I was talking to Daniel and Wendy about my journal and about getting book recommendations, and Daniel was convinced that I should start a page where I talked about the books you guys have recommended and I've read, and what I think of them. So. Here it is.
If you want to recommend something for me to read, e-mail me. I'm not picky about genre. I read all kinds of fiction and nonfiction, for adults and for kids. And don't worry about whether you think I've already read something -- maybe I haven't. If it's one of your personal favorites, send it to me anyway. I always like to hear what's good to read.
These are alphabetized by recommender, then author, then title. Just so you know.
The Master and Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov. Recommended by Aet. I am not big on traditional Russian writers, but I'm not sure how traditional Bulgakov is. This book is at the very least magical realism, and I think that's a cop-out term in this case; I think this one's fantasy. At any rate, this struck me a bit like a Margaret Atwood novel, in that I'm always interested in about half of a Margaret Atwood novel, divided up by plot thread. Ditto here, only maybe not quite half. Also, I found it interesting to discuss with Aet why it was transgressive in the USSR when it came out. The transgression of despair was kind of a new one by me: it seems to be a bit banal here, to be so full of despair, a bit high school, a bit much. But living under Stalin...yeah, that'd make it a bit less of a pose, sure. Just a bit.
Beware the Fish! by Gordon Korman. Recommended by Alec. This is in a series of children's books called the Bruno and Boots books, or the MacDonald Hall books. It's about a couple of Canadian boys at boarding school, and it is wacky. Zany. Fun. The grown-ups don't make much sense, and everything is a little over-the-top...which probably makes it totally accurate for childhood. In this one, the boys save their school, with some help from the girls across the road. I'd pass on the recommendation, and you can start anywhere in the series. These are just fun.
Macdonald Hall Goes Hollywood, same author, same recommender. Another fun Macdonald Hall book, kind of silly, but that's not really a flaw.
Something Fishy at Macdonald Hall, same author, same recommender. I liked Beware the Fish! better, because Bruno and Boots were in their element a lot more. Some series books benefit by throwing their characters out of their element. This one did, but not as much as it could have. Still worth reading.
The War With Mr. Wizzle, same author, same recommender. More of the same. Poor Mr. Wizzle. Hee.
I'm also almost sure Alec was responsible for recommending Robin Hobb's assassin series to me originally. Almost but not quite. I liked those, though.
Letting the Body Lead, by Jenn Crowell. Recommended by Andrea. I really should have liked this book. Overachieving Save-the-world Smart Girl runs off to Iceland for a summer. Ought to be right up my alley, right? But I didn't like it. I felt like the character did have a lot to learn and needed a lot of insights about herself, but didn't get any of them. Her insight was that she shouldn't let academics consume her life. Which was reasonable but didn't address most of the real problems I thought the character had. Further...well, I was unconvinced by her overachievements. Unimpressed, I guess you'd say. And so when The Smart Girl needed to take some time to just feel and not think--not only was it not an attitude that doesn't really resonate with me, but it seemed like she'd been acting on feeling a lot more than on thought in the first place. It was a good recommendation but not an enjoyable one, if that makes any sense.
Silver Pigs, by Lindsey Davis. Recommended by Andrea. A Roman mystery, but with fairly colloquial/contemporary style. It was all right -- fun, didn't put me off or grab me particularly, but I'd read more by this author if it was around and I was in the mood for a light mystery. My biggest gripe is going to seem petty: the scene breaking or line spacing. I'm not sure which to call it, because sometimes a line break indicated that time had passed and the scene had moved on, and sometimes it did not, and it just seemed silly to put them in there. It seemed especially silly when it looked like there was a good line that she wanted to pause on, but the action didn't pause there. Trust the reader, Ms. Davis! We'll pause and laugh or ponder as appropriate!
Common Prayers: Faith, Family, and a Christian's Journey Through the Jewish Year, by Harvey Cox. Recommended by Caroline. I was looking for something else in this book, and I disagreed with the author on several points of Christianity. But he's a Baptist; that is, his tradition is far enough from my own Haugean roots that I don't expect to agree with him. So I could just read it and think about what he was saying without having to argue too much in my head.
Bel Canto, by Ann Patchett. Recommended by Columbine. This book hit me just right: the relationships of the hostages and their captors shifted in interesting and believable ways, and the last chapter made Patchett's human understanding clear.
The Spy Who Came In From the Cold, by John LeCarré. Recommended by Daniel. I was skeptical, because I read The Looking-Glass War last year and didn't think much of it. But this was a decent spy story. Entertaining, and the setting was not Finland but mostly the U.K.--which is probably a much better choice for LeCarré, as one of my main complaints about The Looking-Glass War was that the Finnish scenes seemed to have taken place on a sound stage in a London suburb. I don't know that I've been converted to LeCarré fandom, but I no longer growl in his general direction.
The Escher Twist, by Jane Langton. Recommended by Dave. There was not enough Escher in this mystery for me, either literally or (and this part was better) thematically. It was fun, but not enough to make me seek out the author's other books in this series.
Boswell's London Journals 1762-1763. Recommended by David. David is getting to be quite the Boshead, and he got me started on the journals with this first published volume. I haven't gotten quite as into it as he has, but I found the journals much more interesting and entertaining than I'd thought they might be.
The Songlines, by Bruce Chatwin. Recommended by David. An idiosyncratic, fun book about Australia -- the sort of book that made me want to find other books by the author and other books on the topic. There were a few sections that were a bit too disjointed for me, but it was overall worth my time, definitely.
The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492, by Alfred W. Crosby. Recommended by David. Interesting exploration of biological influences between the Old World and the New -- some of them positive, many negative. I found it fascinating how many groups started insisting that they had "always" had a food that was imported. Good stuff.
The Translator, by John Crowley. Recommended by David. Oh, this was good stuff. The early Sixties were a fascinating foreign place for me in this book. It drew me in and kept me throughout.
Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire, by Richard B. Frank. Recommended by David. Both gruesome and dry, but ultimately informative. Also, it neatly avoided a lot of revisionist thinking about the strategies of the Second World War, reflecting the changes in American public opinion and war policy (especially in regard to civilians). Worth reading if the topic interests you.
The Great War and Modern Memory, by Paul Fussell. Recommended by David. I believe David also recommended another Fussell I didn't manage to put on this list. Anyway, this book was wrenching and fascinating. I kept finding myself staring off into space thinking about it, so it was a slow read, but worth the time. This is a literary perspective on WWI, by the way, in case the title was not informative enough.
Paris to the Moon, by Adam Gopnik. Recommended by David. This guy went to France the same year I did, but he stayed a lot longer, and wrote a pretty decent book about it. Lots of great sentences, some pretty nifty paragraphs, too. The overall effect may be typical of this type of essay volume -- it seemed that Gopnik ascribed a bit too much significance to his smallest actions. But they weren't intended to be anything but personal essays, so that's probably to be expected. The expatriate nature of this work particularly appealed to me as I complete my own term of exile.
The Talented Mr. Ripley, by Patricia Highsmith. Same recommender. I wasn't fond of the general genre of this book, but I can't fault the writing. Even having awakened at not-quite-5:00-a.m. the day I read it, I found myself pulled through the book, almost never distracted from it. It was very much of its time, though.
How to Be Good, by Nick Hornby. Recommended by David and Robert. I'm always amused by Mr. Hornby's books, but also faintly baffled: you think the world goes how, now? Well, I'm glad you're muddling through, then.... This bit at the end is really it: "Anyway, who lives a rich and beautiful life that I know? It's no longer possible, surely, for anyone who works for a living, or lives in a city, or shops in a supermarket, or watches TV, or reads a newspaper, or drives a car, or eats frozen pizzas. A nice life, possibly, with a huge slice of luck and a little spare cash. And maybe even a good life, if...Well, let's not go into all that. But rich and beautiful lives seem to be a discontinued line." I probably could disagree more. It would take more time and effort than I'm willing to take out of my rich and beautiful life, though. (No. I'm not joking.)
The Great Fear of 1789, by Georges Lefebvre. Recommended by David. France just prior to the Revolution had a mass outpouring of...fear, pretty much. This was a very straightforward account of the causes, effects, and spread thereof.
The Beginnings of Western Science, by David C. Lindberg. Recommended by David. Not particularly edifying to me, but as David told me it would be, clear and concise. If you don't know much about pre-Renaissance Western science or "natural philosophy," this is a pretty decent place to start.
Plagues and Peoples, by William H. McNeill. Recommended by David. Good, good stuff. All sorts of effects of contagious disease on human history. Malaria, cholera, smallpox, the whole works. Wheee!
Down and Out in Paris and London, by George Orwell. Recommended by David. If this had been longer, I would have grown impatient with it, but it was interesting at its current length. I was particularly interested and amused by the passage that was permanently bowdlerized -- it's now impossible to tell what vulgar word was expunged where "-----" was written, so the few pages on the mysterious "-----" both amused and saddened a little.
A Way in the World, by V.S. Naipaul. Recommended by David. I engaged fairly intellectually with this book but not at all emotionally. No connection with any of the characters. That part was really too bad, and it would make me hesitant to pick up another Naipaul without good reason to think that would be different (or to think that I wouldn't care somehow).
The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. 1, by Karl Popper. Recommended by David. Popper dances a tarantella on Plato's head. This was so much fun. I didn't expect it to be so much fun. I'm looking forward to Vol. 2.
Close Range: Wyoming Stories, by Annie Proulx. Recommended by David. I liked "Brokeback Mountain" decently well. I thought it transcended the condescending nastiness that characterized the rest of the book. I don't know enough about Proulx to know if all of her characters are so thoroughly unpleasant or if it's something focused in her Wyoming stories. I doubt, however, that she would claim that necrophilia is a natural consequence of living in New York. Bleah.
Boswell's Presumptuous Task: The Making of the Life of Dr. Johnson, by Adam Sisman. Recommended by David. David has become quite a Boswell fan, and he lent me one of the journals before I started making note of whose recommended stuff I've read. I found the journal pretty interesting and this volume almost as much so. It's a bit distant, where the journals are pretty immediate and intimate, but still topically appropriate.
Millroy the Magician, by Paul Theroux. Recommended by David. The writing was smooth and pulled me along, but I can't think of a single character I liked in this book.
Master and Commander, by Patrick O'Brian. Recommended by DDB (and half the rest of the world, but DDB was the one who was willing to lend it to me. Nobody told me these books were funny. I like the boats, but if I'd known there would be the funny, I'd have read them years ago. I'm looking forward to the rest.
Modesty Blaise, by Peter O'Donnell. Recommended by DDB. This is the first in a series, and I've now read the entire series. (I got behind on updating this page.) They're adventure stories. Action stories. They're fun. Modesty and her sidekick Willie Garvin run around the planet saving the moderately innocent-ish and smiting evildoers. Smite smite smite. They're good books for the smiting.
A Morbid Taste for bones, by Ellis Peters. Recommended by DDB. Another first in a series. I'm not quite done with the rest of the Brother Cadfael mysteries, but I've read over a dozen of them. As with most mystery series for me -- I'm not primarily a mystery reader -- they stand or fall on the strength of the main characters. These stand. Cadfael is worth spending more time with.
The Labyrinth Makers, by Anthony Price. Recommended by DDB. Yet another first in a series. I keep telling people that these are what I wanted the LeCarre books to be that they weren't. They've got spies in, and sometimes wars but mostly not, and the cast of characters is large and recurring, and Price has not limited himself to one main character. And like all good series, later books build on themes and effects of earlier ones. Love these books. Love.
The Man Who Was Thursday, by G.K. Chesterton. Recommended by Hilary. It sounded so much more like my kind of thing than it was: anarchists and spies and religion! And then the end went all kind of heavy-handed, and he lost me. One of the things I did like, though, was Chesterton's neat explosion of the conceit that one sees the villains' vices on their physical person.
Mad for God: Bartolome Sanchez, Secret Messiah of Cardenete, by Sara Tilghman Nalle. Recommended by Jon. This is a microhistory of an Inquisition trial, and it was a somewhat different view of Inquisition Spain than a more general portrait will give you. Worth the time, I think, and not nearly so gruesome as one might fear.
Winterdance, by Gary Paulsen. Recommended by Karalee. Hmm. This was a very, very vivid picture of the life of a novice Iditarod racer. In that sense, it was quite good. Also, the dogs emerged from the book more or less okay, which was my main concern as I was reading it. And that's where the problem came in: I expected to have more concern/sympathy for the dogs. But I didn't expect to have so little for their human. A lot of his behavior was described in detail but not really explained, so I ended up thinking, "Well, you @#&$ idiot" every few pages. I'm not a big Gary Paulsen fan, but he seems to have treated his dogs as well as can be expected. That's worth a lot.
Invitation to the Game, by Monica Hughes. Recommended by Karina. Karina said that she loved this book more when she first read it as a kid than she did upon rereading, and I can see why. From a worldbuilding standpoint, it really doesn't stand up. The starry-eyed view of primitive conditions was just silly, and so was most of the dystopia -- Hughes could easily have come up with similar end results with a society that made more internal sense. But from a young teenage perspective, getting to be a storyteller in a group making its way in an intriguing foreign situation, no grown-ups, just beloved peers...I can see why it would be much appreciated, that way.
The Merro Tree, by Katie Waitman. Recommended by Karina. Interstellar artist SF. Fun stuff, though it doesn't make my very top tier list. I liked the fact that art was not all deadly serious in this book, as one sometimes gets in first novels about artists of various flavors.
Peace Like a River, by Leif Enger. Recommended by Linda. I didn't know anyone could do Midwestern Protestant Magical Realism, but then Enger went and did it. Which is to say, not my kind of book. But it was fairly well done, and I had a higher tolerance for MR in this form, simply because the general lack of response to the magic made more sense to me: these people were in western Minnesota and the Dakotas, in the 1960s. Emotional response to anything was a bit gauche in context. The plot plotted, the characters characted. Just not my kind of thing.
Fudoki, by Kij Johnson. Recommended by Linda. I'm glad Lin bothered to recommend this, because I enjoyed it a lot more than The Fox Woman and would probably have skipped it and missed out otherwise. My main problem with it was the main characters' cat-like acceptance of aspects of their world without trying to figure out what was going on. But that was well-done, it just wasn't to my taste. I hear she's going for monkeys next. Monkeys ought to like to poke into things. I'll enjoy that.
River Rats, by Caroline Stevermer. Recommended by Linda. This book restored a bit of my faith in Caroline Stevermer. I had read one of hers which did not impress me, but then when I was visiting, Lin wanted to lend me River Rats, and I'm never one to pass up a free book. So I read it. It wasn't outstanding, but it was pretty all right. Better than When the King Comes Home, which I did not like at all. Too much Mark Twain influence, I think, but that's a forgiveable offense.
Yearwood, by Paul Hazel. Recommended by The Other Mark. Starts out pretty standard Celtic fantasy, ends up somewhere much more interesting. I'll be looking for the sequels, to be sure. Definitely worth my time.
The Space Ship Under the Apple Tree, by Louis Slobodkin. Recommended by The Other Mark. A children's SF novel from the early 1950s -- it was sweet. I think I might have loved it more if I'd come upon it earlier, but it was still worth a smile and a quick read.
The Blank Wall, by Elizabeth Sanxay Holding. Recommended by Marymary. This reminded me a good bit of the Highsmith, and I found the ending unsatisfying, but the progress of it was rather nice.
The Samurai's Garden, by Gail Tsukiyama. Recommended by Marymary. I had some gripes with this book throughout, but it got better as it went along. The main problem was suspension of disbelief, though; I'm not sure how often people who primarily read historical fiction use that term, but I think it applies. I had a hard time believing the social/political interactions or lack thereof. The very premise seemed dubious to me, and if it wasn't, the characters were all so deliberately oblivious that I wanted to pound them. It was a dreamy and beautiful book, and I have a very hard time with dreamy and beautiful books set during the Second World War in one of the warring countries. It doesn't fit for me that way. I might try some of her other books if they have different settings, though.
Mairelon the Magician, by Patricia Wrede. Recommended by Marymary. This was great fun. I look forward to digging up the sequel. Marymary was absolutely dead on here: it was the type of YA I really enjoy. And it didn't do anything particularly cliched with the main character, which I really appreciated. Oh! And the French accent was non-phoneticized and reasonable! That made me so happy.
A Game of Thrones and A Clash of Kings, by George R. R. Martin. Recommended by Matt. I had read the first of these a few years back, and Matt urged me to give it another try. And these books do indeed have some redeeming qualities. But I found them utterly predictable. The plot "twists" weren't foreshadowed, they were screamed for pages in advance. I'm not sure whether I'll read the rest of the series, but I'd warn anyone who's considering them that after more than 1700 pages, Martin has still not finished a plot arc. These are not complete stories in themselves. They're the beginning of a story. If you don't mind reading that much just to get to the middle, go on ahead.
Murder Runs in the Family, by Anne George. Recommended by Mechaieh (Peg). The second in the series, and also the second Mechaieh-recommended mystery series I started midway through. Hmmmm. Anyway, I found this slight but charming, not anybody's idea of a deep read or even a very puzzling mystery, but fun characters and setting. The region involved (Birmingham) was neither whitewashed nor painted as seething den of vice, and the characters were about equally balanced. The writing had clunky moments, but not annoyingly enough to make me put the book down.
A Letter of Mary, by Laurie R. King. Recommended by Mechaieh and Dichroic (Paula). I was unable to make the central leap of this book, that is, that King's Sherlock Holmes was the same person as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. They just didn't fit together as the same person for me; I couldn't spot a continuity between them. I was also disappointed in the title object's role in the story. It was, however, a fast and upbeat read.
The Widower's Two-Step, by Rick Riordan. Recommended by Mechaieh. I'm not sure that this specific book counts as recommended, or whether she was recommending another in the series. It was patchy. It was entertaining enough, but there were a few stylistic lapses. My biggest problem with this book was that I was most interested in the aspect of the main character that showed up the least: his interest in medieval English lit. I may seek out the next book in the series, since he's gotten a professorship, but if it's handled as poorly as his girlfriend is in this book, maybe I won't. I won't look for the sequel soon, I don't think, but if I'm at an airport and desperately need another book, it might be a decent choice.
Holes, by Louis Sachar. Recommended by La Michelle. This kids' book is a little hard to get in premise, but it turns out to be quite cool, a little surreal, but that's probably an asset in a children's book. I liked it.
Miss Clare Remembers, by Miss Read. Recommended by Paula. Paula recommended this when I was looking for WWI reading, and it did do that. It was Not For Me in other regards, though: too much telling, not enough showing, and too much awkwardness in both.
A Sorcerer and a Gentleman, by Elizabeth Willey. Recommended by Philip and Beth. This gets called fantasy of manners, but it's not really the same kind of book in my head as the other fantasy of manners I've read. I'm not sure why. It feels different if you poke at it, that's what I know. Well, there's war, and there's not much of society. So that's kind of...un-manner-y, really, though not unmannerly. I'm looking forward to the next one (also lent me by Beth), but not as much as I'd hoped. It seemed to sidle up sideways next to "The Tempest" and not do much there. Hmmm. Still thinking.
Metropolitan, by Walter Jon Williams. Recommended by Philip. This one started out very slowly for me -- I didn't start caring about Aiah until halfway through the book. She kept doing things that seemed beyond dumb. But the world got to be fun, at the end, and I liked Constantine (who was not beyond dumb, a point in anyone's favor). A few chapters in, I told David that unless it improved substantially, I would be reading no more Walter Jon Williams. It improved substantially.
The Darkangel, by Meredith Ann Pierce. Recommended by Sarah. This is one of the YAs that I think is best approached at a certain age, and that age is not, apparently, 25. This is a vampire luuuuuurve story. And it was not funny. And I can deal with vampires (if they're not the entirety of the book), and I can deal with luuuuuurve stories (ditto), in both cases, mostly if they're funny; but this used a lot of the same vampire/fantasy elements used elsewhere, to no greater effect here.
Sewer, Gas, and Electric, by Matt Ruff. Recommended by Scott and Ed. This was fun. I didn't like it as well as Fool on the Hill, and there were several sentences that I read and thought, oh, he's just taken with his own cleverness, isn't he? But it's hard to stay mad at someone who's taken with his own cleverness when he really is that clever. The AI Ayn Rand in the hurricane lamp was hysterical. I'm officially converted to Matt Ruff fandom.
When I Was Older, by Garret Freymann-Weyr. Recommended by Sharyn. Errrr...sort of. We think. Neither of us is quite sure whether Sharyn actually recommended this book to me or whether I discovered Garret Freymann-Weyr's homepage from Sharyn's own homepage (linked below). But she would have recommended it, and now I would, too: it's good. This book ate a chunk of my afternoon all at once, and I was all busy with moving and writing and that, and I didn't even care, because this book was so good. Smart characters, figuring out big things in their lives, but no Issues, just issues, just stuff. No trite psychodramatic plots. Satisfying and lovely and I can't wait to get to her other books.
Empress of the World, by Sara Ryan. Recommended by Sharyn. This is a love story between two teenage girls, and neither of them ends up dead in the end. So if you're looking for good gay love stories for teens, this would be your book. I wasn't looking for good gay love stories for teens, and I'm really not into teen love stories. But I liked this one more than average because the teens in it were such geeks. The characters felt real to me. I know for some people their geekness would be irrelevant and their gayness (or bi-ness, whichever) would be the point. For me, it was the reverse.
The Queen of Attolia, by Megan Whalen Turner. Recommended by Sharyn. Unlike its predecessor (below), this did not feature a trick ending. Rah! It was also all politics. Woohoo! I Like Politics. A little bit of blood, a little bit of twisted romance, some divine intervention. But mostly politics. Goodgood.
The Thief, same author, same recommender. I liked this book up until the last chapter. The last chapter stretched my tolerance for unreliable narrators rather thin...but I'm still going to look for more books by this author, so the last chapter didn't entirely ruin things for me.
Winter Prince, by Elizabeth Wein. Same recommender. A more interesting Mordred than most, I think. I'm looking forward to seeing what the author has done with the sequel, since the standard modern Arthurian Mordred-as-Arthur's-only-son isn't happening here.
People of the Sky, by Clare Bell. Recommended by Stella. By now I can usually tell why Stella has recommended me something, even if I don't much like it, and this book had its good points: extrapolated Native American culture, happy aliens, people who grow personally over the course of the book. There were several things that drove me nuts about it, though, and ultimately I felt that it was a multiple idiot plot: not only did several of the main characters have to be idiots for the plot to work, but the entire culture also had to be either idiotic or malicious. Umm...yah. Also, I think "but these are our ways" is not a sufficient explanation for anything.
Dragon Bones, by Patricia Briggs. Recommended by Stella. The main character didn't always make a lot of sense to me, but the story pulled me along quite satisfactorily, and I'm wondering how the next book will go.
Enchantress from the Stars, by Sylvia Engdahl. Recommended by Stella. The Prime Directive aspects of this book annoyed me, and there was something else I couldn't quite put my finger on. But I think Engdahl probably handled her conceit as well as anyone else could have, or better.
The Briar King, by Greg Keyes. Recommended by Stella. I didn't want to read this book in the bookstore because I had the sneaking suspicion that Greg Keyes was the same guy as J. Gregory Keyes, and I had not enjoyed the alternate historical dealiebobber I'd read by J. Gregory. It was the same guy, but since this wasn't an alternate history, he couldn't do all the things that annoy me in alternate histories, and I did enjoy this book and want to read the sequel. The problem is that this was one of those series where the entirety of the first book is spent sending everything to hell in a handbasket. Plotline resolution? No. The problems are all introduced, that's all: not even a small plotline resolved. This annoyed me, but not enough to make me avoid the sequel.
Colours in the Steel, by K.J. Parker. Recommended by Stella. I loved this. I was totally drawn in for all of its length. This is a fantasy writer who understands engineers, which I think is rare, and it turned out to be more important to me than I'd expected. The second book in this series, The Belly of the Bow, was also good, also borrowed from Stella, but...oh. I thought I was inured to the coming grossness from the foreword. I was not. It is taking me awhile to work up to the third book after that.
The Chronicles of Scar, by Ron Sarti. Recommended by Stella. Fun with centuries post-apocalypse!
Prospero's Children, by Jan Siegel. Recommended by Stella. Too many adjectives. Otherwise fun. May read later books, as I am reliably informed that they contain fewer adjectives as a percentage.
Snow Eyes and The Boy Who Was Thrown Away, by Stephanie Smith. Recommended by Stella. Stilted and self-satisfied; if I had wondered why Stephanie Smith does not now appear to have a career, now I know. Just a set of books wherein Stella's and my tastes did not coincide.
Heroes Die, by Matthew Woodring Stover. Recommended by Stella. The jacket copy on this one was not promising, but I ended up liking it quite a bit. The timing, close to when I read Pamela Dean's Secret Country trilogy, was also thematically good. I found the pace quick and compelling.
Nameless Magery, by Delia Marshall Turner. Recommended by Stella. I felt like there were chunks of this book just missing. Maybe it's that it's shorter than a lot of fantasy published these days. It was another that pulled me along through the story but then left me not quite satisfied.
The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye, by A.S. Byatt. Recommended by Wendy (same Wendy as link below) and Daniel. Ohhhh, did I love "The Story of the Eldest Princess." Simple and small and satisfying. The other stories were good, too, but that one was my favorite. (And if Possession annoyed you, this collection will likely be better.)
Aegypt, by John Crowley. Recommended by Wendy. Lots of stuff I didn't care about swaddling a few things I did. I had a really hard time connecting with this book. Wendy said she felt that way the first time through, but I don't know if there'll be a second time through for me.
The King of Elfland's Daughter, by Lord Dunsany. Recommended by Wendy and Daniel. I think what I enjoyed most about this book was spotting what other people had taken or learned from it. There were a few that C.S. Lewis had done similarly, for example. I enjoyed it, but in a quite different way from the below.
Time and the Gods, same author, same recommenders. This was a lot of vignette, is what. It was very evocative of titles and story ideas for me, and I enjoyed it, but it was good to have a break and read something else in the middle. Occasionally the names you could get away with back then without feeling like you were writing your very own Harvard Lampoon amused me. All in all, worth reading, but I don't know if it'd be better or worse for people who read more slowly than I do. (Better because less Lord Dunsany per hour/day; worse because it would go on for quite some time.)
Maggots, Murder, and Men, by Zakaria Erzinclioglu. Recommended by Wendy. Fascinating reference on forensic entomology. The author's view of Society is occasionaly intrusive and heavy-handed, but he more than makes up for it with the sections on bluebottles and maggots and all. Not a pleasant book, but a good one, worthwhile.
Across the Nightingale Floor, by Lian Hearn. Recommended by Wendy and Daniel. This book is set in a sort of medieval Japan setting, and one of the things I liked about it is that I didn't feel that Hearn was doing a little dance around the book going, "Look, look, they're Japanese! Isn't that interesting? Japanese!" She just let it be the world. This book was not perfect, but it was definitely worth my time, and I'll look for the sequels. The characters had some soppy moments, but I generally liked them anyway.
The Story of the Stone and Eight Skilled Gentlemen, by Barry Hughart. Recommended by Wendy and Daniel. I'm not sure this counts as a recommendation, since I had already read Bridge of Birds on my own, but they did lend me their copy. I enjoyed it. The jacket comparison to Indiana Jones was not too far off, in feel if not in specifics.
Fool on the Hill, by Matt Ruff. Recommended by Wendy (without Daniel, as far as I know). Oh. So good. So good so good so good. I just sat and devoured this book. I need a copy of my own. It's got Nice Dogs (and Bad Dogs, too) and fairies that aren't cutesy and flitty and it's got freak-o college students that make me miss my own freak-o college friends, and oh. Goodness of book. Go read it. Yay.
Deep Secret, by Diana Wynne Jones. Recommended by Will. I know I'm going to have a hell of a time getting Timprov to read this one, because the premise sounds so awful. But it's really a good book. A fun book. A book that gripped my attention away from the flow of my own book for an afternoon, and that's saying something.
Scaramouche, by Rafael Sabatini. Recommended by Will. It swashed and buckled a bit. It was fun. It was enough in the same vein as Dumas that I have to say I prefer Dumas, but I'll probably read some more Sabatini when I've run out of immediately available Dumas.
The Meme Machine, by Susan Blackmore. Recommended by Zed. I found the meme theory in this book more on the order of "useful paradigmatic tool" than "ultimate cosmic truth," but I don't think that's a bad thing. Also, I was amused that it seemed to have the immediate effect of boosting other memes' strength: made me want to go read Dawkins and Dennett and all of the other references. That was kind of cute, considering.
Two for the Dough, by Janet Evanovich. Recommended by Zed and Amber. Hmmmmm. This was sort of fun, and sort of annoying. I liked Grandma Mazur. I wasn't so sure I liked Stephanie. But I think this was a series where starting with book two may have been a bad thing, and I'm willing to try to find book one to make sure.
The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death, by Daniel Pinkwater. Recommended by Zed and Alec. I'm absolutely sure this book makes sense. I'm even sure the world in this book makes sense. Do not ask me to tell you what sense it makes, for that I do not know. Surrealist children's lit, essentially. I enjoyed it a lot.