Goodreads ratings

Looking at these novels with a high goodreads rating, most of them seem to involve a fantasy element and/or taking place in a world very different from our own.

I like to read novels about ordinary people living ordinary lives (like me), but who then get plunged into extraordinary circumstances. Travel back in time millions of years, or everyone else suddenly disappearing from the planet apart from you, or suddenly becoming acquainted with an individual who is very intelligent, strange, different and enigmatic etc.