The Europeans by Henry James (1878). After the dissolution of her marriage to a German prince, Eugenia Munster and her artist brother Felix visit their wealthy relatives in the countryside near Boston.

The Evening of the Holiday by Shirley Hazzard (1966). Over the course of a festive summer in the Italian countryside, Sophie, who is half English and half Italian, has an affair with Tancredi, an Italian who is separated from his wife and family.

The Fall by Albert Camus (1956). In conversations with a chance acquaintance, a once-successful Paris lawyer recounts his fall into psychological self-destruction after ignoring a woman drowning in the Seine. Ultimately, this existential antihero persuades himself that all good works are motivated by self-interest, all virtue merely a ploy for success or popularity.

The Famished Road by Ben Okri (1991). Azaro, the hero of Nigerian-born Okri’s spellbinding and hallucinatory novel, is a spirit child, or abiku, born to mortals. Though other spirits insist that he return to their comfy land, he chooses to stand by his suffering mother and bombastic, foolhardy father amid the poverty, violence, and instability of modern Africa.

The Fever by Wallace Shawn (1990). In this play, a narrator's visit to a beautiful country is marred by political struggles which force him to not only review the presumptions of a "liberal" existence in the face of harsh, murderous reality but also to question his own existence.

Total Points: 1 (TJ 1)

The Folded Leaf by William Maxwell (1945). This is the serenely observed yet deeply moving story of two boys finding one another in the Midwest of the 1920s, when childhood lasted longer than it does today and even adults were more innocent of what life could bring.

Total Points: 5 (EF 5)

The Fountain Overflows by Rebecca West (1956).

Appreciation of Rebecca West’s The Fountain Overflows by Margot Livesey

The Gate of Angels by Penelope Fitzgerald (1990). The year is 1912 and, it seems, reason is finally giving the heave-ho to faith. At least that’s what rector’s son turned Cambridge scientist Fred Fairly thinks, until a freakish bicycle accident connects him to the beautiful and mysterious Daisy Saunders.

The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein (1964). This parable about the parent–child bond features an apple tree that gives and gives and a boy who takes and takes. As the boy matures, his needs become harder to meet. But the tree never fails, ultimately sacrificing life and limb.

The Golden Argosy edited by Van H. Cartmell and Charles Grayson (1947).

Appreciation of The Golden Argosy by Stephen King

I first found The Golden Argosy in a Lisbon Falls (Maine) bargain barn called The Jolly White Elephant, where it was on offer for $2.25. At that time I only had four dollars, and spending over half of it on one book, even a hardcover, was a tough decision. I’ve never regretted it.