If you're just looking for excellent books in general, here's a list of authors and/or books
- Dostoevsky (everything)
- Salman Rushdie (esp. Midnight's Children)
- Aeschylus (esp. Agamemnon)
- Euripides (esp. Medea, the Bacchae)
- Aristophanes (esp. The Frogs, The Wasps)
- Plato (esp. The Apology, The Republic)
- Tolstoy (esp. The Death of Ivan Ilych, any short stories, and basically anything)
- T.S. Eliot (esp. "Prufrock and Other Observations")
- Kierkegaard (esp. The Sickness Unto Death, Fear and Trembling -- Kierkegaard will change your life, he's that good; it's like he reaches out of the page and grabs hold of you)
- Robert Bolt, "A Man for All Seasons"
- Solzhenitsyn (esp. The First Circle)
- William Golding (esp. Free Fall, it's nothing like "Lord of the Flies")
- Augustine, "Confessions"
While you're at it, get yourself a copy of the Norton Anthology of Poetry, it's one of the best books I own, and it's endlessly wonderful.
Also, if you want a guide to excellent books in general, check out Mortimer Adler's "How to Read a Book". It's really wonderful and worth reading itself.
Off Wandering Again,
Iarwain