1) War and Peace (Everyone is sad and it snows.)
2) The Grapes of Wrath (Farming sucks. Road trip! Road trip sucks.)
3) Dante's Inferno (All hell breaks loose.)
4) Beowulf (Hero kills monster. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Dragon kills hero.)
5) Crime and Punishment (Murderer feels bad. Goes to jail. Feels better.)
That just saved you about 1,000 hours of reading. :)