My eyes glaze over when fantasy novel summaries start talking about usurper kings and world-dominating overlords and epic wars between good and evil. I'm in the mood for something that puts me in an imaginary world and just lets me kind of experience the small-scale but meaningful stories of well-realized individual characters.
The most obvious example that comes to mind, of what I've read, is the Discworld series. I've only read a couple of them (Small Gods and Men At Arms), but I enjoyed them a lot. If anyone thinks there's another Discworld book I should definitely read next, I wouldn't mind hearing it, but I'm looking to expand my horizons a bit.
The only other example I can think of is the Imaginary Veterinary series. They're children's books, but I'm not in a particularly picky mood, and the "protagonists are apprentices at a veterinary for mythical creatures" premise is refreshing enough that I had a fun time with them.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms by George RR Martin. Yes, that guy. It's a spinoff set 90 years before ASOIF with none of the stakes of grand warfare or Kings and Lords scheming or nation threatening undead armies. Instead it's the story of a young, newly knighted squire seeking fortune after his elderly master dies, and a mysterious boy who joins him on his travel as they resolve all sorts of odd jobs, like a jousting tourney, a minor land dispute, and so on. Extremely low stakes, excellent writing in a world that feels vast and alive while still hinting at some greater movements in the distance that are utterly ignored by our protagonists. It's quite good and surpsingly lighthearted as well for a GRRM story, and it will also never, ever be completed. On the plus side, they're quite self - contained, so it's not like they end on a cliffhanger or anything