Help an English lit noob out - need some good fiction

[deaders]

Definitely give Neal Stephenson a go. Snowcrash is great but I agree with sciolist that Diamond Age is better, one of the greatest novels I have read in the last 5 years.

[Thug Bubbles]

A Tale of Two Cities is one of those classics that actually lives up to the hype, IMO. Many so called classics sometimes come off as pretentious, but Dickens is a beast at a good story, and this book is his best IMO. A bit outlandish in parts, but that's just Dickens for you.

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You seem you'd like some Tom Wolfe. I recommend The Bonfire of the Vanities and I Am Charlotte Simmons. I assume his other books are great too but those are the only ones I've read.

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Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Best Tom Wolfe book ever!

[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

[Sciolist]

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

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Yeh, I agree, and I kind of am hating: I don't really get the appeal of half of those books. I want entertainment from a fiction book. That's why I wouldn't recommend some Dostoyevsky to people, but the Gambler is definitely one I would. Haven't read any Borges, but I quite enjoyed "Borges and the Eternal Orang-Utans" by Luis Fernando Verissimo.