Belgariad

It begins, as these things do, with a farm boy who does not know what he is, an aunt who is far older than she looks, and a white-haired old storyteller who is not nearly as harmless as he pretends. Garion grows up in a kitchen on Faldor's farm; the wider world is busy deciding his fate without asking him. Behind it all sits a single quarrel written into the shape of the universe — two Prophecies, Light and Dark, edging every king, thief, and god toward the one meeting where the matter finally gets settled. When a stone of great power goes missing, the road opens, and a very small company sets out to put things right. This is high fantasy of the hearthside kind — a map of squabbling kingdoms, seven gods and the peoples made in their tempers, sorcerers who bend the world by an act of Will and a spoken Word. The tale runs in two five-book cycles. The Belgariad opens the quest with Pawn of Prophecy; the Malloreon takes the same company east into stranger, older lands once the first war is won. Two later companions, Belgarath the Sorcerer and Polgara the Sorceress, tell the seven-thousand-year backstory in the voices of the two immortals who lived it. What readers keep coming back for is not surprise but company. Eddings works the familiar furniture of quest fantasy on purpose, then fills the rooms with people who bicker like a real family on a long, cold journey — dry, affectionate, endlessly quotable. Destiny here has a sense of humor and a great deal of patience. Begin at the beginning, with Pawn of Prophecy, and read the ten core books in order; save the two prequel biographies for last, when their old jokes and old griefs land on people you already love.