The best place to begin is with the first book, Little House In The Big Woods, but if you're planning to read only one of Laura Ingalls Wilder's books, read The Long Winter, which is really dramatic.

What makes Shirley Jackson such an intriguing writer was her duality. She was a master at penning horror classics like The Haunting of Hill House, and her famous short story, The Lottery, and just as much genius burned in her comical family stories collected in two books: Life Among The Savages and Raising Demons. It's difficult to recommend one or the other, so if you like fun, light reading, start with Life Among The Savages and if you want a bit of a chill, try The Haunting Of Hill House or We Have Always Lived In The Castle. A not-so-good place to start with Shirley Jackson is with The Sundial. The novel is a little dull and forced --unusual for Jackson-- and every character is unpleasant in one way or another.

Father Melancholy's Daughter, Godwin's novel about a motherless young woman and her Episcopal priest father is a good place to start with Gail Godwin. There is a sequel to that novel, Evensong, which picks up the story seven years later. Margaret, the daughter has gone on to become a priest herself. Both novels have such a calm and pure tone, and show Godwin's sure hand at storytelling.

A bad place to begin with Gail Godwin would be 1978's Violet Clay, an earlier novel. The plot seems sketchy and the characters cardboardish. The writing shows the promise to come, but the author just hadn't hit her stride yet, although she would with the publication of A Mother And Two Daughters in the early 1980s.

Wildlife is a short novel about the disintegration of a teenaged boy's family when his golf pro father goes off to help fight a wildfire in Montana. This novel and also Ford's collection of short stories, Rock Springs, published around the same time, are both excellent introductions to this author, rather than his two novels about Frank Bascombe, The Sportswriter and Independence Day.

A great place to start with Roddy Doyle is "The Barrytown Trilogy" which consists of: The Commitments, The Snapper, and The Van, all tales of Jimmy Rabbitte's family. Laugh out loud funny!

Lonesome Dove is a great place to start with Larry McMurtry, but the "Houston books" All My Friends Are Going To Be Strangers, Moving On, Terms of Endearment and The Evening Star are great as well.