Recommending Fantasy Books

Art of the outside world. Adazing: Lord of the Rings Book Cover Designs, McDaniel, April 12. Some I’ve seen. Some live/have lived on my shelves. Some I didn’t even know existed.

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Back when we had only just finished copying out books by hand, I worked at a science fiction & mystery bookstore. Fantasy was subsumed under science fiction.

I got asked for recommendations. A lot.

Customer: I like X. What else should I read?

I was good at it.

If I liked X. Here, read this. And this. And this one.

If I did not like X. Internal dialogue, I dislike that. Here, I dislike this one for the same reason.

Customers were happy.

The only book that I recommended across the board was The Princess Bride. You like the kind of books I like, here read this. You like the kind of books I don’t like, here read this.

Friends were happy.

You need to read the book. Seeing the movie is not the same. I’m not going all book snob on you. The movie and the book are different beasts. The frame narrative in the book is an entire plot unto itself.

Read it. You will thank me. I’d also try to find a copy without a movie cover, to help keep the two separate as you read.

But I digress.

My biggest victory was when someone came in looking for a book, the only thing they could remember was that it had a two-headed dragon on the cover.

I had no idea.

But I had a … feeling? I wandered around the store, looking like a water dowser without the stick. I put myself in book shelving mode. The feeling was stronger over … here. This shelf. I reached out and pulled down The Prophet of Lamath by Robert Don Hughes.

The customer was impressed.

So was I.

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Cover image from Goodreads.

Onwards!
Katherine