Well, I enjoy a bit of good sci-fi myself, so I'd have to recommend a couple series (Serii?):
Anything By Issac Asimov, i.e. the Foundation series, the Empire series, and the Robot series.

Also, the Bourne trilogy by Robert Ludlum is great. Kept me on the edge of my seat. :-)

Hmm... is there anything else? Ah, well I'm trying to work my way through the Wheel of Time series... but I've been distracted by school, and now the first book is lost in my room somewhere. :-/ Must needs cleaning.

Anywho, that'd be enough to satiate me for a summer or two, unless of course I wanted to read the LOTR trilogy as well. :-p But you're looking for books you don't own already.

Best of luck on the book finding! And no matter what they say, the library is a great place to spend all your money. ;-)

Anything and everything written by Dan Simmons is pure literary excellence. Get every last one they've got!

Ok, I started typing this all out in your comment box, but it got so big that I thought, "Well, hey! why waste that much typing?" And I posted it on my blog.

Because you're kind of a geek, I think you might like The Cuckoo's Egg a lot.. I mostly put it in there for you.

http://www.3intheam.com/2008/05/good-books-you-should-read.html

No, no. You need to take out Sam with NERVE GAS, remember?

D'oh! I forgot to include my suggestions. Obviously, though, they're all books that exist in our household, so you wouldn't have to buy them: "Born on a Blue Day" and "Marley and Me" are both really good. Oh, actually, I've heard The Perks of Being a Wallflower is fantastic, but I've never read it - and that one you would have to pick up at the library. Anyway, that's really all I got.

michael chabon's the amazing adventures of kavalier and clay

vladimir nabokov's pale fire

and

any and all jorge luis borges short story collections you can find.

Anything by Bill Bryson is totally worth it, especially Neither Here Nor There (extremely hilarious). Either that or Bringing Down the House which is the story that the 21 movie was based on, except it's far more interesting than the movie... or so I hear. Both of those will give you plenty of reading enjoyment. Let us know what you're able to snag.

Vernon God Little - D.B.C. Pierre
White Oleander - Janet Fitch

I'm a sucker for anything Stephen King. But that's probably just me.

Have to second Gilligan's Foundation series rec, which I just finished at midnight-thirty last night. I don't normally read sci-fi, but this was recommended to me and I espied it in a rummage sale at the local Freemason lodge.

G.K. Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday is a good one I read this year - kind of a poet/spy thriller!

Sherlock Homes books are always good (the originals by Conan Doyle of course). Tintin comic books.

Literary torture is laughing out loud at a joke in a Charles Dickens book and then realizing you won't be able to explain it to anyone.

I second the motion for White Oleander.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower - Stephen Chbosky

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - Mark Haddon

And of course, The Chronicles of Narnia or anything else by C.S. Lewis.

Vellum, can't remember the author but it's a very good book. Blindness is a page turner too.

Anything by H.P. Lovecraft, Neal Stephenson, or Neil Gaiman (especially American Gods).

Does Harry Potter count?

If you're going to read Neil Gaiman as Scrangie suggests (and I would agree with), start with Neverwhere. It's much easier to get into than American Gods and will increase your Gaiman stick-to-it-tiveness by 80%

Dear Skirts,

I don't know if it was your blog post or the bourbon that I drank tonight that inspired me to recommend the following books that I LOVE. Whatever it was, take my advice and get them if they are available. If they are not, get them somewhere else (Borders, Barnes and Noble, Books-a-Million, etc.)

1. Green Eggs and Ham, Theodore S. Geisel (AKA Dr. Seuss)
2. The Bible According to Mark Twain, a compilation by (well) Mark Twain
3. The Demon-Haunted World, Carl Sagan (Incredible read)
4. The Complete Works of Mark Twain, (I'm a Sam Clemens Fan)
5. A History of God, Karen Armstrong (It will change your understanding of you religion...in a good way).
6. The Revolution, A Manifesto, Ron Paul (Trust Me.)

OH...Rachelskirts, my dear, I forgot one...how silly of me...

this one may seem a bit odd...

Crossing the Threshold of Hope, Pope John Paul II (No, I'm not even close to being Catholic, but this is so interesting that you MUST read it.)

Unquestionably the Top five all time best novels:
The Invisible Man-Ralph Ellison
Death Comes to the Archbishop-Willa Cather
The Song of Solomon-Toni Morrison
The Adventures of Auggie March-Saul Bellow
Manhattan Transfer-John Dos Passos
Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World-Haruki Marukami
Billy Bathgate-E.L. Doctorow
Okay so that was more than five, but this list goes on and on and on in no specific order. Also, the hardboiled pulp writers tend to show up in used book sales (although maybe not at a church). Gardner, Hammett, Burnett, Cain, Chandler, Woolrich or collections of the stories from Black Mask are just good writing.

Okay, so I'm a little behind, but I just wanted to tell you that you have a lovely voice! Although I really need to stop being so surprised when I see videos of people whose blogs I read on the internet and they have an American accent...I am a fool.

PS: I would leave a book recommendation, but none of mine are intellectual and I'm a little ashamed to confess to the internet the kind of trashy books that I read. I purposely kept all of my books from uni on my bookshelf just so people would look at them instead of my extensive collection of chick lit and be impressed rather than snigger unkindly.

This is turning into a mammoth commenting session. Sorry.

Oh, and if you haven't read The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, I might cry.

My additions to the list... thoughtfully dry humor and difficult reads for most people but I will suggest these anyway...

Anything by Robert Anton Wilson (though I recommend Shrodinger's Cat.)
1984 by George Orwell (if by some strange reason you haven't already.)
Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid By Douglas R. Hofstadter (interesting, intelligent, amusing, and at times annoyingly dry, but absolutely worth reading even if you only read every other chapter [if you ever pick up the book and flip through it you will see what I mean {and probably go back and read the in between chapters that you originally skipped}]). FNORD

Animal Farm
-George Orwell

Fahrenheit 451
-Ray Bradbury

At the Mountains of Madness
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward
The Shadow Over Innsmouth
-H.P. Lovecraft

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul
-Douglas Adams

Neuromancer
-William Gibson

I Am America (And So Can You)
-Stephen Colbert

Deus Ex Fimus, we have similar tastes :)