Literary Fiction For Beginners

There’s something about being a bestseller that makes a literary novel a little less forbidding. Think of any of these titles, taken from the New York Times' 2007 bestseller lists, as a meal, and save James Patterson for dessert. (This list was inspired by Claire Messud's The Emperor's Children, longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2006 - but what really convinced me to pick it up was remembering that it was a bestseller last year.)

The Abstinence Teacher by Tom Perrotta
Almost Moon by Alice Sebold
Away by Amy Bloom
Bridge of Sighs by Richard Russo
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
The Castle in the Forest by Norman Mailer
Exit Ghost by Philip Roth
Falling Man by Don DeLillo
Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen
Heyday by Kurt Andersen
The Maytrees by Annie Dillard
On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan
The Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Run by Ann Patchett
Songs Without Words by Ann Packer
Ten Days in the Hills by Jane Smiley
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson
What is the What by Dave Eggers
The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon