Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Le Guin may well be the first woman to attain fantasy grandmaster status. Whether or not that's the case, her work has a peaceful, lyrical tone and pace and a fairy-tale quality that's unlike anything else. Her Earthsea novels follow the magical education and adventures of a young wizard named Ged, which involves gaining mastery of something called the Old Speech, an ancient language consisting of the True Names of all things. In the wizard school Ged attends, on the island of Roke, you can see a distant ancestor of Rowling's Hogwarts.

—Lev Grossman