I think Dead Souls was his only novel, so it's a good place to start. He is also famous for short stories.

The novel was unfinished, and Gogol destroyed much of what he had written a few weeks before he starved himself to death. So what's left is a tantalizing glimpse of his weird vision.

It is one of the great Russian novels, very much worth reading.

I enjoyed reading "Owen Meany" -- but I'm not sure what the point was, or if there even was one. But maybe I'm too literal-minded.

I'm not voting, because I haven't read "A Thousand Splendid Suns" so I can't say that "The Kite Runner" is the better of the two. What I can say is that "The Kite Runner" is very good.

About 20 years ago my sister gave me a copy of "The Bean Trees". I finally read it last summer. Not bad! I guess my sister isn't such an idiot after all.

I suppose you should start with "The Life of Pi" as it is his most famous book. It's the only one I've read.

I found it interesting and engaging at first but then it quickly became preposterous. I suppose that the ending, where the reader is presented with two different versions of Pi's survival tale, is supposed to provoke us to think about the nature of reality or some such crap. I thought it was juvenile and kicked myself for wasting my time on such a silly book.

So I would suggest that you read a different author first.

I too liked Cronicles -- Part 1. He discusses his life in such an indirect way, that it's difficult to match up what he says with what I think I know about him. For example, he talks about what was going through his head when he was recording a certain album, but neglects to mention which album. That's kind of interesting.

I was reading it one night while my wife was watching "E.R." on the television. Dylan talks about the first time he heard the famous Robert Johnson album and how transfixed he was by it. I was thinking "Wow, it's been years since I've heard that record!" Just then, on the TV, they start playing a song from it. Spooky, huh!? -- I just thought I'd mention that.

Many of the Magical Realist cliches that you read in books and see in movies nowadays were not cliches back in 1967 when Garcia Marquez invented them for the novel "100 Years of Solitude".

I read "100 Years" in Spanish 25 years ago and thought it was wonderful. I recently reread it in Spanish and then in English. I'm sorry to say, I don't think it has aged all that well, or maybe I'm the one showing my age. Still, it's an important book and very much worth reading -- for its own sake and also so that you can see from whence other, lesser authors, have been stealing their ideas these past thirty years.

I think Garcia Marques himself must have seen the stylistic limitations of "100 Years" very quickly, because most of his work since then has been less flashy and much more realistic. "Love in the Time of Cholera" is a good starting point.

Mark Twain thought that Scott's works had a pernicious influence on the minds of Southerners. He felt that that they absorbed confused ideas about chivalry from his books and used these notions to justify racism and slavery. I don't think he advocated banning the books, but he thought that people shouldn't read them.

Now Sir Walter is mostly forgotten, but Mark Twain is banned for using the N-word. Go figure.

Anyway, Ivanhoe is good escape reading, especially if you're an adolescent boy.

"Hong Luo Meng", aka "The Story of the Stone" is one of the best books ever written.

I read "The Moor's Last Sigh" because I heard somebody reading a passage from it on NPR. I loved the way the characters spoke, modifying the English language with funny endings to the words.

I liked the first half of the book, but then the plot became very grandiose and violent. Lots of explosions near the finish. A real Hollywood ending (not Bollywood, that I might have liked).

The Screwtape Letters is one of my favorite books of all time. Full of extraordinary insight delivered with deliciously dark wit.

This is an historical novel about the conquest of Mexico for Spain by Hernan Cortes. "Malinche" is the nickname of the Indian slave girl who was mistress and translator to Cortes and who explained to him the religion and politics of the Aztec empire, allowing him to conquer a vast civilization with a ridiculously small army.

I've been interested in the story of "La Malinche" ever since I was a young man and I heard an amazing song called "Maldicion de la Malinche" (The Curse of the Malinche) by the late Mexican folksinger Amparo Ochoa. What little is known of the real Malinche is fascinating, but this novel adds very little to it, and Esquivel's reflections on Mexican history are predictable. The writing style is stilted and laden with cliches. Malinche's Indian beliefs are trivialized with a treacly New-Age interpretation, and the obligatory sex scenes are handlled so clumsily as to be embarrassing.

This is a really good book. That's really all you need to know, isn't it? Go out and read it!

Here's my brilliant insight about the book (mild spoiler warning!!!):
It resembles David Copperfield. There are many striking parallels. But it is in no sense derivative, it definitely stands on its own merits. Here are some of the similarities:

In both novels the protagonist is a journalist. He had a troubled childhood. His parents are dead. He makes a bad marriage to a foolish woman who dies young. He has a spinster aunt who helps him find his place in the world. The theme of child abuse is central to both stories. By the end of each book the protagonist is able to form a mature, loving relationship with a woman who is worthy of him.

This being said, the novels are very distinct. The style of writing, the mood, the empathy that you feel for the hero -- these are all very different. There is no way that Proulx is trying to write a dickensian novel. But these similarities are interesting, and probably not accidental.

Oh my god, this book is AWFUL!!! And I'm not a religious sort who would be offended by the subject matter. In fact, the most pernicious thing about this book may be that it appropriates important research and theories about early Christianity, garbles them and bastardizes them beyond recognition and then serves them up to an ignorant and unsuspecting public. How many people who might benefit from reading a book by Elaine Pagels or Dominc Crossan will read this trash, see right through its silliness and deceit and then lump it together with legitimate studies of the development of Christianity and dismiss them all as worthless?

And the writing is just pathetic. I used to use Mario Puzo as a touchstone for bad prose writing, but Dan Brown has Mario beat hands down. Ughhh!!!

A fascinating look at what happens to people after they die. It discusses rigor mortis, putrification, the medical uses of corpses, embalming, cremation etc.. It is delightlfully morbid and written in a lively style.

I've known several people who think this is the most wonderful book they've ever read. I must say, I just don't get it. New Age drivel! If you must read this sort of thing, try The Prophet by Kahil Gibran (a tad insipid, but fairly well written).

Of course, if you just want to read something by a Brazilian or Portuguese author, I enthusiastically recommend the works of Antonio Machado de Asis or Jose Saramago. I guarantee that you will find very little pre-digested chicken soup for the soul in their books.