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Title	Author	Description
Speedboat Speedboat	Renata Adler Aldler	Speedboat—a novel, a memoir, a lyric essay?—all questions of category fall away in its reading. What remains is Renata Adler's voice, perceptive, wry, brilliant, making what sense she can of the late 20th-century condition. Speedboat was a revelation to writers as different as Elizabeth Hardwick and David Foster Wallace, and its true influence is only beginning to be felt. Contributors: Guy Trebay
Lucky Jim Lucky Jim	Kingsley Amis Amis	This campus comedy launched Kingsley Amis's career and made him the reluctant voice of a generation. Neither its vitriol nor its wit has dulled with the years. "Remarkable for its relentless skewering of artifice and pretension, Lucky Jim also contains some of the finest comic set pieces in the language." —Olivia Laing, The Observer Contributors: Keith Gessen
The Old Devils Old Devils	Kingsley Amis Amis	Winner of the 1986 Booker Prize, and considered by his son Martin to be Kingsley Amis’s greatest achievement, The Old Devils is delightful proof that neither Amis nor his characters mellowed in old age. In fact, a placid life is just the thing that Amis denies his old devils, whose routines of nattering, complaining, and drinking, are thrown into chaos when an old friend and rival (now a successful writer) returns to town with a new and entrancing wife. Contributors: John Banville
The Alteration Alteration	Kingsley Amis Amis	In Kingsley Amis’s virtuoso foray into alternate history, it is 1976 but the modern world is a medieval relic, frozen in intellectual and spiritual time ever since Martin Luther was promoted to pope back in the sixteenth century. "One of the best—possibly the best—alternate-worlds novels in existence."— Philip K. Dick Contributors: William Gibson
The Green Man Green Man	Kingsley Amis Amis	"A thoroughly contemporary ghost story . . . in the uncomplicated, old-fashioned sense. As one might expect from the author of Lucky Jim, The Green Man is also an extremely funny book, filled with slapstick, parody and satire. Indeed, the success of this short novel depends very much on the balance that Amis maintains between fear and laughter.''—The New York Times Contributors: Michael Dirda
Young Man with a Horn Young Man with a Horn	Dorothy Baker Baker	This book, loosely inspired by the life of Bix Beiderbecke, is widely regarded as the first jazz novel, and it courses with the verve and swing of the sound that defined an era. It is the story of Rick Martin, a prodigy whose dedication to music cannot save him from self destruction. "Got a kid who's into music? This is the book. Interested in the Jazz Age? Ditto. Or just looking for a short novel that you can't put down? Here you go."—Jesse Kornbluth Contributors: Gary Giddins
Wish Her Safe At Home Wish Her Safe At Home	Stephen Benatar Benatar	An unexpected inheritance frees Rachel Waring from her dreary life. But will her newfound joie de vivre free her from her grasp on reality as well? Benatar's brilliantly subjective storytelling keeps the reader guessing till the very end. Contributors: John Carey
The Outward Room Outward Room	Millen Brand Brand	The Outward Room was a sensation when first published in 1937. It is the story of a young woman’s path from suffering to deep fulfillment, set in Depression-era New York City. “One of those firmly painted, exquisite miniatures of life...that contrive to be unsparing and honest, and at the same time refreshing and lovely.” —Theodore Dreiser Contributors: Peter Cameron
The Water Theatre Water Theatre	Lindsay Clarke Clarke	A novel that follows war reporter Martin Crowther as he travels to Italy hoping to convince the estranged children of his ailing mentor to visit their father one last time.
The World As I Found It World as I Found It	Bruce Duffy Duffy	An enthralling experiment that goes beyond biography to reveal the imagined lives of some of the greatest thinkers of the last century: Ludwig Wittgenstein, G.E. Moore, and Bertrand Russell. “One of the more astonishing literary debuts in recent memory.... Mr. Duffy gave...more than 500 pages of dazzling language and dizzying speculation on the life of Ludwig Wittgenstein.” —A.O. Scott Contributors: David Leavitt