Not a recommendation, but an achievement: just finished reading Foucault's Pendulum for the second time.
^ Bought this edition in 1990, because the book was much talked about on its release, but now, 30 years later, I have a much less charitable opinion of this over-long, over-indulgent and over-rated novel.
It's my theory that some novels survived because in the bad old pre-internet days people didn't have access to the instant entertainment that's available today. They had to "make do" with what they could find - rather like the way Victorians used to listen to each other playing the piano at home of an evening or, going furthur back, enjoying four-hours of eye-watering embroidery work while they waited for bedtime to come round. If so, I'd put this book in that category: imo it doesn't deliver much reward given the effort needed to work through its 650-odd pages.