The Great Gatsby 

By F. Scott Fitzgerald (Scribner Classics)

Everyone's favorite, and for good reason. It’s as close to the perfect novel — and to the Great American Novel — as anyone has ever written.

Eleven Kinds of Loneliness

By Richard Yates (Vintage Books)

The situations in these stories might seem a bit dated, but there's no diminution in their emotional impact. Yates remains the master of the humiliating moment. True squirmies.

The Stories of John Cheever 

By John Cheever (Vintage Books)

I think reading this book made me want to write short stories. They're lyrical, majestic, ironic, and even when cloaked in satire, they sing with the small joys of living.