Here is a list of books, plays and stories that I have found compelling (not exhaustive and in no particular order):

1. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry.
2. Macbeth by William Shakespeare
3. Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
4. The Odyssey by Homer
5. Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner
6. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
7. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
8. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
9. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
10. Yellow Raft on Blue Water by Michael Dorris
11. Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson
12. Beloved by Toni Morrison
13. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
14. The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare
15. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
16.  East of Eden by John Steinbeck
17. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
18. Fried Green Tomatoes by Fannie Flagg
19. Watership Down by Richard Adams
20. The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien
21. The Narnian Tales by C.S. Lewis
22. A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner
23. The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe
24. Miss Piggle Wiggle series
25. The Space Trilogy by C.S. Lewis
26. Beowolf
27. Oedipus
28. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
29. Night by Elie Wiesel
30. The Last Picture Show by Larry McMurtry
31. The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank
32. Loving Eleanor by Susan Albert
33. The Swimmer by John Cheever
34. The Women’s Room by Marilyn French
35. Sherlock Holmes series by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
36. Surprised by Joy by C.S. Lewis
37. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
38. Henderson the Rain King by Saul Bellow
39. Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
40. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
41. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
42. Cider House Rules by John Irving
43. Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler
44. 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
45. City of Night by John Rechy
46. Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie
47. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
48. Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
49. Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
50. Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein