Check out The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo books. The yare pretty amazing. They beat Dan Brown's boels any day of the week.
BUt to be fair, Alphabet spaghetti is a more compelling read than a Dan Brown Book.
I'm doing some literature style classes with my students so am currently reading about 10 or 12 books silmultaneously.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
The BFG
James and the Giant Peach:
White Fang
Dracula
Howl's Moving Castle
Marley and Me
The Alchemist
Life of Pi
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Captain Corelli's Mandolin
There is not a weak book there in my opinion and I still maintain Captain Corelli's Mandolin to be one of the best books ever written. Especially for strength of characters.
My main problem is that my favourite authors seem to either be dead, or write about 1 book every 5-10 years.
Louis De Bernieres
Douglas Adams
Thomas Harris
Roald Dahl (at least when I was younger and would still read a new Dahl book if one was ever discoverd just because)
Saying that, The Alchemist was good so I may give Coelho another whirl once I have got through this lot.