If you don't mind weird plot advancements, Tolsty is pretty good. War and Peace is the one I'm currently digging through and it's quite well-written.

Another good one is Honey for the Bears. I can't remember if it was Anthony Burgess or George Orwell for some odd reason, but I'm leaning towards Burgess. If you can get your hands on some of Orwell's short works like To Shoot an Elephant, those are pretty interesting too.

A lot of Isaac Asimov's stuff is supposed to be good, though I've only read one of the Foundation books myself.

Animal Farm, also by George Orwell is an excellent read (not quite as good as 1984, but still very close in my opinion).
Most of the best, or at least better science-fiction, IMO, tends to come from the classics, so if you want to find something in that category you can really get interested in, I'd look into the works of Ray Bradberry (Farenheit 451) and Arthur C. Clark (2001: Space Oddeysey and Childhood's End)
As for Isaac Asimov's books, I'd recommend Nemesis (since it's an example of good sci-fi that doesn't revolve around futuristic warfare, as so much "modern" sci-fi tends to these days), and of course, A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Junior. As for more recent works, I would recommend the Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson