I read almost nothing but sci-fi till I was in my mid teens. I've flipped through a number of Michner's works on rainy weekend afternoons. But just a few years ago I picked up Fires of Spring and was blown away. So thoroughly removed from the rest of his stuff. The whole matter of just how "autobiographical" it really was, was the $64,000 dollar question. I know he several times referred to himself in interviews as a "foundling" which was old-timey code for illegitimate/left-on-the-church-doorstep.
Also, when I was a kid, I read Caravans after seeing the excreble Anthony Quinn/Michael Sarrazin movie version and found it quite educational.
There was also Leon Uris Exodus (the parental units had picked up a Mantovani album wherein he and his orchestra play the themes of early sixties movie classics with a bunch of other old records at a flea market) I couldn't get that main theme out of my head so I checked out the book. In retrospect, the prose was a little overwrought and I remain seriously uncomfortable with historical novels that mix fictional characters with real ones--telescope timelines, combine incidents, smooth over ugly spots, etc. but it did get me started on the Middle East. Leon Uris has been heard to lament that more people read his Trinity than all the other books on Ireland put together (a great favorite of IRA types).