Jorge Luis Borges
With 20 pages of answers, I'm not going to do a search - but I don't recall anyone mentioning Borges. His writing has a fair claim to be life-changing: though I'd had a great deal of intellectual stimulation from reading before I read any of his work, being introduced to it was epiphanic. His characters may be a little thin - but the things he did with the form of the story are astonishing.

A brief survey of his genius: he gave us in Don Isidro Parodi a detective whose crime-solving ability was hampered by the fact that he is in prison and that he has too much evidence; the thinly-autobiographical "Lottery in Babylon", a blistering satire on Peronist Argentina; "The Garden of Forking Paths", a detective story set (improbably enough) in Stoke-on-Trent (from where Borges' grandmother came), which is a match for the best - and "Death and the Compass" is even better; "Funes the Memorious", which advances the idea that knowledge depends on forgetfulness (a theme partially echoed in his essay "On Exactitude in Science")... and so on. The Book of Imaginary Beings is whimsical but no less of a cornucopeia, and his Universal History of Infamy presents the story of Tom Castro, one of the most audacious fraudsters whose scheme is so hopeless that it cannot help but to succeed.

To discover Borges was, for me, to become like Borges' "metaphysicians of Tlön[, who] are not looking for truth, or even an approximation of it [but...] a kind of amazement."
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Wed 21 May 2008, 9:30, 13 replies)

yeah
I'll second Borges, with particular delight at "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" - a story which reflects beautifully the pained attempt to virtually recreate something (and makes me look at my own research with a more bemused eye).
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Wed 21 May 2008, 9:35, closed)

Yes!
I mentioning all of Borges' gems would have made this a very long post indeed - but Pierre Menard ought to have got a mention...
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Wed 21 May 2008, 9:36, closed)

and
"The Analytical Language of John Wilkins", because I got to bore a bunch of first year ugrads about it. They got biscuits as well though (to make up for the fact that it went straight over their heads). I'm a nice lecturer really.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Wed 21 May 2008, 9:38, closed)

Did a chapter of my MA thesis on him
Heavily influenced by Poe.
(frankspencer, Wed 21 May 2008, 9:48, closed)

I reckon this is all lies
and secretly you read the Beano behind the Borges.
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Wed 21 May 2008, 9:49, closed)

@chickenlady
Enzyme does not laugh at juvenile ephemeral publications. There are too many serious subjects for intellectual pondering to permit laughter. Once he has dissected what we call a 'joke' into the smallest level of philiological and philosophical granulae then he may be permitted a wry smile to indicate a deeper understanding than the rest of us mere mortals can ever hope to attain.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Wed 21 May 2008, 9:52, closed)

So what you're saying
is that he's more of a Dandy reader then?
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Wed 21 May 2008, 9:55, closed)

just
more of a dandy, really.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Wed 21 May 2008, 9:55, closed)

@CHCB
Yeah - I'm like the anti-Chuck Norris.

Enzyme does not laugh at jokes. Jokes laugh at Enz... Oh. Wait a sec...
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Wed 21 May 2008, 9:56, closed)

Hmmm....
*ponders deeply*

*can't even pretend to have read any of these books*
( Cawl, Wed 21 May 2008, 9:57, closed)

I bought
Labyrinths a few weeks ago, but it's part of a huge pile of books waiting for me to read them (as soon as I finish 'The Long Goodbye').
(The Empress it seems you CAN polish a turd!, Wed 21 May 2008, 10:15, closed)

I watched the film
"Labyrinth" with David Bowie. I really liked it. I have the soundtrack on my ipod.

I especially like the "Magic Dance" song.
(Bazongaloid, Wed 21 May 2008, 10:39, closed)

I'll 97th your JLB reccomendation...
...
(haberman is singing in the changes, Wed 21 May 2008, 10:41, closed)