Earthman Arthur Dent is having a very bad day. His house is about to be bulldozed, he discovers that his best friend is an alien and to top things off, Planet Earth is about to be demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass. Arthur's only chance for survival: hitch a ride on a passing spacecraft. For the novice space traveler, the greatest adventure in the universe begins when the world ends. Arthur sets out on a journey in which he finds that nothing is as it seems: he learns that a Towel is just the most useful thing in the universe, finds the meaning of life, and discovers that everything he needs to know can be found in one book: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

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Originally Posted by johnny This is a modern classic. It's wittiness at its finest, and Douglas Adams is a well-deserved humorist legend. He is, without a doubt, the one writer I would want to model my own style after. Unfortunately, I never could: Douglas Adams was a one-of-a-kind genius and to match him would be impossible.

Geralt of Rivia is a witcher. A cunning sorcerer. A merciless assassin. His sole purpose is to destroy the monsters that plague the world, but not everything monstrous-looking is evil, and not everything fair is good... and in every fairy tale there is a grain of truth.

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Originally Posted by flame.leaf This has to be, by far, my favorite book series of all time. It revitalised my interest in fantasy with it's tone and atmosphere, which totally throws aside Tolkien-esque High Fantasy and gives you a dark, realistic, and dare I say modern world. No destined heroes or noble kings and evil warlord here. There is racism, there is terrorism, there is pollution, there is corruption, and there are real monsters.

When a pilot crashes into the desert and meets a young prince from another world, he is forced to look at the world with different eyes through stories the young prince tells him.

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Originally Posted by Juneberry This book is unique in the fact that although it seems like a children's book, even adults can enjoy it if in the right mind-set. It is very symbolic in many aspects and can be mind-opening if you let it. It was a very fun book, and I'd even read it again if I could. I also like that it really relates to the author, who was a pilot and had been in a few plane crashes like the narrator of the story.

It's 1895, and after the suicide of her mother, 16-year-old Gemma Doyle is shipped off from the life she knows in India to Spence, a proper boarding school in England. Lonely, guilt-ridden, and prone to visions of the future that have an uncomfortable habit of coming true, Gemma's reception there is a chilly one. To make things worse, she's been followed by a mysterious young Indian man, a man sent to watch her. But why? What is her destiny? And what will her entanglement with Spence's most powerful girls—and their foray into the spiritual world—lead to?

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Originally Posted by Kit Katy It's intriguing, compelling, has its moments of passion, and some moments of sheer terror! You don't know what to expect when you turn the page. Overall a fascinating and exciting read!

When HMS Reliant captures a French frigate and seizes its precious cargo, an unhatched dragon egg, fate sweeps Capt. Will Laurence from his seafaring life into an uncertain future - and an unexpected kinship with a most extraordinary creature. Thrust into the rarefied world of the Aerial Corps as master of the dragon Temeraire, he will face a crash course in the daring tactics of airborne battle. For as France's own dragon-borne forces rally to breach British soil in Bonaparte's boldest gambit, Laurence and Temeraire must soar into their own baptism of fire.

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Originally Posted by Jazemon One of the only books that manages to mix fantasy and history together nicely. It's very well written and it's easy to get lost in the story, never a slow point.

In 1959, a fierce, evangelical Baptist, Nathan Price takes his four young daughter, his wife, and his mission to the Belgian Congo - a place, he is sure, where he can save needy souls. Told from the perspective of Price's family, it's a story of mistakes, consequences, heartbreak, and the parallel destruction of a family and a nation.

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Originally Posted by johnny This book is just beautifully written and tragic. I read it for my Literature class a few semesters ago, and it's become one of my favorite books. Kingsolver's words paint an image of the Congo exquisitely, and illustrate the tragedy of the characters just as well.

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni takes place during June 1983, at a fictional rural village called Hinamizawa, which has a population of approximately 2,000. The main character, Keiichi Maebara, moves to Hinamizawa and befriends his new classmates Rena Ryugu, Mion Sonozaki, Rika Furude, and Satoko Houjou. Keiichi joins their after-school club activities, which consist mostly of card and board games. Hinamizawa appears to be a normal, peaceful, rural village to Keiichi. However, the tranquility abruptly ends after the annual Watanagashi Festival, a celebration to commemorate and give thanks to the local god, Oyashiro. Keiichi learns that every year for the past four years, one person has been murdered and another has gone missing on the day of the Watanagashi Festival. Keiichi himself soon becomes drawn into the strange events surrounding the Watanagashi Festival and Oyashiro. In each story arc, he or one of his friends become paranoid, and a crime is committed. Usually, the crime involves the murder of one of their own friends. While it seems impossible to tell their delusions apart from the mystery of Hinamizawa, slowly the truth is revealed.

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Originally Posted by Kit Katy The thrill of confusion, the tenderness of your stomach as you read, and the haunting images that cannot be erased from your mind presents a wonderful horror story! Though scared stiff on some parts, I couldn't remove my eyes from each page.