Solaris

Until 2011, the only English edition of Stanislaw Lem's book Solaris was a translation of the French translation that Lem considered awful. A new translation was published in 2011, and is available from Amazon for $3.99. It's worth re-reading, and if your only exposure to Solaris was the George Clooney movie, this is the version you should get.

Possible Opening Lines From the Science Fiction Novel I Will Likely Never Write, #1

The aliens, thought Corporal Schlitz, resemble nothing so much as piles of dog vomit.