The Lay of the Land
by Richard Ford | 
Independence Day
by Richard Ford | 
Rabbit Redux
by John Updike | 
The Broom of the System
by David Foster Wallace | 
The Fourth Hand
by John Irving | 
A Man in Full
by Tom Wolfe | 
Oracle Night
by Paul Auster | 
The Thanatos Syndrome
by Walker Percy | 
I Married a Communist
by Philip Roth | 
The Mezzanine
by Nicholson Baker | 
Cosmopolis
by Don DeLillo | 
The Second Coming
by Walker Percy | 
The Water-Method Man
by John Irving | 
Travels in the Scriptorium
by Paul Auster | 
Love in the Ruins
by Walker Percy | 
Let Me Be Frank With You
by Richard Ford | 
East of Eden
by John Steinbeck | 
Nine Stories
by J. D. Salinger | 
David Copperfield
by Charles Dickens | 
Stoner
by John Williams |
As a sportswriter, Frank Bascombe makes his living studying people--men, mostly--who live entirely within themselves. This is a condition that Frank himself aspires to. But at thirty-eight, he suffers from incurable dreaminess, occasional pounding of the heart, and the not-too-distant losses of a career, a son, and a marriage. In the course of the Easter week in which Ford's moving novel transpires, Bascombe will end up losing the remnants of his familiar life, though with his spirits soaring.