Personally, I'm not in favour of questions of this type, essentially because the "correct" answer is always going to be intensely personal.
No-one comes to be engaged enought with English literature to ask questions about it without actually having read some of it first. So if we approach a question like this by suggesting some of the more approachable classic texts - Orwell was deservedly mentioned in the question that spawned this - there's a good chance we'll be teaching the asker something they already know.
Even if this isn't the case, tastes and appreciation vary widely. I know someone who delights in Chaucer in the original Middle English but finds Shakespeare to be impenetrable and elitist. I know someone else who loves Shakespeare and other drama with an eye to performance but who prefers to read comic books. It is extremely difficult to help someone with a "way in" to the literary world without knowing something about their tastes and background, and that's too much personal detail for a question.
If we are to accept these questions I would suggest that the only way to do so is in a slightly different light: that rather than look at texts, we look at the appreciation of texts. Recommend that people learn about the basic techniques of literary theory essentially: close reading, analytical frameworks, poetic devices and so on. That might work, but in my opinion it's still far too broad a subject for the format of this site.