5. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, by Milan Kundera (Harper & Row, 1984)

At the most basic level, the intertwined story of two unlikely couples. On every other level, an immensely entertaining philosophical and speculative novel of ideas. The relationships between men and women have never been given the treatment they are given here - and in Tomas, Kundera gives us a Don Juan for the ages. In this great book, Kundera is at the height of his considerable powers.

4. Cathedral, by Raymond Carver (Alfred A. Knopf, 1983)

That anyone could attain the pinnacles of literary superstardom on the strength of short stories alone should tell you about what we're dealing with in Raymond Carver. No one, AND WE MEAN NO ONE, ever wrote short stories like this. So moving and soul-wrenching are the stories in this volume, particularly the title story, they will break your heart. And you will be grateful they did. Ray, you left us too early.

3. The Satanic Verses, by Salman Rushdie (Viking, 1989)

The misdirected and silly Fatwa notwithstanding, this book from the mind of the most imaginative man of letters currently working got all the attention it deserved and then some. So wide ranging and brilliant is Rushdie's fantasia-filled imagination, that it defies logic. The book pissed off people who hadn't read it, and endlessly thrilled those of us who did. A profoundly funny and phantasmagoric rendering of the battle between good vs. evil. Complex, ideological novels are not supposed to be this much fun.

2. Ironweed, by William Kennedy (Viking, 1983)

Wholly original and devastatingly stark, William Kennedy's Pulitzer winner haunts us to this day. This is the story of Francis Phelan, ex-ballplayer and and full-time skid-row bum, who tries to cope and come to grips with the ghosts of past and present. Using a rare artistry with simplistic and stark prose, Kennedy brings the story to an unexpected and shattering climax. But it's the introductory, opening sequences - most notably one in the cemetery where Francis begs forgiveness of the infant son he accidentally killed - that will truly make you believer in the magic of Kennedy's fiction.

1. The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, by Oscar Hijuelos (Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 1989)

Oscar Hijuelos' remarkably funny, lyrical, and sex-charged Pulitzer Prize winner from 1990 is filled with so much magic, you can actually feel the pulsating music and time it evokes. New York City in the 1950s comes alive in this story of two Cuban musician brothers, Cesar and Nestor Castillo, their music, their lives, and most notably, their loves. At once hilarious, wicked, and profoundly heartbreaking, it ranks alongside the best American stories ever told.