Pale Fire
Vladimir Nabokov
Not the most straightforward of reads, this 1962 novel is written as a 999-line poem written by a fictional American poet, John Shade, together with a foreword and commentary by an eccentric and equally fictional academic, Charles Kinbote. Regularly ranked highly on lists of great English language novels, it never gained the notoriety of Lolita, but it’s an intellectual delight for readers who love linguistic and structural playfulness, and searching for dual meanings.