I have read a lot of fantasy and to me the best ones are still the ones that stick to the genre tropes, but manage to incorporate fresh elements. The books that I have read that try too hard to subvert the tropes just comes off as forced and faked. It is a credit to Tolkien that so many of the genre tropes that he created with the Lord of The Rings and The Hobbit are still so popular to this day. One very common genre trope in fantasy is that the "heroes" are always the good guys and fighting for justice, which is something that is flipped on its head in The Black Company series by Glen Cook. It is slightly darker than your average fantasy series and focuses on an elite group of mercenaries. True to their name, these guys are in it for the money and not to be heroes. It also means that their employer might not be on the side that you would expect in a fantasy series. I don't know if this change is drastic enough to count as "subverting the genre tropes" but it does make for a very interesting read from a different perspective.

I would love to see a television series made out of the James Joyce book, Finnegans Wake, just to see the reaction. It is one of those books that everyone who is hip claims to have read, but nobody can actually give a clear explanation of what the heck happened in it. If any network is brave enough to try and turn it into a television series I would expect the results to be pretty surreal. However, in the unlikely event that it is ever filmed, I'm pretty sure they would simply change 90% of the original story and transform it into something completely different.

This might be a little off topic, but to me it feels like a lot of people are intimidated by classic books purely because of their age and reputation. There are hundreds of great classic books that are easy to read, funny, engaging and written in a style that won't have you reaching for your dictionary every five words. If you are not a frequent reader, then those are the type of classics I would recommend first. If you have read plenty of books, including a couple of classics and want to go for something that is a little bit more challenging, then there are a couple of other criteria to keep in mind. First, don't go for the oldest, largest book you can find first, especially if the book was not originally in English. Instead, pick something that is a little more recent and ease yourself into it first. You'll find that as your vocabulary grows, so will your enjoyment of the books. Put in a little effort and research the translations of the books you are interested in as well. There are plenty of non-English classics that has had a couple of translations over the years and some are better than others, so definitely look into that. Now, to (finally) answer your question, it is without a doubt War and Peace. I have read a lot of books in my life, including plenty of the classics, but there is just nothing about War and Peace that draws me to it.

This would be hard to answer unless you tell us what skill level you are at too. Are you a complete beginner or do you have some artistic background and want to branch out to a different style? Feel free to reply to my comment and I might have some suggestions for you.

I would hate to read a book only to discover it's not finished, but luckily that has never happened to me. I have however read a few unfinished books by authors who I really enjoy. The first was one by Dalton Trumbo, called Night of the Aurochs. Everyone knows Trumbo for Johnny Got His Gun, but I think Night of the Aurochs would have surpassed it if he had the chance to finish the story. It was published three years after he passed away and while it is a World War II novel it is told from the viewpoint of a Nazi. Even more harrowing, this Nazi who is called Grieban is also commandant of a concentration camp. Here he meets a Jewish woman who causes him to question his own ideals. The only other one is The Pale King by David Foster Wallace, but I don't recommend it to people who are not already familiar with his style. Even in its incomplete form it has more than 50 chapters. What I like about The Pale King is that Wallace wrote in such a way that each chapter is almost self-contained. Don't expect an easy summary of the story either as it's extremely difficult.