"What do you read?" This is perhaps the most frequently asked question during the Q&A portion of any appearance I do, and I always feel as if I can’t possibly be fair by singling out a few. Moreover, I’m not sure there’s much of a connection between readers liking what I’ve written and liking what I read. Still, for what it’s worth, here is a list of favorites read or re-read since 2000 (when I slowed my legal practice and started reading again) that will stay on my shelves regardless of renovations, spring cleanings, garage sales and time in general. There are a few standards and bestsellers, but also many that may have escaped your notice. The list contains comedy, tragedy, books loved for story, for language, or both. The only thing they have in common is that they were read for pleasure and succeeded. I offer them without representation or warranty that you will like even one, but only with the promise that when I closed each of these, I was sorry to be finished. Donald Antrim – The Hundred Brothers Russell Banks – The Rule of the Bone Max Barry – Syrup T.C. Boyle – Budding Prospects World’s End Water Music Stories Frederick Busch – Closing Arguments Girls Too Late American Boyhood Blues (stories) Don’t Tell Anyone (stories) Ethan Canin – The Emperor of the Air (stories) The Palace Thief (stories) Michael Chabon – Wonder Boys Jim Crace – Being Dead Michael Cunningham – The Hours Don DeLillo – Underworld The Body Artist Clyde Edgerton – Raney Leslie Epstein – Goldkorn Tales (3 novellas) Jeffrey Eugenides – Middlesex The Virgin Suicides Jonathan Safran Foer – Everything is Illuminated Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close Kay Gibbons – Ellen Foster Mark Haddon – The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime Kent Haruf – Plainsong Eventide Nick Hornby – High Fidelity John Irving – The World According to Garp The Cider House Rules William Kennedy – Ironweed Legs Jonathan Lethem – Motherless Brooklyn Sam Lipsyte – Home Land Steve Martin – Shop Girl Lorrie Moore – Self-Help (stories) Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? Birds of America (stories) Ian McEwan – Atonement Amsterdam Saturday Cormac McCarthy – Blood Meridian Susan Minot – Evening J.R. Moehringer – The Tender Bar William Monahan – Lighthouse Howard Frank Mosher – Disappearances A Stranger in the Kingdom Alice Munro – Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage (stories) Gloria Naylor – The Women of Brewster Place Lewis Nordan – Wolf Whistle The Sharpshooter Blues Sugar Among the Freaks (stories) Tim O’Brien – The Things They Carried In the Lake of the Woods Tomcat in Love Flannery O’Connor – Everything That Rises Must Converge Robert M. Pirsig – Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Richard Russo – The Risk Pool Nobody’s Fool Straight Man J.D. Salinger – Franny and Zooey Nine Stories The Catcher in the Rye Jose Saramago – Blindness Lionel Shriver – Checker and the Derailleurs Jane Smiley – Ordinary Love and Good Will (two novellas) John Kennedy Toole – A Confederacy of Dunces Anne Tyler – Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant The Accidental Tourist Richard Yates – Revolutionary Road