Personally, whenever I see one of these lists, I look for fiction books. This is obviously a personal bias, but I find it hard to relate to someone whose life hasn't been mostly changed by works of fiction. In my view, those works are usually far more powerful than non-fiction about the same topics.<p>For instance, you can write about the duality of the heart and the mind at length, without ever coming close to the powerful argument of Narziss & Goldmund. And you can write about the cyclical nature of life till you're blue in the face (in the fingers?), but will you ever convey the sense of emptiness that one gets at the end of Marques' One Hundred Years of Solitude?<p>Non-fiction is useful, no doubt, but imho the truly great writings are in the fiction form.