10 best books for treating Harry Potter withdrawal

September 23, 4:53 AMBook ExaminerMichelle Kerns

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You've read each book five times;  you listen religiously to the Jim Dale narrated audiobooks, and the Stephen Fry narrated set you just mortgaged your home to buy is winging its way across the Atlantic even now;  you own the Special Collector's edition of each of the movies; you are the peerless champion of Harry Potter Scene-It amongst your friends, family, and hapless Muggles; you have a serious condition--Harry Potter withdrawal.

Don't think I'm making fun of you; the above symptoms are simply a description of me.

Sure, there are some oases of comfort for thirsting Potterheads like Rowling's upcoming The Tales of Beetle the Bard and the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince; however, having to wait until December and next July (!) respectively is about as inviting as a stint in Azkaban for a true Potter fan.

Is there life after book 7?

Believe it or not, there is. Here are 10 books guaranteed to get you out of your post-Potter rut and back into a great reading experience. 

 

1. Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card

There are basically two types of people when it comes to Ender's Game: those who obsessively love it and those who haven't read it yet.

The story focuses on Ender Wiggin, boy wonder, who is shipped off to Battle School at a tender age with the unenviable task of learning how to save the earth from annihilation by approaching aliens. Peer pressure, military training, psychology, and the true nature of humans are only a bit of what Card addresses in this taut, intensely plotted book. In addition, it's got one of the most astonishing surprise endings ever, so don't peek, you'll hate yourself if you do.

Card went on to write multiple sequels to Ender's Game and even a parallel series, Ender's Shadow, that tells the story of Ender from another character's perspective. Every book in both sets is truly outstanding.

 

2. The Chrestomanci Series - Diana Wynne Jones

It drives me crazy that hardly anyone reads the Chrestomanci books. They are everything a rollicking good fantasy should be: intelligent, witty, totally unpredictable and filled with quirky, likeable characters.

The Chrestomanci series consists of five books: Charmed Life, The Lives of Christopher Chant, Conrad's Fate, Witch Week, and The Magicians of Caprona. The scientific theory of multiple parallel universes form the basis for the books; each person exists as a different manifestation of him or herself in each universe; all except, that is, for the Chrestomanci whose job it is to govern the universes and attempt to repair the damage that high-spirited youngster's create larking about between the worlds.

Each book has an entirely different tone and feel but all are unfailingly delightful.

 

3. The Day of the Triffids - John Wyndham

What would happen if nearly every person in the entire world went completely and inexplicably blind overnight? How would the few people left with sight help all of the blind--or would they? Now, just to up the ante, enter huge, mobile, carnivorous (read: maneating) plants.

Sounds freaky? That is The Day of the Triffids in a nutshell, a classic science fiction novel that is as intelligent and thought-provoking as it is terrifying. I'd recommend it for Potter lovers of high school age and up; make the younger set wait a few years since some bits, while well written, might be too much for young readers.

 

4. The Bartimaeus Trilogy - Jonathon Stroud

It's a pity that Jonathon Stroud's Bartimaeus Trilogy--The Amulet of Samarkand, The Golem's Eye, and Ptolemy's Gate--were released right at the height of Potter mania because, in all honesty, they feature writing and plotting superior to that of the Harry Potter books.

All three books focus on the young magician Nathaniel and the all-powerful, sassy dijinni, Bartimaeus, that Nathaniel summons and desperately tries to control. While all of the characters in the book are well-drawn and believable and the plot is riveting (particularly at the conclusion of The Amulet of Samarkand--fantastic!) it's the high-spirited relationship between Nathaniel and Bartimaeus coupled with Stroud's sophisticated and perfectly nuanced writing that made me fall in love with this series.

 

5. Dune - Frank Herbert

If your only experience of Dune has been that 1984 film that featured a cameo of Sting as the Baron Harkonnen's boy toy, please, please run out and get yourself a copy of this novel TODAY.

Dune is certainly the best written, most densely plotted and intelligent science fiction novel ever. Herbert's portrayal of the metamorphosis of the young and inexperienced Paul Atreides into the Kwisatz Haderach, Maud'Dib,and the savior of Arrakis is engrossing. An entire literature class could be taught out of this book alone, not to mention the five sequels Herbert wrote before his death. Herbert's son has carried on the torch, producing an impressive collection of Dune sequels and prequels (including one, Paul of Dune, released last week) but none of them even faintly compare with the stellar original.

 

6. Artemis Fowl - Eoin Colfer

Artemis Fowl, the savvy teenaged criminal mastermind, is a character in a million. Pairing him with the motley group of human and magical characters that recur throughout the Artemis Fowl series--Artemis' bodyguard, Butler; Butler's younger sister, Juliet; LEPrecon fairies Holly Short and Julius Root; Foaly the centaur; Mulch Diggins the kleptomaniac dwarf--was a stroke of pure genius on Colfer's part. At this point, the series includes five sequels to the original Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident, The Eternity Code, The Opal Deception, The Lost Colony, and The Time Paradox.

The books are at once light-hearted and dark, one chapter making readers double up with laughter and then abruptly sobering them up with deeper issues in the next. I confess, I cried at the end of The Arctic Incident and over one particular scene in The Opal Deception (of course I'm not going to tell you what it was; read it yourself! Then you won't think I'm such a sap).  

 

7. The Discworld Series - Terry Pratchett

These books--all thirty-six of them, and counting--are pure comic genius. Start with the first two, The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic and just see if you can't stop reading them (or laughing, incidentally).

While each book in the series takes place in the magical Discworld (think the Middle Ages meets a modern Renaissance Faire meets a wild fantasy-land, except a whole lot weirder if such a thing is possible), all parody a different aspect of literature, life, politics, you name it. The same characters and towns recur throughout the entire series, and by the time you've read them all you'll have trouble remembering if they are fictional characters or people you actually know.

My personal favorites are The Colour of Magic, The Light Fantastic, The Thief of Time (#26) and Going Postal (#33).

 

8. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

If I had to pick one book everyone should read, embarrassingly enough, I'd probably pick this one. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and its sequels, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe; Life, the Universe, and Everything; So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish; and Mostly Harmless, are cult fiction extraordinaire. You'll see why if you read them: their quirky humor, eccentric characters, and outlandish plotlines are almost ridiculously endearing.

Incidentally, have you heard that Douglas Adams' widow has asked the Artemis Fowl author Eoin Colfer to continue the Hitchhiker's series? Book 6, And Another Thing....is scheduled for release in October 2009. Read more about it here.

9. Any by Eva Ibbotson, but particularly The Secret of Platform 13

Although Eva Ibbotson's books are generally lighter and geared towards a younger audience (about 9 to 12 year-olds), there are enough similarities between her work and that of J.K.Rowling to make a lover of one well-disposed towards the other.

Ibbotson's work is extremely well-written and delightfully tongue-in-cheek. All involve magical circumstances and some bear a striking resemblance to elements of Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone. For instance, in The Secret of Platform 13 (that platform number sound vaguely reminiscent of something?) the young Ben lives with the cruel Trotters and their spoiled, greedy, overweight son Raymond, who throws a fit over a Knickerbocker Glory in an ice-cream parlor during the course of the story (now, if that doesn't ring any bells, go back and read the first Harry Potter again this instant!) Ben, it turns out, isn't the Trotter's son at all; he belongs in a magical land that can only be reached through, yes, Platform 13 at the train station.

Before you start screaming that Ms. Ibbotson is a plagiaristic, I should tell you that The Secret of Platform 13 was published in 1994, three years before the publication of Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone. The more of Ms. Ibbotson's books you read, the more you'll know that you aren't the only one who has been paying them close attention.

 

10. Any works by Connie Willis

Connie Willis is an absolute genius of a writer. If you appreciate wit, intelligence, emotion, and a hefty dash of factual history and science in your leisure reading, you'll be right at home with any of Connie Willis' outstanding works.

While everything she's written is fantastic (can you tell I wish I was her?), there are two works that stand out from all the others: Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog. Both involve futuristic time travel though they are as different from one another as could possibly be imagined: Doomsday Book is a highly realistic and emotional account of the Black Death; To Say Nothing of the Dog (which takes its name from the subtitle of Jerome K. Jerome's comedy classic Three Men in a Boat) is a light-hearted fling and one of the funniest damn things I've ever read. Both were awarded the Hugo award and both are outstanding pieces of literature.

I'd recommend both for ages 14 and up, not because there is anything so horrific in them (though Doomsday Book gets pretty bleak at times) but because older readers will better appreciate Willis' finely nuanced sense of humor and her ability to capture the essence of humans in crisis.

Have I left anything off this list? Included something that you don't think belongs? Let me know: I love learning about new books! Leave a comment here or email me at michellekerns@surewest.net. If you're really into it, send me your own Top 10 best books for treating Harry Potter withdrawal and I'll post it on the site!