As others have said that's a rather snobbish attitude to take. I simply gave the top 10 on the top of my head and didn't just give out books according to the canon. I own several of the books you talked about and have read most of them. I too own several books like The Western Canon by H. Bloom and Why Read the Classics by Italo Calvino. But when it comes to what I find is "fun" to read my list is pretty decent I think.

Here's ten off the top of my head:

1. Dune - Frank Herbert
2. Stranger In A Strange Land - Robert Heinlein
3. Night Watch - Terry Pratchett
4. The Years Of Rice And Salt - Kim Stanley Robinson
5. Ringworld - Larry Niven
6. Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates - Tom Robbins
7. Foundation - Isaac Asimov
8. Dystopia - Dennis Jürgensen (Danish author)
9. The Mote In God's Eye - Larry Niven
10. The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress - Robert Heinlein

But really, I can't limit myself to just ten.

11. The Legacy Of Heorot - Larry Niven
12. Thud! - Terry Pratchett
13. The Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy - Douglas Adams
14. The Gods Themselves - Isaac Asimov
15. Footfall - Larry Niven
16. Calculating God - Robert J. Sawyer
17. The Illuminatus Trilogy - Robert Wilson
18. Night's Dawn Trilogy (The Reality Dysfunction) - Peter F. Hamilton
19. 1632 - Eric Flint
20. Headcrash - Bruce Bethke

Haven't read Dune. Is it any good?

If you like science fiction, you owe it to yourself to read it. It's fantastic. Probably my favorite sci-fi novel of all time.

I dig science fiction very much. :) I'll check if my library has the copy. I heard so much about it so I'm going to give it a go.

I'm with you on that, Beer. I've read many of the classic authors, and while some of them I really like a lot, others I don't. I can't stand Hemingway, for instance. Probably the only 'classic' novel I might put on my top ten list is one of Jane Austen's (either Pride and Prejudice or Sense and Sensibility). That doesn't mean I haven't read the likes of Dickens, Bronte, Hemingway, Steinbeck, Homer, Dostoesvsky, Tolstoy, Melville, Defoe, Collins, Shakespeare (yeah, I know, they're not novels, so sue me) etc. etc. I have. But my top ten list would be comprised of things I've enjoyed more.

1 - The Stand
2 - Journey to the Centre of the Earth
3 - The GTO Manga series (I guess it's not a novel, but please entertain me!)
4 - The Dark Tower - Wizard and Glass
5 - When Worlds Collide
6 - Truckers
7 - Left Behind
8 - Dr Who - The Giant Robot :D
9 - The Little Prince (again, not sure of this counts as a novel..)
10 20 000 Leagues Under The Sea

High Rise has been on my "to read list" for some time now, it seems really interesting. Maybe I'll give a try in a not too distant future... I like Haruki Murakami too. I particularly enjoyed "Norwegian Wood", among the few I have read.

Heroes Die
The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger
All the Discworld novels after and including Guards! Guards!.
The Millionaire Next Door
Jurassic Park
To Kill A Mockingbird
The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress
Sackett's Land
The Lies of Locke Lamora

I think you'd find it a good gamble. Ballard is my favorite fiction author by-the-by, bar none. Fiercely imaginative man, spinning tales for weird dystopias vis-a-vis mundane slices of everyday places and objects. He's the quintessential example of the possibilities of "science-fiction" as a literary genre. Brainy, surreal, and mind-bending when you take in his visions. He's not to everyone's taste; "Crash" is probably his most well-known conception (due in part to the Cronenberg adaptation), but it can be rough sledding to read at times, and not Ballard's most accessible. Ballard's prose can seem detached and clinical at times, but his wry observations of behavior and similes are very unique. High-Rise is my favorite novel of his. In a huge self-contained monolith apartment/living complex, class warfare is waged...literally. Lord of the Flies for bourgeois adults.

The OP's request is limited to novels, which is why I couldn't put down Anais Nin (diarist), David Foster Wallace, John Shirley (short stories), or Dorothy Parker (a little of everything). Ballard was a master of the short story form too, so if you ever get around to "High Rise" and enjoy it, "War Fever" is a must.

If you have some counter-recommendations, by all means share them, as my GoodReads account knows no bounds.

I've read two books by JG Ballard, Crash and Running Wild, both a long time ago. Crash wasn't an easy read and I am not sure I'll ever try to read it again but I definitely prefered it over the movie, which didn't leave me any lasting impressions (although I really like Cronenberg's movies usually). Running Wild is more a short story, not much to say.
I can't recall where I read about High Rise but the setting really fascinates me, it is maybe a little dated as an utopia but it's still a strong concept. By the way, there is a movie adaptation in process:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0462335/
Let's hope it won't ruin everything!

Don't even worry about people like that:
1) Doestoverksy and Steinbeck are fucking boors, seriously, overrated crap there.
2) Entire time periods and languages seem to escape them. Seriously, no The Little Prince, no The Three Musketeers, never anything by Homer or Sophocles; I could probably go on for half a page but you get the point. Half of them don't have the decency to include Tolkien or Asimov (oh I know, not "real" literature, is it?).

Seriously, you're already kind of off by trying to name the 10 best books of all time with absolutely no other criteria; then to complain about someone else's different version of "best" is... well damn, I can't even find the words.

Oh and if I wasn't clear before: Screw Steinbeck!

I don't really read books anymore. I'm sure that's a failing, but my mind has been warped by the internet so that reading anything longer than a page is almost impossible. Before this happened I loved:

1) Diary by Chuck P-whatever
2) The Dark Tower books by Stephen King (1-4 especially)
3) Bruce Campbell's autobiography
4) Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
5) Anything by Brett Easton Ellis

Loved Dawn by Octavia Butler, love all these too
Ashenden-Somerset Maughm/My Man Jeeves-Wodehouse/A Pail of Air-Fritz Leiber/Thorns-Robert Silverberg/The Big Sleep-Raymond Chandler/Jaws- Peter Benchley/The Thirty-Nine Steps-John Buchan/The King's Fifth-Scott O'Dell/Letters From The Earth-Mark Twain/We Have Always Live in The Castle-Shirley Jackson