The Odyssey - Genji Monogatari - I liked Seidensticker's translation, though it was years before I finally finished reading it. I see there's yet another translation available now.
The Journey to the West - how the dharma came to the middle kingdom, and no abbreviated description could do it justice. Try the abridged edition of Anthony C. Yu's translation, first, but know that there are four volumes in the full translation and that each episode is there for a reason, if only that the audience wanted more fart jokes. Don Quixote - The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders, Etc. Who Was Born In Newgate, and During a Life of Continu'd Variety For Threescore Years, Besides Her Childhood, Was Twelve Year a Whore, Five Times a Wife [Whereof Once To Her Own Brother], Twelve Year a Thief, Eight Year a Transported Felon In Virginia, At Last Grew Rich, Liv'd Honest, and Died a Penitent. Written from her own Memorandums <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorandum>. A man of the 18th century imagining life as a woman. The Charterhouse of Parma - a nearly perfect romance, cribbed from the life adventures of some renaissance pope, transposed into the Napoleonic wars, written in 52 days by (!) a survivor of the retreat from Russia. Ulysses - Gravity's Rainbow - And for a contemporary genre bender, try Snake Agent, or any other Inspector Chen novel, by Liz Williams. And don't forget Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. -- rec --
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