calling all lit nerds!

I suck at classic literature. I hated (HATED) The Invisible Man, and I got bored with Jane Austen and never finished anything I started by her, and I couldn't get into stuff like Uncle Tom's Cabin (who's that by, Harriet Beecher Stowe?). But everybody seems to have an author or a book that they've LOVED, or that changed their life, or something, and I don't. :( So, because I suck at literature, can you recommend anything? This goes for poetry as well (I haven't really read anything seriously...).