Light novels and web novels

Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari - Aneko Yusagi

So looking at how imgur seems to love hearing about anime and other interesting forms of entertainment, I felt like you all should know about light novels and web novels - after all, many of your favorite anime and manga started from these! SAO, Highschool DXD, Maoyuu maou yuusha, and strike witches, just to name a few.
So to give you all a taste of them, I figured I'd share with you a few of my favorites, as well as where to find them. If I can find english releases of them, I'll try and add amazon links for the light novels later.

Starting off with this:
The rise of the hero of the shield, or sometimes just adventures of shield-bro depending on who you're talking to, this series follows the tale of Naofumi, the hero of the shield, as he deals with being summoned to another world to become the hero of the shield, alongside the heroes of the bow, sword, and spear.
Themes: summoning, reincarnation, magic, fantasy, harem, RPG elements
Translated by Yoraikun and numerous others, a full list of chapters can be found here: https://yoraikun.wordpress.com/tny-chapters/
unfortunately, it seems that the first two volumes have been taken down by baka-tsuki translations due to licensing, so you'll have to look around if you don't want to/can't buy the english releases
You can find a manga release out on the web as well, but there's only a few chapters so far

Gun-ota ga mahou sekai ni tensei

Hotta Yotta is killed while returning home from work on a cold evening. He wakes up being carried by a bunny-eared woman who is a body of a baby! Featuring Reincarnation, Guns and Harem, its a Gun vs Magic Story that gives Hotta Yotta a new life… and an edge! [Sci-fi] [Fantasy] [Magic] [Harem] [Fights] (from Re:Translations)
Translated by the Re:translations group along with many other LN/WN here: https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1ljoXDy-ti5N7ZYPbzDsj5kvYFl3lEWaJ1l3Lzv1cuuM/pub

Konjiki no Wordmaster

On a seemingly normal schoolday, Hiiro Okumura is getting his things from the classroom when suddenly he and four of his classmates get summoned to another world! However, according to his new status, he's just an innocent bystander...
The hero of this story is certainly very... interesting. Only doing things when they benefit him, easily swayed by food. Battles using his unique magic - wordmaster - which allows him to manipulate pretty much anything with the power of words.
Themes: Summoning, Fantasy, Magic, Harem, Idiot Heroes, RPG elements, so very many lolis and strange old men

Another one translated by yoraikun and friends. This time, Netblazer has a better list, so find it here: https://netblazer.wordpress.com/category/konjiki-no-wordmaster-chapters/
This one also has a manga, but I think there's only two chapters right now, and it seems to be rushing through everything a little fast for my tastes

Only Sense Online - Aloha Zachou & Yukisan

Yun is a novice MMO player who equipped only unpopular skills labelled as garbage. However, soon after everyone started to notice the "Strongest" play style which made full use of Support Magic and Items——?! (from Krytyk)
Shun gets convinced by his friend Takuya and his younger sister Myu to play a game which just came out of beta- Only Sense Online. The game uses an interesting new idea on full dive gaming, hypnotic induction systems, where the user is put into the game using hypnotic technology rather than electromagnetic signals.
As an interesting twist, the game misidentifies him as a female, and so he gets stuck playing as a cool beauty named Yun.
Themes: gender bender, magic, video games, frequent references, harem?, tsundere main character, battle-freak sister, dear god this list doesn't end, crafting

Translated by Krytyk, you can find all of the currently available chapters here: http://krytykal.org/only-sense/

krytyk also translates several other light novels and I highly recommend you check those out as well

Re:Monster

Re:Monster is about a main character who gets stabbed and killed, and is then born again in a fantasy world… as a Goblin. He inherits his ESP Ability “Absorption” by eating various things to learn new skills and abilities. [Rated 15 and above] [harem] [rather guro] [action] [Diary-like Format] [RPG-like] [Monster PoV] (from Re:Translations)
my god rou is a badass. So basically, the main character gets stabbed by his childhood friend on the way home from a bar. When he wakes up, he's now a goblin in a completely different world! Fortunately, he still retains his ESP ability, absorption. He obtains the abilities and powers of anything he eats, whether monster, material, or even people.

The first series picked up by the Re:Translations group. Translation speed has slowed down significantly as of late due to lack of translators though, so if you know Japanese, they'd be very grateful to have you help out in your spare time!
You can find all the chapters here: https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1ljoXDy-ti5N7ZYPbzDsj5kvYFl3lEWaJ1l3Lzv1cuuM/pub
I'd also recommend checking out the rest of their series if you have the time!

So this has been my introductory light novel recommendations. Depending on how well this does, I may do another larger set later on. I hope you all can enjoy these series as much as I do!