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I'm starting this off with my current Top 5 and why they struck a chord with me.

Don Quixote - Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, what many consider to be the first novel. Cervantes is the father of all fiction writers, and his unforgettable creation, Don Quixote, is that part of us that won't settle for watered-down versions of human experience and sets our sights on higher things.

Raskolnikov - Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. The temptation to see others as less important than ourselves—maybe even as disposible—fuels the ends justify the means mentality championed by tyrants and bullies. Every person matters equally, and Raskolnikov has to hit rock bottom before figuring that out.

Emma Bovary - Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert. Emma could be a direct descendent of Don Quixote, a woman tortured by the chasm that exists between her romantic dreams and the life-sapping routines of her daily life.

Jay Gatsby - The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. In one of the most ironic and tragic stories in American Literature, a young man of humble origins remakes himself by chasing The American Dream as a means to winning back the woman of his dreams, Daisy Buchanan.

Gregor Samsa - The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. I don't know about you, but a guy who wakes up in his bed transformed into a giant insect has a way of hanging around in my memory banks. Have you ever stopped to ask yourself questions like, Who am I really? What is happening to me? How did I get here? Kafka shows us Gregor and ourselves in an entertaining and horrifying way.