Books I Have Loved -- narrative part one.

I find listing just 10 books much too limiting. Even sticking to only fiction, I cannot find a decent cut-off...
So, instead, taking a leaf out of Tiberius T. Kirk's book, I will "re-program" the question: instead of naming 'a book', a couple of suggestions are going to be a novelist. For me, when a book/story moves me, I seek out the author's other works and invariably, they move me too.
So, onwards :--
1. Jules Verne 's 'Journey to the Centre of the World' is an amazing fantasy. The descriptions are so vivid I could imagine the subterranean world as if I was watching a film. I read it when I was 12; loved it; saw that he had written more , so I searched them out and read them all.

2. Sherlock Holmes: saw Hounds of the Baskerville on TV, again when I was about 12 or 13. I went to the library and saw Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's fantastic output. I loved the short stories.
I recommend Silver Blaze, I think that is the title. It has the famous sleuth's comment: "the curious incident of the dog in the night." (Hint: It did not bark. ) This simple but ingenious solution to the crime has been copied numerous times. It came up in a crime show on TV recently; It is the basis of Michael Haddon's novel and now a play.
A Study in Scarlet is the first story that introduced the public to the famous sleuth. It is great and also been filmed dozens of times.

3. The Rubiyatt translated b Fitzgerald.  My mum gave me a beautiful, illustrated version when I was 20. The language Fitzgerald used is amazing; it is transcendental.
A loaf, a book, a jug of wine and thou
and paradise is enow.
Also a book that is constantly quoted, but many are unaware of the source of their quote.

4. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens. I had to read this for my 'O' Level in English Literature and could not believe that I actually enjoyed the  book. Somehow I managed to write  a decent essay on it to pass. Thank goodness I did not have questions on Silas Marner another set text; I hated that one and have never gone back to it, whereas, I have re-read Great Expectations as an adult and still love it.

5. Space Merchants - Frederik Pohl & C.M. Kornbluth. This is a Sci-Fi novel from the 1950's where governments are irrelevant; Corporations rule the world and Advertising Agencies are the powerful manipulators of the population's desires and intentions. A prescient novel of our Global Economy of the C21st.