Novel ideas: Ten novel's you'll be happy I obliged you to read

Well, having spent a long time in graduate school I understand better than anyone that
book reading is tiring and had better be worth ones while. So here you go, my list of novels
that you'll thank me for obliging you to read.

Lolita | Vladimir Nabokov
One of the most lyric books every written.
Its satire seems to be lost on some people; don't be one of them.

The Crying of Lot 49 | Thomas Pynchon
So good a detective story you won't care if it doesn't resolve.
You'll be spooked by the post office for years.
I also recommend V if you aren't up for Gravity's Rainbow, and who is?

The Lover | Marguerite Duras
A stunning meditation on memory, great in any language.

White Noise | Don DeLillo
One of the wittiest books every written.
It's kind of a manual for the modern world.
I'm half way through The Names right now and it's great too.

Crash | J.G. Ballard
Whatever your opinion of the film, this is a classic novel.

The Portrait of Dorian Grey | Oscar Wilde
Source of many of his best quotes.

Catch 22 | Joseph Heller
A truly funny and distrubing book about war, the military and the nature of memory.

Generation X | Douglas Copeland
It's the book that became a cliche,
but it has more than a grain of truth to it and
it introduced the useful term 'semi-disposable Swedish furniture' to my vocabulary.

The Big Sleep | Raymond Chandler
A brilliant and surprisingly erotic novel;
you can feel the tension of the impending rain all throughout.

Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There | Lewis Carroll
Seriously a brilliant dissertation on the nature of language,
as is its companion novel Wonderland.