Books like The Name of the Wind, according to Reddit

The read-alike list

Ranked by co-mention strength — how often each book shares a thread with The Name of the Wind, normalized so ubiquitous books don't dominate.

#1

The Eye of the World

Robert Jordan

Trollocs burn a village hunting for one of three farm boys, so an Aes Sedai spirits all three out before anyone learns which.

33 shared threads

#2

A Game of Thrones

George R. R. Martin

Ned Stark's family gets pulled into a succession war for the Iron Throne while an unkillable winter creeps south.

31 shared threads

#3

Gardens of the Moon

Steven Erikson

A continent-spanning empire's mage-soldiers besiege a city that might already be doomed by gods playing a board game with human pieces.

37 shared threads

#4

The Way of Kings

Brandon Sanderson

A bridgeman slave carries spears through a warzone he's not allowed to fight in, until he decides to become the soldier no one will follow.

26 shared threads

#5

Mistborn: The Final Empire

Brandon Sanderson

A street thief who can swallow metal and burn it for power gets recruited into a heist crew whose actual target is the immortal emperor who's ruled for a thousand years.

23 shared threads

#6

The Lord of the Rings

J. R. R. Tolkien

A gardener and three friends carry a cursed ring across a continent at war, because the only way to destroy it is to walk it into the volcano that forged it.

38 shared threads

#7

Red Rising

Pierce Brown

A low-caste miner surgically altered to pass as the ruling elite infiltrates the academy that killed his wife, planning to burn the system down from inside.

43 shared threads

#8

The Blade Itself

Joe Abercrombie

A crippled torturer, a vain swordsman, and a berserker haunted by his own alter ego get pulled into a war none of them understand yet.

23 shared threads

#9

The Fifth Season

N. K. Jemisin

An orogene comes home to find her son beaten to death and her daughter gone, the same day a continent starts splitting apart.

40 shared threads

#10

Dune

Frank Herbert

Paul Atreides survives his family's massacre on a desert planet and becomes the messiah the empire engineered him to be, then has to live with it.

69 shared threads

#11

Storm Front (The Dresden Files)

Jim Butcher

Chicago's only professional wizard takes a case involving black magic and a mob boss, with a police captain who wants it solved fast or him gone.

19 shared threads

#12

A Wizard of Earthsea

Ursula K. Le Guin

A proud boy on a poor island learns real magic, casts one spell out of arrogance, and spends the rest of the book hunted by what it let loose.

31 shared threads

The overlap, in numbers

Where each pairing actually shows up. Click through for the full Reddit verdict on each book.

1. #1 The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan — 33 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
2. #2 A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin — 31 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
3. #3 Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson — 37 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
4. #4 The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson — 26 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
5. #5 Mistborn: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson — 23 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
6. #6 The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien — 38 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
7. #7 Red Rising by Pierce Brown — 43 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
8. #8 The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie — 23 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
9. #9 The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin — 40 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
10. #10 Dune by Frank Herbert — 69 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
11. #11 Storm Front (The Dresden Files) by Jim Butcher — 19 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
12. #12 A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin — 31 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF