Not too long ago I posted by request a list of 15 ‘towering literary artists’ who personally and historically seem important. Most of them have published 8 books or more, most of which in each case I’ve read. Here are my favorites of each of those authors, for fun. Some are very close calls. What are yours?

David Markson, Wittgenstein’s Mistess

William Gass, Omensetter’s Luck

Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow

Amy Hempel, At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom

Dennis Cooper, Period

William Vollmann, The Rifles

Cormac McCarthy, Suttree

Jose Saramago, The Double

Gordon Lish, Epigraph

Barry Hannah, Ray

Brian Evenson, The Wavering Knife

Robert Coover, The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop.

Nicholson Baker, The Fermata

Diane Williams, Some Sexual Success Stories: Plus Other Stories in Which God Might Choose to Appear

Don Delillo, End Zone

•