Open book thread

Cool thing about this new SBN format is that you can have a thread like this visible, which means the discussion stays lively and bookish, but it doesn't have to be the top thread. The thread, if you will, which means there's less potential for handegg/Firefly chatter. I might keep it up all winter. Just try me.

I want book recommendations. Or, specifically, I want someone to help me sift through the things I bought during the season at used book sales, and tell me what I should read first.

In 30 pages into Life of Pi right now, but the stupid commercials for the movie spoiled the twist that there's a TIGER in his BOAT. How does that happen? I guess I'll have to find out.

Here are some of the books I've picked up this year. Lemme know what I should read first.

Junot Diaz -- The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
David M. Potter -- The Impending Crisis
Daniel Kahneman -- Thinking, Fast and Slow
Richard Ford -- The Sportswriter
Nathaniel Philbrick -- In the Heart of the Sea
Timothy Egan -- The Worst Hard Time
Richard Yates -- Revolutionary Road
E.L. Doctorow -- Ragtime
Zora Neale Hurston -- Their Eyes Were Watching God
Saul Bellow -- Ravelstein
Sam Tanenhaus -- Whittaker Chambers
Keith Jeffery -- Secret History of MI6
Ian McEwan -- Amsterdam
Margaret Atwood -- The Blind Assassin
Philip Roth - American Pastoral
Norman Mailer - The Naked and the Dead
Studs Terkel -- The Good War
Ron Chernow -- The House of Morgan

There are a bunch more, but I think those are the leaders. Does anyone have good/bad stories of any of those? Is there anything else that you just can't shut up about?