"I do find recommendations from others far more useful than chart ratings" The very reason I lurked on MN, for their book threads more than anything else. Often little heard of books created such a buzz, that often gave me the impetus to read them. Books I otherwise wouldn't have stumbled across. Here are some that I fell in love with, so much so, I felt utterly bereft when I finished them.
Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides
The Quincunx - (it's not rude it's Latin ) possibly one of the longest books I've ever read, over 1,200 pages. A brilliant, if not convoluted Dickens pastiche set in the early 19th century, essentially about an inheritance. Author Charles Palliser, I don't think he's written anything else, "author exhaustion" I imagine!
The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver
The Crimson Petal and The White - Michel Faber
The Goldfinch - Donna Tart, although I'd read her already her two other books so she wasn't unknown to me.
The Heart's Invisible Furies - John Boyne.
Not all recommendations over on MN were to my liking hated these.
A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
Lincoln In The Bardo - George Saunders.
Other authors I love, pretty much anything by Kate Morton, a lot of the late Ruth Rendell's stuff, particularly her Barbara Vine books and I absolutely adored The Blind Assassin and Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood, Ian McEwan's Atonement.