My favourite book of all time is 'Hunger' by Knut Hamsun, closely followed by 'Earthly Powers' by Anthony Burgess and 'Love in the time of cholera' by Gabrial Garcia Marquez.

'Homage to Catalonia' and 'Down and out in Paris and London' by George Orwell, 'Love on the dole' by Walter Greenwood and 'The ragged trousered philanthropist' by Robert Tressell are all wonderful books that immediately spring to mind.
I don't really have a genre or type of book that I like but I do like a book to be well written and I don't mean that in a highbrow sense but in a way that makes them accessible.
A work of fiction should be able, for its duration, to immerse us and allow us to cast aside reality and suspend our disbelief, whilst we can explore concepts we find alien or distasteful without fear of reproach from its pages.

(Just reread that and it does sound like really pompous guff but I am going to leave it because I happen to think it is true.)

BTW I also love the Kindle and mainly because it allows my failing eyesight to read comfortably again - I still cannot part with my 7,000+ books though that clog up my small flat!
(Stunt slug If God existed I'd want to fight him, Sun 8 Jan 2012, 1:35, 3 replies)

'Hunger' and 'down and out in paris and london'
Are two of favourite ever books.
You have fine taste ;)
(shezam slouching towards nirvana., Sun 8 Jan 2012, 10:24, closed)

Earthly Powers !
I must have read that book twenty times...
(TheImmortalJenkins, Sun 8 Jan 2012, 12:23, closed)

I find the nazi collaboration/sympathising
Sucks all the joy from Hamsun. It probably shouldn't but there you are. I mean who reads the novel Mussolini penned. (I think it was Anthony Burgess who said it was rather good but don't quote me.)
(unclestinky, Sun 8 Jan 2012, 13:08, closed)