One of my favorite American writers is Carson McCullers. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter evoqued an atmosphere revealing something of the mysteries of America before I had even been there. So did Kafka's America. When I first came to New York it was in Hoboken that I saw streets that seemed straight out of Kafka's book. (I know he has never been there) So books and writers are miracles.

Most cherished homeland book : The Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmus.

Jane Austen for romantics
J.J.Rousseau for romantics + idealistics
Thomas Hardy for melancholy
Diderot for fun. (Jaques the Fatalist and his master)
Dostojevski for deep human suffering
Shakespeare for beauty
Marcel Proust for a two year's comfort- and- sweet- dream's contract
Gogolj for madness

Sorry , this post is rolling off the rail.