Wuthering Heights, all of Jane Austen but Persuasion is the best; Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne is the funniest thing ever written (though The Diary of a Nobody is not far behind). I have enjoyed Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, but find that Hemingway was actually right <registers surprise> that it is pretty much impossible to read the Russians again --though obviously one can except Gogol from that, particularly The Nose. Alice in Wonderland and especially Through the Looking Glass. George Orwell I can read in endless quantities, whether it be in his novels or journalistic books or essays: all have pleased except Homage to Catalonia, which is worth reading even without pleasure; but Down and Out in Paris and London and A Clergyman's Daughter were my favorites. The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, while quite a foray in narcissism is also a remarkable piece of writing: Joyce was a powerful craftsman. Night and Day by Virginia Woolf is really lovely --a comment not extendable to Jacob's Room or Orlando, it's sad to say. Kafka is unique, but can be read with enjoyment. Lewis' Space Trilogy has some of the finest writing he ever did --the rising of the Milky Way as seen from Malacandra is an almost unparalleled piece of descriptive writing. H.G. Wells is very uneven, but In the Days of the Comet is wonderful, and The First Men in the Moon also demonstrates his remarkable abilities. There is one living author who can be mentioned in company with the august dead, and that is Stephen R. Donaldson. None of his books are for the faint of heart, but The Gap series is the finest piece of multiple limited POV writing in existence; and The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant (with the last Chronicles scheduled for completion sometime around 2015) are filled with so much beauty and tragedy that they will take your breath away. Aldous Huxley seems to have been a one-hit wonder, as far as I can tell, but Brave New World is excellent for giving spineless people backbone. Perhaps we ought not include this in the realm of fiction, but Malory's Morte d'Arthur (unabridged!) is a magnificent, pathetic and noble piece of writing. Those who ignore T.H. White are losers thereby.
Although they are not novels, no laudation of literature could be complete that did not mention Anton Chekhov and Katherine Mansfield --the master and the mistress of the short story.
People like James and Forster and Hardy and Meredith seem all right in their place, but I have not found that they continue to satisfy. Dickens and Hugo, though one might not go back to them, one would be sorry to have missed out on altogether. Other than Hugo the only French book I can think of that is worth reading is Madame Bovary; but it is possible that I have not given the French a fair shake.
Although they are not novels, no laudation of literature could be complete that did not mention Anton Chekhov and Katherine Mansfield --the master and the mistress of the short story.
People like James and Forster and Hardy and Meredith seem all right in their place, but I have not found that they continue to satisfy. Dickens and Hugo, though one might not go back to them, one would be sorry to have missed out on altogether. Other than Hugo the only French book I can think of that is worth reading is Madame Bovary; but it is possible that I have not given the French a fair shake.