I have loads of favourites...but these top the list: Khalil Gibran: The Prophet Albert Camus: The Stranger and A Happy Death Oscar Wilde: Anything and Everything by Wilde ---I love the man's wit! V.S.Naipul: A House for Mr. Biswas and A Bend In The River Somerset Maugham: The Razor's Edge and Of Human Bondage (Human Bondage is morbid but brilliant) Zadie Smith: White Teeth As far as Ayn Rand is concerned, I loved the horribly tormented character of Howard Rork in Fountainhead, but her theory of Objectivism to me, is a little too far fetched. I think I like "We the living" far more than I do either Atlas Shrugged or Fountainhead.