Life of Pi: a funny, tragic and overall good-natured look at a bad situation. Involves India, a triple-religioned nerdy boy and a lifeboat with a tiger in the Pacific Ocean.
Grapes of Wrath: quite truly, John Steinbeck is one of the best American authors. Involves the struggle of a family of farmers in the 1930s Dust Bowl migration, their suffering, and an amazing opinion of contemporary American society and the way wealth affects lives.
The Great Gatsby was good too, but I preferred the movie, which is almost a sin, but it helped me understand it, anyway. :) And THEN it was really good.
Well I'd say there is no "best novel" or "best anything" for that matter but I'm tempted to say my personal favorite is:
Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance With Death (1969), by Kurt Vonnegut
What makes a great novel? Not necessarily the plot. Not necessarily the characters. Not necessarily the writing style. All of these qualities play a role, but what it comes down to is mindset.
Why do authors write novels? Perhaps some treat it like a job, but the ones worth reading probably had a mindset they felt the need to share with the world. The difference between a good author and a great author is in his ability to get other people to understand through his writing, the mindset that mothered it.
When you read a great novel, you become the author. The author experiences his work through you as the reader. If executed properly, by reading his words, you become him in your mind, as he was when he wrote it. And you are taken through a portal in time into the world of that author, into the mindset that inspired the book.
The plot, the characters, the eccentricities of writing style: these things are part of it but alone are nothing. That is why describing the plot of what you consider to be a great book will never impress. When I tell someone "this is a great book, you must read it," I don't tell them what it is about. A great novel transcends opinions and genres. It should be available to all who take the time to read it.
"The last Battle" by C.S. Lewis which is the 7th book in the series of "The Chronicles of Narnia". Hands down the best description of what we all would want heaven to look and be like, it makes me cry every time I read it. If you've never read the seven books in "The Chronicles of Narnia" you really should they mean more to you as an adult even though they are geared towards children because there are allot of little 'new-onses' and metaphors that slid right past me when I read them as a child and it was only after reading them again as an adult that I was absolutely astonished at how great of a gift to literature they really are...Mos Def a must read!
oh and coming in at a close 2nd and 3rd would be "The Wrinkle in Time" series by Madeline L. Engle and "Of Mice and Men"
Gone with the wind and Scarlett are fiction books based on real life circumstances
Forrest Gump is good for a fiction book. If you think that movie was outlandish & overboard with all the things that happened to 1 person, you should read the book. To me it is not a novel because it is not as long as say War & Peace.
I think the book Little Women is an outstanding book with the northern's view of the civil war & surviving it thru a northern woman's point of view as compared to Gone with the wind.
For older children's reading.... All the Chronicels of Narnia put together in one book is really good.
Without a doubt, 'The Stonekiller'...Can't remember the author...I think it starts with a Ray and ends with a Roddy....Nahh, it's a good book, but 'The Haj. Leon Uris beats me by a smidge.....Happy & safe July 4th.
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