The Fountainhead- Ayn Rand- She's a gifted social commentator and her characters are pretty intense. The ideas of charity, selfishness, creation and appreciation of art as a social or anti-social undertaking, the process of consciously testing ones own morals, the relationship between the popular press and society/'the masses'- it's all in there. I've read this book a dozen times and get something new every time.
One Hundred Years of Solitude- Gabriel Garcia Marquez- What can I say. It's an epic that I couldn't put down about a town that exists only in its own collective consciousness. Love in the Time of Cholera is lighter and more fun. Yay for magical realism... on that note...
Like Water for Chocolate- I forget who wrote it. The book was fabulous. The movie did it justice. Rent the movie.
The Night Manager- John LeCarre- The Constant Gardener is right up there too. What a disturbing read. LeCarre has a profound sense of human nature and what causes people to act in ways they themselves would not have expected. Like turning Man into Superman out of sheer necessity. Start from the beginning, when he was a cold war spy novelist. Watch him develop as a writer and take the leap into international organized crime and human rights abuse after the cold war ended.
Neuromancer- William Gibson- Really neat, short read about subculture in dangerous poilitical times. Sorry guys but when I saw the Matrix my initial reaction was 'aww what a fucking ripoff of Neuromancer. Oh and Keanu Reeves is annoying in ANY role'
The Diamond Age- Neil Stevenson- This dude is a GENIUS. I can't even BEGIN to tell you what the book is about. Its sheer complexity is mind-blowing. The short version is an upper class man designs an interactive book as a teaching tool for his daughter. The book falls into the hands of a homeless girl and girl and book adapt together to become a force that literally ties a revolution together. READ IT.
Possession- AS Byatt- Two stuffy academics are studying two Victorian poets. Said poets turn out to have been romantically involved. Byatt is a great writer- the short story Morpho Eugenia from the collection 'Angels and Insects' is deeply disturbing and uplifting at the same time.
The More Than Complete Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy- All 5 books in the trilogy in one weighty tome that will have you chortling from one cover to the other. And all Arthur ever really wanted was a proper cup of tea...
The Poisonwood Bible- Barbara Kingsolver- Four daughters of a missionary grow up in 1950s Sub-Saharan Africa. They are all changed in different ways by their father's collapse into complete derangement and the family's interaction with the villagers whose souls turn out not to really need saving after all. It follows them into adulthood. Fantastic juxtaposition of the ideals of 50's American culture onto a more primeval landscape.