Help an English lit noob out - need some good fiction

[Timosil]

Alot of these books sound like they came from high school reading lists....not hating just saying

If you want deep, rich characters and a nice depressing plot read Dostoevsky... Brothers Karamozov is good but very long (be prepared to remember a fuckton of different Russian names/characters)...The Gambler is also pretty good and is alot shorter and easier to handle.

If you like surreal stories that are dreamlike and have a unique perspective on reality then I highly highly highly recommend Jorge Borges... he writes short stories using philosophical themes like time, death, strange/infinite loops, relativity... he is one of the few authors that can give me the chills with a story that is < 10 pages

Kafka is another wirter who can create fantastic surreal worlds in his short stories...read him if you like Borges

I also aggree that Electric Acid Kool Aid Test is a very interesting book (although it is non-fiction)

edit: totally missed the part of it being "English" Lit ...none of the above authors are English