1984-George Orwell
Cat's Cradle-Kurt Vonnegut
R.A. Salvatore's entire Legend of Drizzt.....or just the Dark Elf Trilogy.
Crime and Punishment-Fydor Dostoyevsky if you're feeling ambitious
Issac Asimov's Foundation books
Also George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, at least the first book, A Game of Thrones.
Jurassic Park, The Andromeda Strain
Anything in the Star Wars EU written by Timothy Zahn.
The Dresden Files books by John Butcher
And of course, Hitchhiker's Guide, this is the sci-fi nerd's bible of tropes. XD
Also if you want something philosophical:
Boethius and the Consolation of Philosophy
Machiavelli's The Prince
The Confessions of St. Augustine
I could go on all night.
My favorite books are books that make me think about myself and human nature in general, give me fantastical tales of adventure, allow me to wrestle with morally ambiguous situations, and/or are just plain awesome and entertaining.
As for how I read books, it depends on the genre. The books that I read solely for entertainment, I blaze through and read in chunks when I have the time.
For more meaningful books, like the classic books I mentioned, plus the works of Vonnegut and Asimov, I tend to read slowly and carefully, designating the amount of time I'm going to spend on the book. Usually I'll take these books a chapter or two at a time so that I can think about and process what I've read.