The Top Five:
1. Bernard Malamud, The Fixer
2. Kent Haruf, Plainsong
3. Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
4. J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey
5. Junot Diaz, Drown
Six that were shockingly creative:
1. Adolfo Bioy-Casares, The Invention of Morel
2. Albert Camus, The Stranger
3. Philip K. Dick, The Man in the High Castle
4. Dave Eggers, et al., Best American Nonrequired Reading of '07
5. H.G. Wells, The Time Machine
6. Michael Chabon, et al., The Best American Short Stories of '05
Five that were very sad, saddening and/or poignant:
1. Russell Banks, The Sweet Hereafter
2. William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying
3. Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club
4. Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
5. Raymond Carver, Short Cuts
Five that were frustrating, infuriating and/or devastating, but great nonetheless:
1. Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible
2. Al Franken, The Truth (With Jokes)
3. George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia
4. John Knowles, A Separate Peace
5. Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre
Four that were difficult to get through:
1. Sophocles, Electra
2. Chang-rae Lee, A Gesture Life
3. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 100 Years of Solitude
4. Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine
Four manly books about manly men:
1. Homer, The Odyssey
2. Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men
3. Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep
4. Bernard Malamud, The Natural
Three powerful and passionate books about love and politics:
1. Graham Greene, The End of the Affair
2. Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises
3. Junot Diaz, The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Three hilarious:
1. Franz Kafka, The Trial
2. Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
3. Thomas McGuane, 92 in the Shade
Three lyrical and meditative:
1. Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri
2. Elizabeth Bishop, North and South
3. Hermann Hesse, Demian
Two with weak, rushed endings:
1. Leif Enger, Peace Like a River
2. Jonathan Franzen, The Twenty-Seventh City
One I quit after 50 pages:
1. William Gibson, Neuromancer
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