 | The Trial by Franz Kafka
Buy new: $10.40 / Used from: $4.48 Kafka's work of genius is a nightmare of altered perspective and proportion. Orson Welles' movie version is brilliant as well if underappreciated.
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 | One Hundred Years of Solitude (P.S.) by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Buy new: $10.17 / Used from: $3.95 From the first paragraphs in which villagers in South America gather to see the miracle of an ice block, this is a lyrical, evocative and heart-rending work. Paradoxically, its magical elements allowed me to bridge the cultural gap and have a more realistic insight into the lives portrayed.
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 | Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin
Buy new: $10.88 / Used from: $1.33 I love this book. It transports the reader to a New York City of neighborhoods and wonder. Upbeat and believable. This is one of the first books I recommend to friends.
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 | Little, Big by John Crowley
Buy new: $11.53 / Used from: $4.89 A family history in a house of magical environments. It combines 60s sensibility, personal philosophy, and compelling characters. My first son's middle name is taken from one of the characters.
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 | Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
Buy new: $11.20 / Used from: $2.95 In this case, as with Murakami below, I recommend the writer's whole body of work rather than one volume. Invisible Cities is a short but wonderful set of descriptions of a city like Venice from different perspectives. T-Zero and Cosmicomics contains science fiction stories of cosmic significance told in a matter of fact manner.
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 | The Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami
Buy used from: $27.21 This book as well as A Wild Sheep Chase and Dance, Dance, Dance are more enjoyable for me than Murakami's later, more ambitious books. A Marlowe like detective story in a world that is slightly off. Mix Chandler, Vonnegut and Tom Robbins with a touch of Hemingway narrative and you begin to approach the flavor.
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 | The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut
Buy new: $11.20 / Used from: $6.20 Speaking of Vonnegut, Sirens and Slaughterhouse 5 were early introductions for me to this genre. In Sirens, all of human history can be understood as a way to get a message to an alien waiting on the moon for a part to repair his spacecraft. The message he must deliver: "Greetings."
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 | The Woman in the Dunes by Kobo Abe
Buy new: $11.16 / Used from: $4.30 Slow and dreamlike. Abe's hero cannot escape from the dunes. The utterly absurd becomes concrete, believable and full of dread.
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 | Shoeless Joe by W. P. Kinsella
Buy new: $11.16 / Used from: $0.01 The success of the movie has obscured what a strong book this is. It is sentimental but is the best book ever written about belief, baseball, father/son relationships and Iowa.
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 | Even Cowgirls Get the Blues by Tom Robbins
Buy new: $11.20 / Used from: $2.98 I know he is not for everyone and his last 4-5 books are not worth reading (although I still do.) If you want to experience what one generation actually thought the world could become for a few moments in the sixties, read this book along with Another Roadside Attraction, Still Life With Woodpecker and Jitterbug Perfume.
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