The Mistborn Trilogy by Brandon Sanderson. A great concept, awesome deconstruction/reconstruction of typical tropes, cool characters, great twists, loads of snark, and solid writing in general. Also his novella The Emperor's Soul which manages to squeeze in more great character interaction, introspection, and worldbuilding than I would think possible in such a short book. It also has really good emotional payoff at the end. (It won a Hugo Award as well.)
"Oh great! Let's pile up all the useless cats and hope a tree falls on them!"Harry Potter. I wish the last two books were a little bit more polished, but it's certainly a great series.
Everything by Astrid Lindgreen or Erich Kästner
The Foreigner series by CJ Cherryh (honestly most of her work is unbelievable creative, but that's her best work, along with Tripoint and Finity's End)
The first two books of the Nightwatcher series by Lynn Flewelling
Nils Holgerson (honestly, read the book, the series doesn't even come close to capture the epic scale of it)
The Neverending Story and Momo by Michael Ende
edited 15th Dec '13 11:28:27 PM by Swanpride
That last chapter was incredible.
edited 16th Dec '13 12:25:21 AM by LeGarcon
Oh really when?Seconding Mistborn, adding Dune (first book only), The Lord Of The Rings, and Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep.
edited 16th Dec '13 4:48:18 PM by shiro_okami
I feel like some of the Warrior Cats books reach the 9.5-10 mark. Probably The Darkest Hour, Dark River, The Forgotten Warrior, The Last Hope, The Sun Trail, and Tallstar's Revenge.
"Oh great! Let's pile up all the useless cats and hope a tree falls on them!"The anthology Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural basically established the modern horror canon before horror was even considered its own genre. Even if I would have picked slightly different stories for, say, Poe and Machen and Lovecraft, it is still essential.
I'll hide your name inside a word and paint your eyes with false perception.Pretty much everything by Neil Gaiman.
All of Disc World.
Good Omens is tops.
Nthing the Dresden Files and TWOK.
Adding in The King Killer Chronicles.
edited 17th Dec '13 5:36:16 PM by BluBeriPi
Harry Potter. (I know, real original).
The Ocean at the End of the Lane (I know Gaiman was mentioned already, but it bears repeating
).
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
Enders Game by Orson Scott Card
The Thrawn Trilogy by Timothy Zahn
edited 25th Dec '13 1:57:42 PM by resetlocksley
Fear is a superpower.The Boy In The Striped Pajamas
Slimed! An Oral History Of Nickelodeon (weird choice, I know)
edited 11th Jan '14 10:07:06 AM by Jinxmenow
"Monsters are tragic beings. They are born too tall, too strong, too heavy. They are not evil by choice. That is their tragedy."

Books you consider near-perfect?