I'm absolutely in love with this thread. You guys have (unfortunately) given me a ton of new books to pick up.
I mainly flirt in scifi/fantasy and most of my favorite books are by more recent authors but I need to pick up more complex writing to help with my own.
Oddly enough, my favorite book of all time has not a hint of scifi to it. It's The Elegance of the Hedgehog and I fully recommend picking it up. It's a very bittersweet novel about a parisian apartmenthe concierge who hides her cleverness from the world for fear of rejection and the girl genius she befriends who feels like she's reached her intellectual peak and has resolved to end her life before it all goes downhill. It's a great read and not as maudlin as it sounds.