My next book I'm going to read is The Road. In between the ASOIAF series for a little break. I heard its a great, short read.

Lord of the Rings
The Hobbit (esp. the Annotated version)
The Iliad & the Odyssey

It's got an odd writing style, sort of stream of consciousness, but it made me weepy. A pretty good story.

The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings were pretty good.
A Song of Fire and Ice is my favorite series though.

1984. I find it to be an absolutely incredible story and very harrowing. George Orwell is my favorite author.

It is a close first, I'm also partial to the works of Aldous Huxley and Cormac McCarthy. McCarthy's Border Trilogy is amazing, as is The Road.

And like any good theatre geek, I love Shakespeare, but obviously that falls outside of the realm of "books."

Another good series that should have been longer:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose_of_the_Prophet

I loved it, great read. I couldn't get in to the film for some reason though...

The movie was extremely depressing and eerie. It gave a perfect picture of what post-apocalyptic America could be like. One word of advice, don't watch the movie while in a sad mood or a depression.

The Name of the Rose

Best novel - Great Expectations by Charles dikeens

Best series is easily Terry Pratchett's Discworld.

I watched the first 40 minutes of it or so and you're right, it is incredibly depressing.

I... I can't choose just one! OK, if pressed very, very hard I'd choose the Dune series. And out of that, the book God Emperor of Dune in particular stands out to me. I wub Sci-Fi, most especially when it has realistic-ish moralistic and/or sociological themes running through it. The series I list are ones that I've read through many times, each time seeming to find yet another layer of subtle meaning, complexity and understanding. They've each "put a stamp of strangeness on me."

Dune series - Frank Herbert
Foundation series - Isaac Asimov
Hainish Cycle - Ursula K. Le Guin
Majipoor series - Robert Silverberg
Rama series - Arthur C. Clarke

i don't think i've ever read any series of books other than back when i read an autobiography of some Russian Christian writer. if i remember right, he turned his story into a book, http://www.blagovam.org/media.php?tid=1505(Happiness of the Life Lost, that's translation of the title according to Google's translator). i liked it, so i guess it is my favorite.

Loved this, only read the main trilogy so far, though. Are the others any good?

They're good, but not as good as the original trilogy imho. There's a large time gap between the creation of the originals and the prequels/sequels and it shows. The writing style and quality is quite different and I found them a bit disappointing. They do round things out nicely though, adding more details, background and closure. Maybe try a free test run with a copy from a local library and see if you like it.

Have you tried his Robot series? Being a collection of mostly short stories/novels, its nowhere near as smoothly flowing and complex a world/story as Foundation, but several of the characters are quite notable and the moral dilemmas, though a little simplistic, are delicious.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kingkiller_Chronicle is good. Really good. Read it now, you won't regret it.

I thought the movie was less depressing then the book, actually.

Animal Farm is fantastic as well. It's so well written a historically oblivious person would be surprised to hear it's a satire of a real life event.

Nineteen Eighty-Four is definitely one of the best books of the past century, though I'd advice only historically aware people to read it, since otherwise the point falls off.

Lord Of The Rings, (First read them as a trilogy of books before owning the whole lot in one)
Icewind Dale Trilogy, (infact all the Books about Drizzt Do Urden)
The Rift War Saga (Magician, Silverthorn and a Darkness at Sethanon)

I never buy books before reading them unless they're super cheap, so library is definitely my first choice.

I really should read I Robot, it's quite sad that I haven't. Too much good stuff in the world to read!

My step-dad bought me the first Hunger Games book, is the series any good?

Why don't you read it and find out? It's not a long book.

Well, I still have the rest of the A Song of Ice and Fire series to complete. I wouldn't want to start a new series in the middle of another one.

I am reading the leviathan series right now and it is quite an interesting take on alternate history.

I really enjoyed it.