Paradise Lostby John MiltonPublished in 1667 (I finished it on December 01, 2006)
It's not an easy read, but does have some good poetic imagery. Being a "poem," there's plenty of sentences to drive one crazy figuring out the correct order of the sentence parts. I studied it fora Masters class so I'm not certain I'd have gotten as much out of the book had I read it solo. Still, combing the work with studying the time period (17th century) does make it rather interesting. Another apsect is how many other authors have used the work's themes in their writings. It's a handy novel to have on the bookshelf.
So many books … (you know the rest)