Margaret Atwood: The Handmaid's Tale - Definitely worth reading

Toni Morrison: Beloved - Oprah wasn't wrong about this one

Don DeLillo: Underworld - I like DeLillo, but I'm not sure I would have picked this one.

Mark Z. Danielewski: House of Leaves - Easily the most interesting book I read last year. I can see how people become obsessed with this one.

Cormac McCarthy: The Road - I thought it was brilliant. I almost cried. Almost.

I've read others by some of the same authors, but that's my experience with these titles.

I'll have to try those other McCarthy novels.

I'm thinking that Underworld is the one I started where the main character starts out the book just driving around in a hired car? I hated that character so much that I stopped reading.

I'm working on Tree of Smoke right now. I have no idea what's going on with the plot or what's going to happen with these characters, which is kind of exciting. Especially for a book about the Vietnam War era (I mean I should know the general historical outline right? But no). It leaves me a little disoriented. Also, I'm having trouble with names in a sort of Russian novel way. I loved Jesus' Son and The Name of the World. So far it resembles neither of those, though his character development is as slow and meticulous.

I'm going to have to read Murakami's A Wild Sheep Chase just for the title. Thanks for bringing that to my attention Jimmy. And now I'm thinking about Jimmy Lo running around in the pasture.

I'm reading Gilead right now. It's good, but in a slow quiet meditative way. I'm only half-way through, so I'll let you know if I like it more or less later on.

Others:

Love in the Time of Cholera
This one starts off good but about half way through it loses momentum and kinda starts to drag.

Infinite Jest: A Novel
Have only read half of "Supposedly Funny Thing" and liked it okay... but nowhere near loving it or anything. He's a bit too clever for my taste.

Beloved
Read half of this and stopped. It just got kinda boring and maybe even predictable. I can see the sad ending coming from miles away so why bother?

Kafka on the Shore
Have not read this one, but I love Murakami especially Dance Dance Dance and A Wild Sheep Chase.

The New York Trilogy
Started this one and I dunno what happened but it was maybe too intense for me so I stopped. I might like it more now.

Tree of Smoke: A Novel
Haven't read this but Jesus' Son is hilarious and very good.

I started The Road because several people have recommended it to me, but McCarthy's sentence is like a wet piece of string cheese. He uses "and" so often I felt like I was reading myself at age 12. I even read three or four pages in the middle and tried make sure he wasn't attempting some sort of characterization with his "and-y" sentence structure and it was just as bad later on and I couldn't get involved because the "ands" were too distracting and I got up to make a pot of coffee instead and then I took a shower and the water was too hot so I scalded my front and turned quickly around only to scald the back of myself as well.

That tirade aside, I've liked or am liking several of the others on this list. I need to read Auster's fiction.

Has anyone actually read Atonement rather than watching the awfully pouty movie version? Is it worth it?

Looks pretty interesting, I might work my way through part of it. I liked the few I've read from it.