THE NAME OF THE WIND has everything fantasy readers like, magic and mysteries and ancient evil, but it's also humorous and terrifying and completely believable. As with all the very best books in our field, it's not the fantasy trappings (wonderful as they are) that make this novel so good, but what the author has to say about true, common things, about ambition and failure, art, love, and loss.

Remember that each light between sunrise and sunset is worth dying for at least once.

Not everyone can stand up and be a hero, Princess. Some prefer to surrender to the inevitable and salve their consciences with the gift of survival.

...Coca-Cola and fries, the wafer and wine of the Western religion of commerce.

Every time we tell a lie, the thing we fear grows stronger.

You show me what someone listens to, I’ll tell you everything you want to know about his soul. (For instance, a bunch of Nickelback albums would have indicated he never had a soul in the first place.)

Sleep. To lie down and shut out the noise, the fear, the unceasing misery.