What are the most high quality books you would recommend?

Hello everyone! I have a kinda niche situation where I have picked up reading novels at the age of 25.

Up until now, I have seen novels/fiction/mangas as incredibly boring time-wasters, as one could more "efficiently" consume the same content via shows, cartoons, films etc.

I am a physicist, so I have been reading a lot of math/physics-related (text-)books and papers for years. Recently, however, I gave mangas (Chainsaw Man in this case) a shot and holy ****, I am having much more fun than with anime. Consequently, I also started reading fiction (Warhammer), and I am having a blast.

That being said, growing up with a passionate hate for such books (probably because I was forced to read), I have only completed maybe 10 novels in my ENTIRE LIFE, 7 of them being part of a book series that I had finished during my childhood (Ranger's Apprentice series it was amazing). The last novel I finished was when I was 11 (it was a WarCraft the Last Guardian if I remember correctly).

I have even skipped the mandatory literature we had to read in school, as their summaries were more than enough to get a good grade.

In other words, there are a lot of things I have to catch up on! Since I am kinda short on time, however, I do not want to waste my time with objectively bad or incredibly outdated ones (I still hate Faust, for example, as although being a very important piece for the development of German literature, I find it to be very horrible/boring/bad compared to today’s literature).

So, I would really appreciate your recommendations! What kind of books should I read where you would say they are incredibly good and fitting to my situation? What are the non-out-dated must-reads in your opinion?

More parameters:

• I love fantasy/sci-fi, but other options are always welcome.
• Plot is very important to me. The more unexpected/challenging, the better!
• If some metaphysics is involved (magic systems, time travel, after-life stuff), it should be really well thought out, with as few inconsistencies as possible. I love complex magic systems.
• I am not that fond of detective whodunnit type of books, the whole plot is bound to one boring question.
• I can read in English/German/Turkish.

Books that I tried to read/partially read that I absolutely hated and the reason:

• Faust, as mentioned above: very boring plot, very dragging. Although I appreciate poetry, the fact that the amount of poetic language in Faust makes the text much more difficult to understand than it is supposed to be actively makes me angry while reading just come to the point already ffs.
• The Steppenwolf: Insanely pretentious, literally nothing interesting is happening in the book. I do not care about the feelings of a depressed man in his 40s like wow.
• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn: Also very monotonous, nothing interesting is happening. Could be summarized in a few pages without losing much information.

I am really sorry for being hateful towards these books, as I am sure some people like them. I am also sorry for being very picky 🙁