These have been lumped in with general anime threads for too long I think. I just started getting interested in these and wish I had started sooner. Obviously a ton of good anime have been adapted from light/visual novels and it's always fun to read the source material.
One VN I found popular on 4chan for its story and characters is Devil on G-string (no, not that kind of g-string, though I'm sure it's ecchi enough). I just got through chapter 1 and so far it's reaaaally good. There is an english patch for it and I found it on one of the popular download sites.
A weirder visual novel is Morenatsu which seems to be about gay furries, I didn't really know there was a big market for that in Japan. It's also english patched, lol. I'm really not sure how to feel about it so far >_>
I'd be happy if anyone had recommendations for good light/visual novels that have English translations and I'm sure others would be interested in that too ^^
btw does anyone know if katanagatari novels have a translation yet? I can't find any but that doesn't mean it's not out there.