Good novels. As a meta note I'd suggest splitting hard and soft sci fi... someone who likes KSR's mars trilogy (which needs to be on the list) is possibly not going to like ultra super soft stuff like stranger in a strange land and vice versa. Then there's the in between stuff like moon is a harsh mistress.
Its sort of like a religious books list. Its quite possible that a lot of devout followers aren't going to be amused by reading the competition, and if you want a survey textbook, just buy a textbook.
I read just about every Heinlein story I could get my hands on as a teenager. The funny thing is that the one's I thought were sort of stupid - e.g. Have Space Suit Will Travel and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress - because they were only about the solar system, I've found to be among my favorites as an adult.
Then again, I couldn't get through Friday back then, but found the description of the role that big data would play in the future prescient a few years ago. Likewise, understanding Stranger in a Strange Land in the context of Heinlien's relationship with Hubbard was beyond me in high-school [Hubbard's BattleField Earth is worth a read or at least a try, even if the movie isn't. He was a talented writer among other things].
I still have almost every story and book he has written. I especially enjoyed "Grumbles from the Grave" where talks about pushing the envelope to see what he could get away with. It made some of his more extreme viewpoints in the later books make more sense. He was trolling people.
Moon is a Harsh Mistress is my favorite of his, because it is a fun multi layered story. And we are almost at the day that Adam Selene could exist. I saw a Simon Jester reference the other day, made me laugh. I have read BattleField Earth a couple times, it is a massive book. L. Ron writes in the introduction that he wrote the book for himself, that he let his imagination run wild. L. Ron has quite an imagination (see Xenu), and the book is a long fast roller-coaster.
Has anyone else noticed the similarity between DD Harriman (The man who sold the moon) and Elon Musk?
Also he had a version of the internet thought out in 1938 "For us the living" which relied on an intercontinental series of tubes. Maybe Ted Stevens got his information from that. That book has many of his major plot lines jammed into one book. Not the best, but interesting to see the V1.0 of what became the Future History ideas. I read it right after the banking problems in 2008, so it was timely to read Heinlein rant about banking in the book (he disliked fractional reserve banking)
Its sort of like a religious books list. Its quite possible that a lot of devout followers aren't going to be amused by reading the competition, and if you want a survey textbook, just buy a textbook.