Serious Harry Withdrawal!

[Amy Z]

No: HPFGUIDX 7993


Read Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy:  Northern Lights [The 
Golden Compass in U.S.], The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass.  I don't 
know why it always comes up in conjunction with HP, other than that JKR has 
recommended him and that they are British fantasies for young people--not 
everyone who loves HP is particularly a fantasy reader, including JKR!  
(Pullman describes himself as not a fantasy reader either.)  They are very 
different in many ways, but I recommend HDM to total strangers on the street 
so I'll recommend it here too.  These books are darker, more complex and 
adult--seldom funny, but profoundly imaginative and very well written.  I 
only discovered them this year (thank heaven, only had to wait 2 months 
before #3 came out, it was agony) and I think they are books I will return 
to every couple of years for the rest of my life.  Once you know what a 
daemon is you'll feel like you've known, or should've known, all your life.

I also recommend Ursula LeGuin to every fantasy lover I know, though my two 
favorites of hers are not fantasy but scifi:  The Left Hand of Darkness and 
The Dispossessed.  She is one of the best living U.S. writers of any genre, 
in my opinion.  Her fantasy stuff is the Earthsea trilogy (now a tetralogy 
actually).

I would take these (Pullman and LeGuin) to a desert island above HP if I 
were rating fiction by how deeply it can change my life, but as the long 
months 'til book 5 stretch ahead of us, I wish I knew of something like HP 
for sheer inventiveness and humor.  I laugh out loud reading HP.  Terry 
Pratchett hasn't caught my imagination the same way; I loved Dahl when I was 
a kid but the hysteria level (emotional-hysterical, not 
funny-hysterical--does everyone "cry" instead of "say" in RD?!) raises my 
blood pressure; the closest thing I know is Douglas Adams and I've read 
everything of his.

Happy reading,
Amy Z.
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