Try The Gormenghast trilogy by Mervyn Peake. It was dramatized by the BBC a little while ago and that prompted me to pick up the book which I have had for almost thirty years without ever opening it. I got so hooked on Tolkien as a teenager I went and bought every trilogy I could find, thinking they'd be as good. No world ever dreamed up by any author comes close to Middle Earth, as far as I'm concerned. In spite of what critics say about the actual literary value of Harry Potter, that runs a not so close second. I can pick those up and start reading anywhere, buy the leather bound boxed LOTR has a place of honor on the bedside table.
It's not Dairy Queen.
