the two greatest books of the last 100 years...

random selection of great books

Catch-22, Joseph Heller (seriously fuck you if you haven't read this)
The Once and Future King, T.H. White (the standard by which literary fantasy should be judge)
The Darkness That Comes Before, R. Scott Bakker (first book of a trilogy, some absolutely mind-bogglingly deep and thought-provoking fantasy. Will actively change the way you think about some important things.)
Gentlemen of the Road, Michael Chabon (Pulitzer winner tries his hand at medieval adventure story with fantastic results. originally published in the NY Times magazine, should be out as a novella by now.)
The Three Musketeers, Alexandre Dumas (needs no introduction)
The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy (full credit to Isabel for this one, just an astonishing piece of fiction that is downright painful to read - in an emotional sense, it's not hard to get into at all and therein lies the trap.)
Any collection of short stories by T. Coraghessan Boyle (do you like irony and schadenfreude? then you will like Mr. Boyle. his novels are also good, particularly Drop City, but it's the short stories that he really excels at.)
and once again A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole (probably the funniest book ever written in the English language.)
 
Great book.
Finished it last year

Eh, I'll concede not being a Dawkins' fan, and although he's a brilliant scientist, I find his intolerant decrying of all things spiritual a bit over-bearing. Then again, this book seems to have brought greater attention to him than usual, so I might give it a more thorough try.