I just put this list together for a friend the other day, so I'll post it here to see if anything sparks.

• The Poisonwood Bible, Prodigal Summer, The Bean Trees, Animal Dreams, and Pigs in Heaven --> all by Barbara Kingsolver

• Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

• The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon

• Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald

• Empire Falls by Richard Russo

• Beloved by Toni Morrison

• Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (this is the first of a trilogy — read all three, they're incredible)

• The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell

• The City We Became by N. K. Jemison

• Jitterbug Perfume, Skinny Legs and All --> both by Tom Robbins

• The Historian, The Shadow Land --> both by Elizabeth Kostova

• Rules of Civility, A Gentleman in Moscow --> both by Amor Towles

• Case Histories, Behind the Scenes at the Museum --> both by Kate Atkinson

• Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino

• Evidence of Things Unseen by Marianne Wiggins

• Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

• American Gods by Neil Gaiman

• Good Omens by Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett

• The Hours by Michael Cunningham

• The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham

• The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway

• The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

• Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Bernières

• Dreaming in Cuban by Christina Garcia

• The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

• Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke

• The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

• Tinkers by Paul Harding

• Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan

• All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

• The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbary

• Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguru

• The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy