Taken a deep breath and have started Anna Karenina by Tolstoy. It's one of those books that I have been saying to myself 'yerr I should really read that' for about 10 years but never had the gumption to actually start. But 1/8th through it's actually much easier than I thought.
Ppl reading HP books should really give Philip Pullman's
His Dark Materials trilogy a go (I: Northern Lights, II: The Subtle Knife , III: The Amber Spyglass); it's much, much better, IMHO of course
they are making a movie out of it and you will want to have read the books by time that's out (07 or 08 I think)