Best book depends. Madam Bovary is considered the perfect novel by some experts. It's great. Joseph Conrad for sure; Heart of Darkness and Lord Jim. Hemingway and Steinbeck are so accessible it's easy to under rate them. Same with LeCarre as for expressing the human struggle within an engaging tale. Riddle of the Sands started a whole genre, is superb. Anthem by Ayn Rand and The Revolution Was, a small tract by Garet Garrett, explains how communist totalitarians took over America through FDR, but nobody noticed. Endurance by Alfred Lansing is brilliant telling of the most heroic true story imaginable, Shakleton's failed expedition to the South Pole. Then there's Dostoyevsky, but I couldn't wade through it.
