A Wizard of Earthsea

Here's a novel where a whole world opens up before you, characters reveal themselves, and you feel lost (in the best sense of the term) in this faraway, magical land. Yet, this magical land is eerily familiar- people have the same types of conflicts there that they do in our world. Welcome to Earthsea, a world you will never forget.

I'm typically more of a sci-fi reader than fantasy, and fantasy has to be very special (like Lord of the Rings) to draw me in. A Wizard of Earthsea is one of these very special novels. And it's one of the rare series where the entire series is worth reading and doesn't drag on (a la the Dune series). It is beautifully written, wondrously imagined, and highly memorable.