I'd say a deeper more complex and connected understanding of the world. Truly phenomenal authors were masters of framing so many things I thought of strictly in objective terms in a more subjective light. You begin to realize how the world is filled with very shallow thoughts and ideas. You can really only come to that realization after digesting long form arguments and narratives.
High concept sci-fi:. Three body problem by Liu cixin, or A deepness in the sky by Vernor vinge
Character drama: 11/22/63 Stephen king, or really almost anything by him
Don't underestimate lit-trash -- it's worlds better than Twitter -- Lee child jack reacher novels are fun, so were the original Tom Clancy run. Altered carbon on the cuberpunk front.
And of course the classics if you're willing to invest -- most of them are worth it, otherwise they wouldn't be classics
And even the classics in various genres. Like, you can't necessarily go wrong with reading Douglas Adams, or Arthur C. Clarke or J.R.R. Tolkien, especially as a novice in a genre.
That said, I'd recommend reading Les Misérables to everyone. Definitely an amazing book.
Funny, if I think of my favorite books I'd probably say the Three Body Problem trilogy, A Deepness In The Sky, and The Stand...maybe because I haven't read 11/22/63 yet. I better read Altered Carbon since you seem to have exactly the same taste as me.
I'd add that reading the whole Three Body Problem trilogy is highly recommended since it gets higher concept every book. And personally I enjoyed A Fire Upon The Deep just as much as A Deepness In The Sky.
The Stand is an actual classic, I should have mentioned it if I mentioned King. 11/22/63 is more of a less-epic, mature character work. Cheers to good taste!
I had no idea what I was getting into when I read The Stand back in high school. I thought Stephen King was a "horror" author, and the only thing I knew about him was that he wrote IT. The Stand remains one of the best books I have ever read.
King is awesome, though I prefer his novellas and short works. Apt pupil? The Showshank Redemption? The Breathing Method? really, all of 'different seasons' was incredible.
I wrote a really long winded response about some of my favorite authors and their corresponding favorite books. Each tackle different cross-sections of thought. All of them have had an everlasting impact in how they completely eliminate my ability to have binary ideologies.
Steinbeck, Vonnegut, Dostoyevsky, Ursula Le Guin, David Foster Wallace (I could truly go on forever, but I think these authors are phenomenal, with themes and meta-themes different from one another).
I think if you watch an interview with DFW you will realize just how much he has thought of just about every facet of modern, entertainment-centric western society - all coming together in Infinite Jest which is the most depressing book I've ever read (he later committed suicide, so it might have been the most depressing contemporary book ever written either). Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness models an entire planetary civilization with no fixed sex (written in 1969, mind you), which I found very eye-opening. Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov (as well as Crime and Punishment) are extraordinarily psychological and philosophical - ethics, free will, and God are centric. Both Steinbeck and Vonnegut have multiple books I'd recommend, but East of Eden by Steinbeck is an all-time favorite tackling good and evil (honestly Nietzsche in novel); Slaughterhouse 5 by Vonnegut (just a notch above Heller's Catch-22) is the embodiment of darkness and absurdity. Take an anti-war sentiment and an author willing to tiptoe to the border of sanity and insanity and the result is SH5. It is truly brilliant, and as someone who is fortunate enough to not have ever been impacted greatly by wartime, it is equally eye-opening.
Honorable mention (a book I have read more recently) goes to Tom Wolfe with The Bonfire of the Vanities. This book combines the legal system (police and prosecutors), personal greed and ambition (Wall Street bond salesman), racism (Media biases), and class structures and privilege in a hard hitting social critique on 80s New York City. Everything between its covers is key to understanding how the world actually works.
This turned out to be a lot longer than I anticipated. Hopefully it is helpful!
