Book Recommendations: Wanted!

[rebness]

So... um. Number three in my New Year resolution list is to read more, and by reading more I mean discounting the back of cereal boxes, teletext, anything on the internets unless it's an e-text of a book and newspapers. My book count for 2005 was pitiful and composed of too many re-readings.

Now, well-read flist, any recommendations? I'm something of a literary snob, so I likely won't go for chicklit, and I'm not the biggest fan of science fiction. Feel free to recommend any nonfiction works or biographies, too. I need to put these Waterstones' vouchers to sensible use.

For what it's worth, here's what I can remember of (Am ashamed.):


The Aeneid, Virgil
Short Stories, Anton Chekov
Death in Venice, Thomas Mann (re-read)
One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Farcia Marquez (almost slung against the wall in frustration)
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hunter S Thompson (re-read)
Marie Antoinette, Antonia Fraser (unfinished)
Venice: Tales of the City, edited by Michelle Lovric
Short Stories Guy de Maupassant (French version)
Casanova: My Life, Giacomo Casanova (unfinished)
Howl's Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones
Castle in the Air, Diana Wynne Jones
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, JK Rowling
Night Letters, Robert Dessaix (re-read)
The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy (poetry), Tim Burton
Farenheit 451, Raymond Bradbury (unfinished)
Pleasures and Days, Marcel Proust (unfinished)
The Firebrand, Marion Zimmer Bradley
The Motorcycle Diaries, Ernesto "Che" Guavera
Charmed Life, Diana Wynne Jones
The Phantom of the Opera, Gaston Leroux
Jonathon Strange and Mr. Norrell, Susanna Clarke (still reading)

... There are more novels, but I can't remember them. They must have left such a lasting impression upon me.



As you can see, I need help. >: