It seems no one has mentioned
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, though I'm sure some of you have read it. If you haven't, I highly, highly recommend it. It's like an alternate history of England in which magicians and fairies play prominent roles well after the Middle Ages, and has one of the best interpretations of the land of Faery that I've read. The book itself starts off sounding a great deal like a Jane Austen novel and continues that way for much of the book, but as the plot thickens, it grows more and more descriptive and brutal and dark. Anyway, super cool book, very imaginative, and because the movie adaptation is already underway, you only have a couple years to read it before the film hits theaters and ruins the story for you.
