Almost a day late, but I'll throw this in here if people come by later looking for more suggestions.<p>From this year, I read all but two of the Haruki Murakami books and all short stories. I love his writing style (great translations), and the fact that the stories are about not all the time realness. Kafka on the Shore is a great starting book. Also Norwegian Wood is another example, though this strayed away from the magical aspect I like of his.<p>Another from this year was The Dubliners, collection of short stories from James Joyce. I was stuck in Dublin during a snow storm this past spring, so I'm sure this lead me to like the stories more, but I swear they're amazing and I haven't found anything else like them. They're all tiny points in people's lives, and the things that happen make differences for the people or are also easy to remember and not forget. Get one with reference notes in the back too.<p>Besides those, Love in the Time of Cholera was another one way up on my list. Similar to One Hundred Years of Solitude, which I think I prefer slightly more, but reading both is interesting to read since Cholera was written 20 years after Solitude and we can see how the author changed over time.<p>Overall though, my absolute top tier books are East of Eden, Catch-22, and My Struggle (Knausgaard). 1000% read those. I like including these so if somebody reads this and likes these books as well, they can somewhat trust my other suggestions.