Seriously, beat me over the face with it.

Any 'other' suggestions will go into my 'to think about buying' list. The other 14 are books I currently own.

I love sad stuff that doesn't drag on forever. I like sad stuff that hits your heart without forcing you to read hundreds of pages of inane descriptions or instances of 'rich folks being rich (also applicable: upper-middle class folks being well off)'. That last thing is what killed these following books for me. (ratings included)

Catcher in the Rye (5/10)

The Great Gatsby (4/10)

The Bell Jar (5/10)

So I didn't care too much for those books.

You should read Carson McCullers.

@Vompatti: I read The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, but it didn't light a fire in me for some reason. The main character was really sweet, but then there were all these other people slowing things down.

I kinda got scared off of Faulkner. I read As I Lay Dying, but it bored me. Okay, here's 20 pages about building the damn coffin or baking pies to sell at market, or getting a good deal on eggs. Okay, here's 50 pages about travelling to town with the neighbours, slopping the pigs, maintaining the farmstead, cooking breakfast, and talking about relatives. Okay, here's 50 more pages about chickens and being upset but not telling anybody, oh...now we switch to somebody else. 

I respect him for what he was trying to do, but I couldn't connect with any of the characters, especially not Addie or those in direct grieving of her. Hey, I'm picky. 

*vomits*

I really liked Kafka's The Trial, I just wish he'd been given more time to finish up the unintentional messiness of it. I may get The Castle, sometime. But JD Salinger is totally lost on me. I've read both Nine Stories and Catcher - I remain utterly unimpressed. 

For me it's a great combination of a great time and place (late 70s, England), variety of stories within the novel, and social/political criticism.

I can't tell if this is sarcastic or not. I don't really like mysteries or thrillers unless the element is also added into a grand mixture of other, more heart-breaking/thought-provoking ideas. 

I'm afraid to read any Arthur C. Clarke because of Rendezvous with Rama, one of the most boring and dramatically-bereft books I've ever had the displeasure of reading. I know he had his hand in 2001 and all that, but Rendezvous with Rama hurt my soul. It really did.

And on the mentioning of Asimov - I really liked I, Robot. I thought it was great, but then I read Foundation. Why would I need foundation when I have the Dune series? Dune took the concepts and drove them to their extreme, nearly dystopic conclusions. It had deep religious, political, psychological, genetic, and sociological overtones, all while telling a rather brutal, open-minded family-tree story warped with its head upside-down. In comparison, Foundation just seems like 'another neat-o sci-fi adventure'. 

Plus I tried reading The Gods, Themselves, and got a little sick-headed. But hey, like I said, I'm pretty picky. It's not that I always cater to 'classics', but I'm not into horrors or thrillers, action-packed westerns or zombies or monsters. I could care less about romance novels. I like psychological terror like a few Poe short stories (before he got wrapped up in silly tales about sea-storms and hound-of-baskervilles-styled gorilla murder mysteries and long-winded descriptions).

To kinda show where I'm coming from, I hate the hell out of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Of course it's a mystical, deranged, grisly tale about not reading a book by its cover. But once you think about it, considering the book isn't a horror at all, then people have been judging it erroneously by its cover for ages. Hated the writing style, couldn't stand the simplicity of the plot, really would've liked it if it'd been forty pages long. And that's a 'classic'. Hey, I hate Atlas Shrugged, too. Love Anthem, though. I suppose it's all in what I'm looking for in literature. I chiefly desire books that will rip my heart to shreds and force my mind into deep bouts of contemplation, all without spending hundreds of pages describing the weather or an oaken desk.