A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith.
The Iliad and The Odyssey
Hawthorne, “Young Goodman Brown”
Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
Wil Eisner’s The Spirit
Nabokov, Lolita
Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles and Dandelion Wine
George Orwell’s, “1984” hands down!
LOTR is up there too.
GDG
I thought it was pretty well established nowadays that “Roots” was fiction.
A Fan’s Notes by Frederick Exely.
Good answer. It was an excellent film as well.
Wow. What a great thread. Whenever I am in someone’s office/house/apartment, the first thing I do is wander over to their bookcase and check the titles (I know its nosy but oh well). I firmly believe that a person’s character is represented by both the quantity and quality of their books.
In any case, here are my submissions.
Fiction: Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco
Non-fiction: The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins or The Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan
Fantasy: Lord of the Rings by Mr. Tolkien (which would also win the “Best of the Best” contest in Gafferland)
Science-fiction: A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller, Jr.
Young adult: James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl (its good to see so many Dahl fans on the SDMB)
Graphic novel: Batman: Year One by Frank Miller
Child: Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No-good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst
Novel: to Kill a Mockingbird followed closely by Gatsby, the Red and the Black
Sci-Fi: Dune
Short Story: The Short, Happy Life of Francis Macomber by Hemingway - best written, amazing twist
Comic: Watchmen, followed by X-men issues 94 - 120 (bought for a quarter, sold’em a couple of years later :smack: )
not the greatest, but probably the most memorable is {b]the Killer Inside Me** by Jim Thompson. The book is like a puch in the stomach and I get that feeling just thinking about it. Oh I mean that in a good way. 
Also, The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene.
[ul]
[li]godogsgo13 beat me to the punch on 1984. (Soul-crushing fun)[/li][li]ITR champion got there first on Catch-22. (A major-majorly good book! :D)[/li][li]LOTR, obviously.[/li][li]Ellison’s Invisible Man. Read it two or three times.[/li][li]Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. There is something about that book that I find utterly captivating.[/li][/ul]
Short Story: The Fall of Edward Barnard by Somerset Maugham.
Novel: Animal Farm by George Orwell, After the horse was sent away, I was so sad and angry but also wiser.
Two books that had an incredible impact on me were The World According to Garp by John Irving and The Executioner’s Song by Norman Mailer. They sucked me into another world for the time I was reading them, and it was very difficult to come back out. “Compelling” is too tame a word for it; I was consumed by these books!
I just re-read Roots a couple months ago. I looked for it first in the fiction section at the library and couldn’t find it … after looking in the catalog I discovered it in non-fiction. So …? I thought the library had categorized it wrong, or there had been a re-classification. I could have sworn when I first read it in the '70s, it was shelved in Fiction.
Yes, it was originally published as non-fiction, but a few years later there was a big controversy when it was revealed that Haley had simply made up large chunks of the early part.
A Beautiful Mind - Sylvia Nasar
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil - John Berendt
L. A. Confidential - James Ellroy
The Odyssey and The Illyad - Homer
Comics - Anything with Wonder Woman
Paradise Lost is, quite simply, the best big book in the English language. I’m not saying it’s the best, period, but that it is the best thing that was written with the intention of being huge and epic. If that made sense.
Oh, but if we’s talkin’ comics, I gotta put my vote in for The Sandman, particularly the Brief Lives storyarc.
Short story: Flowers for Algernon - I didn’t find the novel so powerful, maybe because I knew the plot already. I’d quote the last line, but that’s where I break down.
Fiction series: The Matt Scudder mysteries by Lawrence Block. The early ones are more about alcoholism, with a hard-boiled mystery mixed in. Bleak as hell, but he carries on.
Non-fiction: Who can say, since there’s so much good stuff out there? The first Connections by James Burke stands out, and I just read Who Stole Feminism by Christina Hoff Sommers, which kept me in a rage all the way through.
Part fact, part fiction. However, as the label bothers you, I shall modify my list. In addition, upon further reflection, I’ve made some modifications and corrected the illustrator on V.
Adult novel (general fiction): To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Adult novel (historical fiction): Roots by Alex Haley
Nonfiction Novel: 1812 by David Nevin
Graphic novel: V for Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Lloyd
Short Story: Tie: “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by Ursula K. Leguin and “Dori Bangs” by Bruce Sterling
Short Short Story: “Answer” by Fredric Brown
Novella: “Beggars in Spain” by Nancy Kress
Children’s novel: Holes by Louis Sachar
Young Adult novel*: Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Patersen
Children’s Picture Story Book: Red Ranger Came Calling by Berkley Breathed (yes, the guy who did Bloom County Babylon)
*This was very difficult for me, as there are three books that vie for top honors, Jacob Have I Loved, Island of the Blue Dolphins, and The Giver. The Giver is particularly interesting for me. At first, I was a bit disappointed by the ending, but once I realized that the ending is much darker than it seems, it went way up in my estimation.
A Confederacy of Dunces was so entertaining and at the same time meaningful for me - I saw some parallels between myself and Ignatius, and it shook me up and made me try to get better.
Steel Beach by John Varley is usually maligned by critics, and I can’t see why. It manages to pull you into a perfectly realized and strange future world, with enough strange ideas for a half-dozen books, and get you to relate to the characters in a way that makes you really feel for them. I’ve recomended it to a few friends, including some who didn’t read SF (and one who didn’t read for pleasure, at all), and they all liked it.
The Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan. That and Broca’s Brain changed the way I think. I also really enjoyed The Hot Blooded Dinosaurs by that Bakker guy. I’ve always loved dinosaurs and that book really brought them to life.
Heart of Darkness. Both a disturbing and revealing bit of prose.
Runners-up include: Crime and Punishment; Dostoyevsky has performed the nearly-singular feat of setting my nerves on edge early on in the story, and sustaining that feeling for the next 600-odd pages. I’m usually much more jaded than that.
The Great Gatsby; I swear I could spend a lifetime meditating on those last few paragraphs.
Foucault’s Pendulum; just because I love meta-novels.
Non-Fiction: The Hite Report. Ought to be required reading for every 14 year old boy. 
Second Non-Fiction: Final Cut: Dreams and Disaster In The Making of Heaven’s Gate. This is an incredible inside view of the damage done by the film mentioned in the title. I read it about every two years, and will continue to do so. It’s a humbling read.
Fiction: My Name Is Asher Lev. ;j
Short Story: Also The Long Walk. It’s a deeply frightening story.