Mervyn Peake: The Gormenghast Trilogy (which consists of "Titus Groan," "Gormenghast," and "Titus Alone."
A fantasy series by a real writer. The first volume was selected by Anthony Burgess as one of the 100 best novels in English for inclusion in his book "100 Novels."

John LeCarre: "The Quest for Carla" (which consists of "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy," "The Honourable Schoolboy," and "Smiley's People," each available separately as well).
As with Gormenghast, it's the genre novel as literature. Aside from a good, challenging read, they ll provide an excellent look at how the Cold War was fought.

Jack Finney: "Time And Again"
Time travel without gadgets. I read it at least once every five years.

Allen Kurzweil: "A Case of Curiosities"
High tech in olden times. Great fun.

John Kennedy Toole: "A Confederacy of Dunces"
Trust me on this one.

Charles Einstein: "Willie's Time"
On the surface, this is a book about Willie Mays, a (or, perhaps more accurately, the) baseball player. Like many baseball books (especially those by Roger Kahn and Roger Angell) it goes much deeper. "Willie s Time" is Postwar America in microcosm.

James Thurber: "The Years With Ross"
Thurber was a wonderful writer and cartoonist who did much of his best work for The New Yorker under its founding Editor, Harold Ross. This memoir, although highly self serving, gives an excellent grounding in what New York s literary life was like when it actually had one.

Graham & Greenfield: "Bill Graham Presents"
Bill Graham was rock's preeminent concert promoter/manager until his death in a 1991 helicopter crash. This is his story, and as such the story of much of popular music from the mid-sixties to the late eighties.

Stella Gibbon: "Cold Comfort Farm"
Written as a parody of a type of book popular in England between the wars, this comic masterpiece is on my at once every two years shelf. The orphaned Flora Poste leaves London to live with distant relatives in the country, and proceeds to set their lives in order.

William Goldman: "Adventures In The Screen Trade"
Goldman, the author of "The Princess Bride" and many excellent screenplays, provides an insider's insight into the workings of the movie biz. The recurring theme is "nobody knows anything."

William Manchester: "The Arms of Krupp"
A historical biography of the German steel and munitions dynasty. It's also a guide to how behind-the-scenes power worked in Europe for many centuries.

Robert Caro: "The Power Broker"
A muckraking biography of Robert Moses, the man responsible for much of the way New York state works (and doesn't work), and even more of the way it looks. Once you re past the first 2-300 pages it's clear sailing!

Neal Stephenson: The Baroque Cycle (which consists of "Quicksilver," "The Confusion," and "The System of The World.").
If you thought "Cryptonomicon" was densely packed, The Baroque Cycle will make your head explode.

Bill Bryson: "A Short History of Nearly Everything"
Science. All of it. I'm not kidding. Worth the price even if you don't read past the introduction, which is flat-out wonderful.

Thomas Kunkel (ed): "Letters from the Editor: The New Yorker's Harold Ross"
The most recent Ross biography is entitled "Genius in Disguise: Harold Ross of the New Yorker." This all-too-slender book of Ross' letters, edited by the author of that biography, makes it clear why that title is justified.