What are some few must read Novels?

I have read many novels, very few of them reached to fit in the must-reads * category. But, for better or worse, here is my short list of novels.

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Fahrenheit 451 - by Ray Bradbury

According to Bradbury, the temperature at which paper in books starts to burn is 451 degrees F. You can get the plot of the book from that.

To Kill A Mockingbird - by Harper Lee

A child’s-eye view of racial prejudice and freaky neighbors in Thirties Alabama.

The Poisonwood Bible - by Barbara Kingsolver

The most recent book on this list. I find books are very powerful if it takes me a while to start another book because the characters of the book I just finished were so strongly developed that I have a hard time leaving them. This is a book like that.

The Magic Mountain - by Thomas Mann

There has been much illness in my own life and others around me and Mann’s masterwork about Hans Castorp’s pursuit of illness and its comforts as a way to avoid living says so much. Then, for a truly modern existentialist twist, there’s the ending…
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And Then There Were None - Agatha Christie

I am a huge fan of Agatha Christie, so I would highly recommend pretty much all of her works, but this one stands out because it is so different from her usual stories.

The Master and Margarita - by Mikhail Bulgakov

This is a satire of Soviet life but much much more than that. It is a fantastical romp complete with a human sized vodka-drinking black cat. Setting includes ancient Jerusalem and modern-day Soviet Moscow. A famous phrase from it is “manuscripts don’t burn”.

The Old Man and the Sea - by Ernest Hemingway

Sometimes you give it your all, it almost kills you and in the end you have nothing to show for it except to yourself.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

A great commentary on the times in which it was written.

Memoirs of a Geisha

With all 'fiction' there is always the question of how much is real, but this novel transports the reader taking them from a tiny fishing village to the streets of Kyoto both before and after the warm, and is one of the best looks at a guarded and secret life.
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The Alchemist - by Paulo Coelho

It is a story about how a boy follows his dreams and goes on an adventure. Sure to change the outlook of one's life. Has elements of supernatural powers too. An enjoyable read.

My list ends here. I know more books, but I don’t remember the titles right now, and these I think are good enough to be put on the list.