Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray (Penguin, $2). The story of clever, ruthless Becky Sharp, who schemes her way from the bottom to the top of British society. But then it gets more complicated. Thackeray’s observations of human nature are often cutting, but he’s also sympathetic.
Stern by Bruce Jay Friedman (Grove, $12). Perhaps the most hilarious book I’ve ever read. A blackly, bleakly comic novel about the adventures—“plight” might be a better word—of a suburban everyman. Friedman has been compared to Philip Roth—they both mine a certain vein of Jewish humor—but Friedman is more idiosyncratic and definitely more surreal.
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Bleak House by Charles Dickens (Signet, $8). The tale of three young people told against the backdrop of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce, a court case about a contested will that has gone on for so long it has become a punch line in the courts of London. Bleak House is sad and funny and deeply absorbing, once you get into it, like all of Dickens’ books.
The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith (Vintage, $14). A deeply scary but compelling novel about a charming, amoral sociopath named Tom Ripley whose sexual confusion is the very least of his “issues.” A beautiful book about envy, money, power, sex, and murder.
The Strange Life of Ivan Osokin by P.D. Ouspensky (Kessinger, $25). A philosophical novel that asks whether we are perhaps destined to live this life over and over until we get it right—which is why we sometimes get the feeling that we have been here before.
The Great Gatsby
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