One of those was Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie. All these years I stayed away from his books mainly because of his notorious reputation for 'you know what' and the fact that he's got a Booker prize (I have strong prejudices against prizes given out by committees :/). But, I'm glad I din't stand fast on my prejudices. Midnight's Children is an excellent book; I was vaguely expecting it to be a flaky fantasy but, it was deliciously different from anything I've ever read before (I had the same feeling when I read Catch-22 a long time ago). The narrative was descriptive and witty (if not always gripping). I particularly like the autobiographical tone of the narrative where Saleem Sinai gives you some glimpses of events that are going to happen in the future (I haven't read any autobiographies so, I'm only guessing here...).I also like the seemingly bizarre chapter titles that somehow make sense when you finish that chapter. My particular favorites are: The perforated sheet, Many-headed monsters, All-India radio, Alpha and Omega and Commander Sabarmati's baton. Saleem Sinai's serendipitous tryst with India's destiny is almost like an Indian version of of Forrest Gump (one difference being Saleem is always not as lucky). Actually, it should be the other way around chronologically because Midnight's Children was first published in 1981 and the movie was released in 1994; forgive me there I saw the movie before I read the book. In some ways its almost like Paradise Lost for the average Indian. Another interesting thing about the book was that the story telling would abruptly shoot off on irrelevant tangents based on some small thing. All the math in the book also sums up which is always a big plus :D (581 + 420 = 1001).
On the whole it is a pretty awesome book and you shouldn't pass up a chance to read it up.