Definitely concur with the Pullman "His Dark Materials" trilogy, "Perfume" and "The Secret History". I'm a great fan of AS Byatt myself, ("Possession", particularly) but also read everything by Pratchett (including the childrens books, I'm on "A Hatful of Sky" at the moment). I also read Patrick O'Brien's Aubrey/Maturin novels and David Gemmel's heroic fantasy stuff (no comments thanks
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