Lord of the Rings. Most people complain that it’s “too boring.” So if someone enjoyed it, chances are they’ll be into the same nerdy, niche stuff I’m into: languages, other fantasy media, D&D, Renaissance Festivals, and so on

Anything Paulo Coehlo, Ayn Rand, Colleen Hoover or any of those X Rules of Power that finance courses make you read.

“Trophy” book collecting is definitely something I can get behind. My personal library is 80% books I plan to read and 20% books I’ve read but which I want to keep (i.e. trophies).

Some of these books are just relatively rare. Not expensive or anything, but just harder to find. So I keep them, even if I’ve read them. Others are books that I quite enjoyed and that I do want to read again someday, so I keep them as an insurance towards that: that way, if I want to read it again, I won’t have to go through the trouble of tracking it down or buying again.

Anathem by Neal Stephenson and A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr. Both are about science monks coping with an ever-changing world.

The King of Elfland’s Daughter by Lord Dunsany and Stardust by Neil Gaiman. The way it’s written, Stardust could be a kind of sequel to the other novel. They both deal with a human crossing to Faerie especifically to retrieve a woman and bring her back to the world of Men.