantasy! It was still one of the best reading experiences I’ve ever had.
Definitely check out the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams
Seconded. It’s funny, light, and pretty short, so a good way to ease OP into the world of books.
I would recommend any of the Neil Gaiman books, very readable and fascinating. For shorter reads go with Good Omens, Coraline, Neverwhere, Stardust and for a longer read American Gods (my fav).
If you like horror Stephen King is incredibly easy to get into.
Oh yeah, Good Omens is great!
Neverwhere was really fun; I read it a long time ago but still think about it from time to time.
If you can access it the BBC created a neverwhere radio play with James McAvoy and Natalie Dormer. I think it’s available on audible if it’s not on the BBC (or you can’t access it there).
In /r/fantasy, someone recently read Mistborn as their first book and loved it! I would recommend this one. Brandon Sanderson is very approachable, and he doesn’t employ tropes like deliberately leaving the reader utterly confused at the same time as the main character (only a little, in manageable doses), or having a huge number of plotlines that intersect at very confusing times in confusing ways, or etc.
Which isn’t to say the plot is straightforward! There’s lots of twists and turns, and you’ll be amazed where the series ends up :) Very suspenseful and engaging trilogy.
this is really interesting, thank you for the recommendation!
@s804 I’d recommend Terry Pratchett books, and more specifically Guards! Guards!.
If you’re more into hard fantasy, Brandon Sanderson wrote very enjoyable books, you should check his Mistborn book (which expands in to a trilogy).
If you want some easy to read SF, Asimov’s Foundation is still a blast, and so is Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. Plus they can be read as one shots, but they have sequels in case you enjoyed them enough.
Excellent suggestions, Guards! Guards! was what finally let me break into the Pratchett universe too, such a good and fun book to read. Mistborn series is one of my favorites, easy and pleasant to read but with a wild and engaging fantasy story.
I’d maybe recommend the Robot series before Foundation for SF fans, they are generally shorter stories and easier to follow. Foundation was pretty hard for me to follow and truly enjoy due to its weird no-protagonist structure.
Ah ah, I read Pratchett in the publication order and loved it, but after about two decades recommending it to everyone I know it’s way easier to get people in by starting with the Nightwatch cycle. :D
Yes, the Robots short stories are indeed a nice addition, and probably easier to get into than Foundation! I did not enjoy the Robots full-fledged novels as much, though.
Still in SF, and keeping with the short stories idea, I’d also recommend The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury.
Mistborn second series just wrapped up recently. Eagerly awaiting the third series so we can get on with Stormlight part 2 (where the two series merges into one. there is only one book left in Stormlight part 1, and release is expected next year i think).
What kind of fiction do you like? As a sci fi nerd Ender’s Game is the book that made me love reading.
For a lot of people it was Harry Potter or Hunger Games more recently.
Honestly if there’s a movie you love that was adapted from a book give the book a go. You know you like the story - it’s just a more detailed take.
yeah i love all kinds of movies like harry potter, hunger games, lotr, and some sci-fi stuff. i loved harry potter growing up so i feel that the books would be too childish for me now.
I loved David Eddings as an easy read with a good story. It was my start into reading fantasy. Feist’s Magician is another brilliant book and the beginning of a long adventure.
Magician was going to be my recommendation. I’ve got 2 people into reading that weren’t readers by giving them this book.
Really good story that you can’t put down.
Feist commands a significant portion of my bookshelf. He is brilliant. I rate him as my favourite fantasy author, with the late Ian M. Banks as my top science fiction author.
Magician is really good yeah :) I remember lying outside in the garden a summer reading through the series :)
I just read them alongside my daughter, having previously skipped them in favor of the movies. I’d actually say they’re a perfect entree into reading for pleasure, and while hardly Faulkner or James Joyce, they’re sophisticated enough that you won’t feel silly, and the writing subtly grows with the characters (and the original audience), so the last book is longer and denser than the first, though again, it’s not trying to make you dance with the prose or analyze the book in order to glean any enjoyment.
Jo Rowling is who she is, as a writer and a person, and I won’t judge if you find a way to read them for free, but she really did assemble something magical with that original run of books.
The Harry Potter books are a bit kiddish but that’s largely motivated by Harry being a young character. They tend to mature as you read through them and a good trait of kiddish books is they’re easily digestible. If you want to try something similar feeling to Harry Potter but new to you check out The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan - it’s the first Percy Jackson book. You can read the 5 book series or there’s so many spin offs now you can spend a long time in that universe
anything by Brandon Sanderson, especially his Cosmere stuff. Light reads despite density, story gets complex under the hood once you realize what’s going on in the greater Cosmere universe glimpsed through the various book series.
“Wool” by Hugh Howey. If you like it there are many more and AppleTV+ just made a TV series (Silo) that is doing quite well.
So you’re going to throw them into some of the most extreme-yet-plausible dystopian futures right off the bat, eh?
I couldn’t put it down 10 years ago, but I also couldn’t sleep. Highly recommend.
Andy Weir’s The Martian or Project Hail Mary are both amazing books that are real easy reads! Though I would actually recommend the audio book version of the latter.
I loved Project Hail Mary! Another good one is Recursion by Blake Crouch.
Since you mentioned Hunger Games and liking SciFi I thought of an easy and entertaining read you might enjoy, which is Red Rising by Pierce Brown: https://www.goodreads.com/series/117100-red-rising-saga
World War Z the original novel by Max Brooks is very easy to get into as it tells the story through a series of short stories.
It has no relation to the movie, which was already filmed before buying the rights to the name.
oo so it is different to the movie, i see. i love zombie stuff so this sounds perfect to be honest, thanks!
I’d go with Slaughterhouse Five or Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut. Vonnegut is funny, witty, and satirical. But despite being funny and easy to read, his novels also often deal with weighty topics like free will and the search for meaning and purpose.
I would say the Rabbit novels by John Updike.
Do you like time travel stories at all? I recently read 11/22/63 by Stephen King and absolutely loved it. Outside of that, I highly recommend The Stand, although it is a big undertaking. Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles books were great to me, although I stopped after Memnoch The Devil and didn’t keep up after that. Oh! And the Jurassic Park novel is great too, and is very interesting even if you’ve watched the movie. Lastly, I really enjoyed the Thomas Harris Hannibal Lecter series (Red Dragon, Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal).
For Stephen King and a first time leisure reader, I’d personally suggest the Skeleton Crew anthology of short stories. IMO short stories are actually King’s forte and that anthology has severally really good ones. The Mist is a classic (though the movie did the ending better and King himself admits it). The Jaunt is a super short one that I always really liked. There’s also one I can’t remember the title of about an oil slick on a lake that always stuck with me.
On the topic of short stories, Assimov also has great ones. Try Nightfall as a starting point.
