[Mithalwen]

Given that you clearly mean fantasy and I don't feel such need to disagree that it is the greatest piece of literature of all time .... much as I love it .

There are many non-fantasy works that I love and revisit but on the Fantasy side I am afraid returning to Narnia was a crashing disappointment. I loved the books so much as a child and bought a boxed set of hardbacks on sale thinking I might give them to my godson if I could bear to part.

I read the first three and I couldn't believe I used to like them so ..I didn't even think I liked them enough to give them to GS. It was even slightly horrific. I will try to reread the silver chair which I liked best as a child but....

More positively, if you want an intelligent contemporary writer in the fantasy genre - what about Terry Pratchett? There is a lot of humour but he uses discworld to make some shrewd observations about our own. Like Rowling he is a devotee of the one book that would challenge LOTR as my desert island choice, Brewers' Phrase and Fable. If you don't own a copy put it on your christmas list!

It is the most delightful reference book and the source of many of JK's names. And on the subject of JK - while her level of creation is not of the same nature as Tolkien, and she is not a don but she is a graduate linguist and more of a classicist than most of her generation and younger. He interest and feel for language is evident and she shares Tolkien's annoyance concerning the wrong translation of names.

Also worth a mention is Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast Triology- not easy but neither is Tolkien.