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The Name of the Wind book cover

Books like The Name of the Wind

What should you read after Patrick Rothfuss’s novel? It depends on what you loved most about it.

  • Patrick Rothfuss
  • 2007
  • 672 pages
  • Fantasy
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What did you love about it?

Choosing one reorders everything below.

Best books to read after The Name of the Wind

Ranked overall. Pick what you loved above to re-rank them.

  1. The Lies of Locke Lamora book cover
    Best overall match

    The Lies of Locke Lamora

    Scott Lynch

    A brilliant orphan talks his way through a city that ought to eat him alive, in flashback and present tense — the same charm, with a great deal more swearing.

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    • A prodigy you root for
    • A story within a story
    • An innkeeper with a past
    • Heist plotting, no school
  2. A Wizard of Earthsea book cover
    Best for the University

    A Wizard of Earthsea

    Ursula K. Le Guin

    The original school of wizards, and still the best one: a gifted boy whose pride summons something he then spends the book chasing. Two hundred perfect pages.

    Buy on Amazon →
    • The University
    • Magic with hard rules
    • Lyrical prose
    • Very short and compressed
  3. The Final Empire book cover
    Best for magic with hard rules

    The Final Empire

    Brandon Sanderson

    Sanderson is the opposite pole of the genre: a magic system engineered so precisely that the climaxes work like proofs, and the trilogy is actually finished.

    Buy on Amazon →
    • Magic with hard rules
    • A prodigy you root for
    • Lyrical prose
    • Strictly workmanlike prose
  4. Uprooted book cover
    Best for music as magic

    Uprooted

    Naomi Novik

    A single-volume fantasy with real folk-tale weight: a village girl apprenticed to a difficult wizard, learning a magic that works like song rather than arithmetic.

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    • Music as magic
    • Lyrical prose
    • Magic with hard rules
    • Romance with the mentor
  5. The Night Circus book cover
    Best for lyrical prose

    The Night Circus

    Erin Morgenstern

    For the sentences and the atmosphere rather than the plotting: two magicians raised as rivals inside a circus that only opens after dark.

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    • Lyrical prose
    • A story within a story
    • Music as magic
    • The plot is very thin
  6. Gardens of the Moon book cover
    Worth a look — with a warning

    Gardens of the Moon

    Steven Erikson

    If you want somewhere enormous to disappear into next, Erikson drops you into the middle of an empire with no explanations and expects you to keep up.

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    • Magic with hard rules
    • A story within a story
    • The University
    • The first book is bewildering

What should you read after The Name of the Wind?

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss works on several levels at once, and which book you should read next depends on which of those levels got you. For most readers the closest match is The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch — a brilliant orphan talks his way through a city that ought to eat him alive, in flashback and present tense — the same charm, with a great deal more swearing.

If what stayed with you was the university, read A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin instead: the original school of wizards, and still the best one: a gifted boy whose pride summons something he then spends the book chasing. Two hundred perfect pages. The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson is the other strong option — sanderson is the opposite pole of the genre: a magic system engineered so precisely that the climaxes work like proofs, and the trilogy is actually finished.

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