I think Oliver Sacks's The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat sounds interesting. Have you read any of the classic novels? Were any of them thoroughly engaging?
I've read that book, it was good like most of his books. Sacks has some weird cases. I am not sure he has a bad book.
Hmmm... favourite classic novels. I've read a decent amount of novels, most of the classics I'm not huge on but that might be because of my personality and interests. I tend to lean towards science fiction/horror/weird instead of war or romance. Never give me things like Hemingway or else I WILL cut you.
I liked Dracula although it felt very slow, but then I was also reading it when I was 11... the unabridged version. Frankenstein was also interesting but slow. Luckily there are abridged versions. That is how I would do Frankenstein again.
Some classic novels that I enjoyed were: Picture of Dorian Grey, Time Machine, Scarlet Letter, Island of Doctor Moreau (short but pretty weird), Aenid, Beowulf (the Penguin verse translation, the others are crap), Metamorphosis by Kafka. Most of those are not terribly long. I'm convinced people of yesteryear had a short attention span.
Favourite "classic" play : MacBeth and despite my theater/medieval studies history, I am not big on Shakespeare. This one I like though.
Other miscellaneous "classics" but not necessarily novels : Republic by Plato, Symposium by Plato. I actually just love Plato for some reason but if someone asks for philosophy, I normally give one of those two as a recommendation. Republic would be better for critical thinking for the MCAT.
Classic novel that I've read part of and really want to finish one day : Lord of the flies
Book that I thought I would like but didn't: 1984 (it ended up making me paranoid about EVERYTHING)
Some classics that are sitting on my kindle just waiting for time to start them : Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Varney the Vampire, Lost World (Arthur Conan Doyle), Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, Last of the Mohicans (I blame MASH for that one.)