FICTION Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon: technology and slapstick raised to the nth power.
Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow: a saline picaresque of American literary life.
Look at the Harlequins! by Vladimir Nabokov: the master's valedictory novel, with his customary flourishes and optical allusions.
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez: a South American village transformed by magic and time.
Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow: the past imperfect, done with syncopation and high style.
Shosha by Isaac Bashevis Singer: the most recent novel by America's 1978 Nobel laureate for Literature.
The Stories of John Cheever by John...