Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

+1 for Jane Austin.  Most of the recommendations so far have not been pre-20th century.  I seldom read books that old, but I have enjoyed Austin quite a lot.  Some might suggest that she wrote "chick-lit".  But no - it's extremely sophisticated and witty prose.
 
Now, if you want recommendations on 20th/21st century SF and fantasy, just say so, and the floodgates will open!

Wow, that's plenty of awesome suggestions! 
 
Lord of the Rings - as improbable as it might seem, I've never read or seen the movies. People around me were so nuts about that stuff that I instinctively avoided it. As it turns out, I'm glad not to have spoiled it by reading the french translation first - these go on the top of my list. Thanks Bit - and for the rest of that incredible list as well.
 
Paulo - These are usually the books I like most. ;) As for time, I'm trying to make the most of it I guess.
 
Bat - I've read quite a bunch of eBooks in the last couple of years. For lighter stuff like biographies and such, it's fine. But for some other things, for me, nothing beats an actual book. And I need time away from the computer. Grabbing a book seems to allow me to recalibrate my attention and to focus one one thing for a longer time instead of mentally hitting "refresh" every 10 seconds. No internet, no alerts, no notification... Just a few days taking a bit of time with a book every day and it has a profound impact on my mood.
 
As for saving trees, I guess that's part of the reason why I am specifically looking for classics. Hopefully, these books will pass on to the next generation, and I feel that these are works that deserve the special treatment. Whereas a John Lennon biography or a Stephen King novel is read just as well as an ebook. 
 
Here's what was waiting for me on the porch this morning. Shakespeare is on his way. I can't wait to read that stuff.
 

UbiquitousBubba
I can't stand that guy, Craigb...

 
(Someone has to use a cattle prod on badger pester hound annoy poke motivate you!  )

+1 to the accolades for Wodehouse. A giant!!

But please...."Catch 22" by Joseph Heller.

Rain
... Hence, I've recently started reading Shelley's Frankenstein in English for the first time in my life. Up next, obviously,  Stoker's Dracula ...

 
BEFORE, you read Dracula, you gotta reas a couple of things around that time, that are really quick reads and kinda tell you how Mary Shelley came to write her book. You gotta read Polidori's "Vampyr" and then Sherida Le Fanu's Carmilla. Along with The Castle of Otranto (Walpole) this was pretty much the beginning of "gothic literature" that was eventually furthered by the French Revolution and its gory public'ness.
 
There is a novel, by some guy whose name I can never remember, called "The Missolonghi Manuscripts" and it is about the week or two that these books were written by Polidori and Mary. And it also gives, although in a fictionalized way, a nice picture of those days and nights! Marvellous reading.
 
There is a critical book, called "The Romantic Agony" that is a magnificent write up about the literature that started that era.
 
 

Beagle
Pedro's dad.

There are not many things translated into English, but some are fun to read. The short plays are all satires, many of them a la Bunuel and surrealistic. The "Death of the Pope" is a paranoid political short, that I directed on the stage and filmed at UCSB. I might like to see that video again, and probably redo some of it and make it even more paranoid.
 
Of all the things worth reading, catch one of his students translations of a lot of film reviews that were censored in Portugal during the fascist days, and my mom provided manuscripts of the whole review. This was published like 10 years ago, I think and it will blow your mind, but it will give you a really BIG look at the 50's and how they affected so much of Europe, all the way into the early 60's.
 
Honestly, I have not read a lot of my dad's work, as Portuguese is really hard for me, and I did not have it long enough to take a good hold. I can't even write it anymore. But poetry is insanely hard for me to understand and read, and I have gone so far as to try and translate a couple of things here and there, and they were published in the "Ygdrasil Journal of Poetic Arts" when I was one of its editors. Since my eye surgeries I have not been able to do poetry a whole lot, as it seems that a lot of it was me staring at the tip of the pen/pencil, and the keyboard has taken some of that artistry out of it for me. I'm not writing as much poetry as I used to.

Moshkiae
There is a novel, by some guy whose name I can never remember, called "The Missolonghi Manuscripts" and it is about the week or two that these books were written by Polidori and Mary. And it also gives, although in a fictionalized way, a nice picture of those days and nights! Marvellous reading.

 
Frederic Prokosch?

batsbrew
... 
 i'm also a sucker for music stuff,
 ...

Just got done reading Marianne Faithfull's biography. Excellent book and very well written, and it will be hard as hell to write a review on it! Reading a couple of things about groupies, and although I find Pamela a bit too windex and bleached out for my tastes, the one by that Roxanna lady is insane and amazing, and unashamedly hardcore! It actually shows a lot more of the music scene in reality than anything else. It's honesty is blatant and hard and direct, and I doubt that many of those musicians want to face the light of the day as "musicians".
 
Even Bapu doesn't tell tales about that time and place!

craigb

Moshkiae
There is a novel, by some guy whose name I can never remember, called "The Missolonghi Manuscripts" and it is about the week or two that these books were written by Polidori and Mary. And it also gives, although in a fictionalized way, a nice picture of those days and nights! Marvellous reading.

 
Frederic Prokosch?

I believe so. Have to find it and look for it and check it out again!
 
(Sorry ... so many posts!)
On the Gothic literature theme:
 
In school (Santa Barbara City College)  I once taught a 2 day course on the history of Gothic Literature, and it went from 1750's to 1970's and closed it with Ann Rice and Dennis Wheatley.
 
A couple of notes on it that make it more interesting and sometimes give away a little more history for it all:
 
- The French Revolution added a lot of gory stuff to the genre.
 
- Lord Byron wrote a vampire story. The Corsair, I think it was. But reading poetry is not everyone's cup of tea. I think Percy Shelley had one, but not sure which one it was. Polidori was their family doctor.
 
- Dumas fits into the "gothic" era but much later.
 
- Bram Stoker kinda closes the "era" with the ultimate story. However, the majority of its intense story is the fact that it is written in diary form and letters, and you keep waiting for the next letter of diary entry!
 
- Dion Fortune wrote several novels that are also difficult to read because of all the magic and ritualistic content in it.  This makes for difficult reading and understanding of what is going on.
 
- Aleister Crowley has two novels that are magnificent. "Moonchild" and "Diary of a Drug Fiend". The first I don't even know where and how to start a comment. The 2nd is the best study of addiction ever done by anyone and the only one that does not cop out on the drugs or himself. Excellent book, but difficult reading because of all the ritualistic and magic content.
 
- Ann Rice. The best work of hers, is not her well known material, but the stuff that she writes in her pseudonym, which has more sex, drugs and rock'n'roll than the more popular stuff which oftenn cops out at the worst moments. The other stories worry less about the sex and what not, and this helps the story flow a lot more clearly.
 
- Dennis Wheatley has some really "heavy" and totally insane stories in his "black magic series", and these are very difficult reading for most people, and the insanity behind it is even worse. An acquired taste!
 
Other than that, I have done a lot of reading lately on biographies of some of the progressive rock folks in the hopes of being able to put together my own book on the subject. I like to "know/understand" how an artist thinks, though this changes everyday like you and I know! A lot of the folks that came and went in our house, this was what their discussions were usually about, after the surface discussions were out of the way. I always liked how ... that's an interesting idea, and what happens if we ... which is something that a lot of musicians don't like to play with, because it interferes with their own ideas. It's not so much about interfering as it is about all of these ideas intersecting and making each other stronger!