Mann's finest novel. Like Nabokov, he mastered the form of language and the novel as well. This is hard work, but its intensity is its foremost strength. Only buy Porter translation

If Finnegans wake took you inside a sleeping mind, then Ulysses was the inside of waking minds. That is its magic - to transport.

No doubt the finest novel to some, this was hard to get through for me. But I put it here as I found in its depths some of the most perspicacious and poetic prose I've come across. A true genius.

My contemporary contribution. Our sad loss when this writer died at the apex of his talent, but this was certainly his best work.

Of Russian lit, my favourite. Believable characters and a wonderfully tempered language of observation.

Of Bernhard's, this most succinctly sums up his philosophy, as it is autoportaiture, open and frank in its approach. It is also his most hilarious. Comical-pessimism, I call it.

I put this for its mastered craft, but only reluctantly do I forfeit Maupassant here (Flaubert's alleged bastard son).

The father of modern French literature. A small and simple masterpiece.

Yes, he was sloppy with his prose. But what's said makes it truly important to your life and to literature at large.

Of Eastern Europe, you can do no finer. Beats Kundera hands down, and simply must be followed by Milosz's Captive Mind.