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Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson; qualifies as a classic through its ability so survive so many years. Not as literary as some but there's a muppets version, so that's also how you know it's an important book.
Frankenstein, Mary Shelley; an all time great, that invents a genre.
In Cold Blood, Truman Capote; True crime is rarely good, but maybe because it's so hard to live up to the Archetype that is In Cold Blood.
The Jungle Book, Rudyard Kipling/The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman; both enjoyable, well told tales and fun to read within months of each other.
Magician, Raymond E. Feist; it's imperfect, but holds a place in my heart and I read it once a year.
American Gods, Neil Gaiman; It really is a damn good book with lots of interesting things to say about how we shape stories and are shaped by stories.
The entire Discworld canon, Terry Pratchett; literature says something about the human condition and the fantasy satire series says more than any other written works.
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Kafka - The trial. Metamorphosis and other stories.
Have you read his "Amerika"? I really loved it and, although incomplete (or is it?), it is perhaps my favorite or second favorite of his longer works; "The Castle" is also a masterpiece!
But my first favorite Kafka work is "A Hunger Artist." I've read three different translations and no matter how they change a phrase here or there, I feel the intention of the story comes through very clearly. Perhaps Walter Benjamin is right and a work becomes more itself in translation...Even so, Kafka is the only reason I wish I could read German.
I love all that pretentious shiznit.
RIF!
Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Yes, it had some dull parts but they made sense for the characters.
Beowulf - one of those versions with the original text on one page and a translation on the facing page because my OE isn't good enough to read it through without a little help.
Most of what I've read by Shakespeare. Titus Andronicus was not all that great, but the rest didn't disappoint.
Basically all of this though I hate Romeo and Juliet with a burning passion because I hate reading stories about characters with the IQ of a potato. Mercutio was the only saving grace of that.
I'll also toss 1984 and Animal Farm onto that list.
Beowulf - one of those versions with the original text on one page and a translation on the facing page because my OE isn't good enough to read it through without a little help.
It's not a facing page version, but I've been very happy with E. Talbot Donaldson's prose translation.
I think King Lear is my favorite Shakespeare, but not sure if that passes the potato test. ;)