According to this site these are the top 10 fantasy novels.

You know I’ve read all of these books. Yes.. even when it cheats and mentions a series. I’ve read them.

Rank 	Author/Editor 	   Title				Year
1	J R R Tolkien	   Lord of the Rings Trilogy		1954	
2	J K Rowling	   Harry Potter Series			1997
3	J R R Tolkien	   The Hobbit				1937
4	Robert Jordan	   Wheel of Time Series			1990
5	George R R Martin  A Song of Ice & Fire			1996
6	C S Lewis	   The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe	1950
7	David Eddings	   The Belgariad Series			1982
8	Terry Goodkind	   Wizard's First Rule 			1994
9	Raymond E Feist	   Magician 				1982
10	Philip Pullman	   His Dark Materials Trilogy		1995

My favorite out of this list would probably be The Hobbit. I remember reading this when I was around seven years old, laying upside down in this horrid puke green chair that I loved. It was a large edition (I’m thinking around tabloid sized paper) of the book, with the most adorable illustrations. The Lord of the Rings is an excellent series, but it’s such a downer. I always felt drained after reading it.

After the Hobbit, it’s really difficult. Wizard’s First Rule was an amazing book. It was worth waiting until the middle of the book to find out what the first rule was. Magician (the original edition, not the one the author edited 20 years later) is also an extremely good book.

Harry Potter was good, sure. But I liked some of the others better. Sometimes you don’t want to sit down with a book that weighs a ton fer cryin’ out loud.

The Belgariad is an unabashedly formulaic series. It wouldn’t have worked at all if the author wasn’t such a good storyteller. It works. Philip Pullman managed to dream up a very different universe in his series, but not get so wrapped up in it that he forgets to tell a good story.

I liked the first book of George R R Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire books, but not the rest as much. Not sure why; he wrote a well told tale. I just couldn’t get to into them.

And last, but definitely not least is CS Lewis. So great.