Martin Amis
Read Money or London Fields or Time’s Arrow or Experience. All are works of fiction except Experience.
Barbara Kingsolver
the Bean Trees, or Pigs in Heaven or the Poisonwood Bible
Margaret Atwood
Cat’s Eye or Lady Oracle or the Robber Bride or Alias Grace or the Blind Assassin
Donna Tartt
the Secret History
Carl Hiassen
Anything he’s written. Ever
George Orwell
1984 (since most of the people I try to convert have already ready Animal Farm in high school)
JK Rowling
Harry Potter
Orson Scott Card
Ender’s Game–to start them off.
Michael Connelly
Blood Work, Void Moon, the Harry Bosch novels
Laurence Sterne
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
Nicholson Baker
The Mezzanine, Vox
[sub]Me :)[/sub]
[sup]I’ll let you know as soon as I’m published![/sup]
Different thread reminded me:
Arthur C. Clarke
Childhood’s End, Rendezvous with Rama
Anne Lamott jumps straight to mind
Stanislaw Lem
His Master’s Voice
Fiasco
Solaris
The Cyberiad
The Futurological Congress
Memoirs of a Space Traveller/The Star Diaries
Not much luck so far.
Neal Stephenson, especially Snow Crash
Kyle Baker - The Cowboy Wally Show, Why I Hate Saturn (graphic novels).
John Irving - A Prayer for Owen Meany. Usually, if this can’t hook 'em, nothing will.
Stephen R. Donaldson - The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Gap series (and, no, Gap isn’t about cashiers at trendy mall stores) 
Me. 
d
Nicholson Bakerfor me too. KneadToKnowhave you read Fermatta? I read it while travelling via T in Boston…very strange.
Orson Scott Card also Enders Game
John Irving Owen Meany or The World According to Garp
David Sedaris Naked
Tom Robbins either Even Cowgirls Get the Blues or Still Life with Woodpecker
And if you have a whole bunch of time:
David Foster Wallace Infinite Jest
James Morrow
Great SF/Fantasy, usually about the nature of God – philosophical but hilarious. Try “Only Begotten Daughter,” “Towing Jehovah,” or “This is the Way the World Ends.”
Tim Powers
The master of plotting. Try “The Anubis Gates,” “The Stress of Her Regard,” “On Stranger Tides,” or “Last Call.”
Ken Grimwood
It should be everyone’s pleasure to read “Replay.”
Mark Leyner
It’s like reading William Burroughs on acid, only with hip cultural references. He also does great titles:
“I Smell Esther Williams.”
“My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist.”
Paul St. Pierre
A Canadian writer no one has ever heard of. He has a bunch of short stories set in a small rural community back in the 30’s/40’s/50’s. Absolutely hilarious and true to life.
Sherman Alexie
“Tonto and the Lone Ranger Fist Fight in Heaven.”
Robert Crais
The Elvis Cole mysteries, starting with “The Monkey’s Raincoat”.
Tony Earley
“Here We Are In Paradise”, a book of short stories, and “Jim The Boy”, his first novel.
Giovanni Boccaccio
I hate it when people say,“I can’t read that.It’s written in that old fashioned style.”
To me this stuff is so easy to read I can barely believe anyone’s difficulty!
Anything written by the following:
Octavia E. Butler
Toni Morrison
Ralph Ellison
Tananarive Due
Robert Hayden
Gwendolyn Brooks
Yusef Komunyakaa
August Wilson
Virginia Hamilton
Tamora Pierce
J. K. Rowling
Jane Austen
Kate Elliott
Joan D. Vinge
Kate Wilhelm
Philip Pullman:
The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass
Paul Zindel:
The Doom Stone, Raptor, Reef of Death, Loch, The Pigman, The Pigman’s Legacy, The Pigman and Me
Oh, I forgot, Ray Bradbury, he writes short fiction stories.
I’m one of those supremely annoying people that nags everyone she meets until they read The Lord of the Rings, if they haven’t already… 
Gogol’s DEAD SOULS is the funniest book ever written. Sometimes you don’t even know why you’re laughing. Almost any translation will keep you doubled up, but the one that a lot of people like best is my favorite, which I will post when I find it around here! It is said that in Russian if you can read the original Russian it is even funnier, what with all the word play and subtleties that don’t come over in English.
Guy Gavriel Kay. I want to have this man’s babies. And that says a LOT.
Michael Crichton… most people have only seen the movies, but the books are SO MUCH BETTER. Case of Need had me literally at the edge of my seat.
Edgar Rice Burrough’s Martian books. I quoted him in my undergrad thesis.