God, I so detested that novel. But that's not disrespect to you, Will. It just did NOT grab my reading gonads, in such a profound manner it's hard to express.
But, the ones that have done so, I call "Holy Shit Novels". Those would include:
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain. The first major novel I ever read, at the age of about thirteen.
The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas. It may have helped that I actually did read 50 or 60 pages of it sitting on a rock along the shore of the actual Chateau d'If, offshore Marseilles, the legendary site where Dumas' fictional Edmond Dantes was imprisoned.
A Separate Peace, John Knowles.
The Inheritors, William Golding. He's mostly famed for
Lord of the Flies, which is also extremely powerful, but this second novel is far too greatly neglected.
The Man Who Laughs, Victor Hugo. The comment made for Golding, above, also applies to this neglected masterpiece.
Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton. This, and not the novel claiming the name, by Theodore Dreiser, is "The Great American Tragedy".
Lord Jim, Joseph Conrad.
A Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, of Nantucket, Edgar Allan Poe. Poe's only novel, a masterpiece of creepiness too little read.
The Time Machine, H.G. Wells. The greatest SF novel ever written.
Mildred Pierce, James M. Cain. The greatest "noir" novel ever written.
The Ox-Bow Incident, Walter Van Tilburg Clark. The greatest "western" novel ever written.
caw