Wow - this forum is great for picking up suggestions for new reads! My five favorites are:

Madame Bovary By Gustave Flaubert (Does anyone else absolutely love this book?)
The Age of Innocence By Edith Wharton (Loved the movie as well)
Crime and Punishment By Fyodor Dostoevsky (Amazing!)
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (First novel I ever read)
Wuthering Heights By Emily Bronte (Maddeningly heartbreaking!)
Dracula by Bram Stoker (Does this even need a description?)

Sorry, that's six.

What I have on my list after reading these posts:

House of Mirth By Edith Wharton
Of Human Bondage By Sommerset Maugham
The Old Man and the Sea By Ernest Hemingway
Moby Dick By Herman Melville
War and Peace By Leo Tolstoy

Can't wait to get started!

My five favorites are:

#1 The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
#2 Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
#3 Pride and Prejudice by Austen
#4 The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
#5 The Spy Who Came in From the Cold by John Le Carré

My favorites have been Gone With the Wind, Wuthering Heights, Catcher in the Rye and Little Women for the longest time. But I recently read Jane Eyre and that’s my new favorite. I love her Jane’s character, the narration is amazing, and the language is exquisite. The darkness and sorrow is perfectly tempered with positivity, which makes it so relatable.

1. Don Quixote
2. Brothers Karamazov
3. Lord of the Rings
4. The Mars Trilogy
5. The Four Gospels

I just found this site yesterday and already I'm hopelessly hooked!!

I've read many of the books everyone has listed, but there are many I haven't.

As for THE Five Greatest Novels of All Time, I have no idea, because everyone has a different opinion.

I would say the one novel that I was most impressed with after rereading it in my early 40's, after hating it as a college student in my early 20's, was Moby Dick. I had to read it in a college literature course and thought it vastly overrated, but truthfully, I skimmed much of it, it was so boring at that age. Moby Dick, in my opinion, is as they say of youth, wasted on the young. It wasn't until I had done a fair amount of living that it really "spoke" to me.

As for my other favorite novels, in no particular order, I'd give a nod to Gone With The Wind, Grapes of Wrath, The Stand and Robinson Crusoe. But there are so many others that I could also name. Compiling a list like this is torture because you don't want to insult others, i.e., authors, you have also read and thoroughly enjoyed.

My absolute favourite is The Thorn Birds.

Jane Eyre
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible
Great Expectations
Pride and Prejudice

A good topic. I'm going to cheat a bit and say that anything by Charles Dickens, becuse he did so much for social justice.

I've read some of Dickens' novels, but I think his best was A Tale of Two Cities, and the others fall into the category of take it or leave it. Just my opinion.

My MOST favorite novel of all time, EVER, is Jane Eyre! Between the romance, the comment on social relationships and 'caste' relationships, and the ability Jane has to remain true to herself and her beliefs despite overwhelming odds, is wonderful. Beyond that, Gone With the Wind, Little Women, Pride and Prejudice, and the Killer Angels also rank in my top five,probably in the order listed!