Hey, here's some books I like - you mean, I'm not illiterate?

Yeah, I actually can read. In fact, I read far too much. The Chicago Public Library has sent a leg-breaker to my house and he's waiting out in front so he can knee-cap me and get some of their books back (hey, this is Chicago). But seriously, here's some of my recent favorites:

1. Richard Yates' Revolutionary Road
2. Seymour Epstein's Leah
3. Richard Yates' The Easter Parade
4. James Salter's The Hunters
5. David Goodis' Of Tender Sin
6. Edward Lewis Wallant's The Tenants of Moonbloom
7. Paula Fox's Desperate Characters
8. Charles Willeford's Pick-Up

Looking back at the novels I've liked the most, almost all of them come from the period 1945-1965, and most of them come from the Fifties and early 60s. Paula Fox's Desperate Characters is a bit of an anomaly, as it was published in 1970 - I think my reason for liking that book is that it utilizes mid-century techniques to explore the late 60s. Richard Yates' The Easter Parade is a later novel as well (published in 1976), of course, but essentially is a throw-back to Yates' sometimes obsessive focus on the Forties through the Sixties.