A Separate Peace, Alice Walker's The Color Purple. Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow and the works of John Updike, Anne Tyler, John Irving and Don DeLillo, among others. People also are upset that John Kennedy Toole's screamingly funny tale of New Orleans, A Confederacy of Dunces, is a no-show. And readers are taking hard the fate of J.R.R. Tolkien, who gave the world Lord of the Rings. And a small but vigorous group demands to know where James Michener is.
Readers can vote for their own favorites.
As of yesterday, Frank Herbert's Dune was top dog. Take that, James Joyce.