I really liked the whole Aubrey-Maturin series by O'Brian. Should give you plenty of good excuses not to work

I would also recommend Ashes, ashes and The Ice People by Barjavel, although I don't know if the translation from french is any good. Those are old SF books and maybe a bit dated but the underlying themes are still relevant today.

The Island, Behind the Glass and Malevil by Robert Merle are also very good (Behind the Glass might not make a lot of sense if you don't know anything about the events of May 1968 in France and the history of all the crazy fringe political groups of the days).

Depends on what kind of books you're into?

Sci-fi wise my favorite author is Ian Banks (or Iain M. Banks) and his Culture series of novels. "Use of Weapons" and "Excession", "Look to Windward" and "Consider Phlebas" are all good ones in the series. My favorite was Use of Weapons.

Ender's Game, anything by Christopher Stasheff, Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover series, the Sword of Truth series, Snow Crash, The Song of Fire and Ice series. The Wheel of Time series.  I liked Anne McCaffrey until she turned Pern over to her son Todd.

I I may be so bold and materialistic, go to http://www.lulu.com/rrkfinn