"A Cup of Tea" is as delicate and exquisitely wrought as a fine piece of china.

Closely observed and intensely felt, Smiley's early novella "The Age of Grief" about a marriage in distress never strikes a false note.

Yes, her palette is very small. But no one paints the constricted universe of lonely, unworldly women better.

I usually turn to Lodge for his laugh-out-loud wit, but his very literary "Author, Author" gets my starting-point vote. If you love Henry James (as I do), you'll find this well-imagined tour of James' writerly frustrations, passions, friendships and jealousies compelling.

Pride and Prejudice...First...Last...and for revisitation many times in between