I have been following Harold Bloom's reading list for several years, and got through about a dozen of his recommendations – plus some I'd chosen for myself. So in total around 28, I think.
A few that stick in my mind:
Cormac McCarthy: Blood Meridian. Beautiful prose, but jesus christ it's grim. Bloom rates it as the best American novel of the late 20th-century. But it's just relentless horror. Made a mental note never to read another McCarthy.
Boswell's Life of Johnson This was another Bloom recommendation. It's a straightforward biography, but one that includes a lot of personal recollections. Boswell clearly loved Johnson, and he does a superb job of bringing the man alive. It also brings alive the period. Johnson was a complex character: a reactionary Tory who cared deeply about the poor, a brilliant intellectual who was terrified of hell, a broad-minded thinker who was deeply religious, etc. An odd, difficult, unpredictable man, probably suffering from bipolar disorder. But likeable all the same.
P G Wodehouse: Something Fresh. What can you say? The man was a genius. Stephen Fry said there just aren't enough superlatives to describe his books. Better than Prozac. (I sometimes wonder why I read anything else.)
Dickens: Great Expectations Wonderful. Think I prefer David Copperfield though.
Thomas Hardy: Jude the Obscure. Bleak, but a trip to the circus compared to McCarthy! Cheated and listened to it on audiobook.
D H Lawrence: Sons and Lovers. Another one to tick off Bloom's list. Wonderful, vivid prose, and superb descriptions of the British landscape
Paul Nurse: What is Life? I try and read a mix of fiction and non-fiction. This is the best popular science book I have read since Bryson's History of Nearly Everything. Also very short.
Yuval Harari: Sapiens. Only half way through, but really enjoying it. It zips along, and is filled with fascinating ideas. Can totally see why everyone raves about it. Must read Homo Deus as well.
Anthony Burgess: Abba Abba. For me, Burgess is the best post-war British novelist. SO underrated. Like Wodehouse, he has fun with language. This is a short historical novel about Keats' final days in Rome.
Ted Hughes: Collected Poems Only been dipping into these. Like Lawrence he has a wonderful, vivid, ecstatic way of writing about the countryside.
John Betjamen: Collected Poems Again, just dipped in and out. Wonderful poet. Often disimissed as a populist/lightweight, which is a pity. Some of his stuff is beautiful.
Truman Capote: In Cold Blood Read this years ago. Re-reading it, I was completely hooked until the final page.
John Higgs: Blake Not bad. A good, clear introduction, with plenty of far out talk about quantum physics and Eckhart Tolle, etc.
I have got massively into audiobooks this year. Laying in a hot bath listening to Stephen Fry read Sherlock Holmes, and Michael Hordern read MR James, is bliss. I would also recommend listening to Evelyn Waugh. Some writers were made for audio. Right now I am listening to Tolkien's Hobbit. It's bloody wonderful on audiobook.
In 2023, I want to read Otherlands, which has had rave reviews. I also want to read some Jane Austen, particularly Emma. And I'm going to re-read Wilde's Picture of Dorian Grey. Over Christmas, I bought a book by Bertrand Russell (Portraits from Memory), which I'm going to read, along with Woolf's To the Lighthouse. I might try Nabokov as well (never read a word of his). Might give Stephen Fry's fiction a try too.