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My favorite book is A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith, about a girl's coming of age in pre-WWII New York. While the book has no plot, it has some of the most amazing characters and insights into humanity I've ever seen, and the simple writing style really fits the setting. Other favorites:
1) The Sandman series by Neil Gaiman. Most anything by Neil Gaiman, really. His author's voice is so wise, so elegant, yet never pretentious, and this graphic novel series really changed the way a lot of people view the comics format.
2) The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling. Dark and complex, written by one of the most culturally literate women in the world.
3) Anything by the brilliant, unparalleled Toni Morrison.
4) The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. That man could not write a plot to save his life, but his characters! Oh, his characters!
5) I'm a short story fan, and I love stories by Shirley Jackson ("The Lottery"), Ambrose Bierce ("An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge"), Ray Bradbury "All Summer in a Day"), J.D. Salinger ("To Esme, With Love and Squalor")
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Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
I am large. I contain multitudes.
-Walt Whitman, Song of Myself
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