I offered the following reading-list suggestions to my writing students:
Personal Essays/Political
Republican Party Reptile: PJ O'Rourke
Molly Ivins Can't Say That, Can She?: Molly Ivins
Consider the Lobster: David Foster Wallace (the titular essay is remarkably distasteful)
Travel Writing
Holidays in Hell: PJ O'Rourke
The Best Travel Writing of XXXX (yearly edition)
Short Stories
The Things they Carried: Tim O'Brien
The Age of Grief: Jane Smiley
Novels
A Prayer for Owen Meany: John Irving
A Very Long Engagement: Sebastien Japrisot (Motormouth's favorite novel)
Angels and Demons: Dan Brown
The Eight: Katherine Neville
A Ridiculously Long Novel that is Totally Worth It
Infinite Jest: David Foster Wallace
Dan Brown, eh? Okee…
Owen Meany: one of my favorite books turned into one of my favorite movies.
I know. DaVinci Code blew chunks, but Angels and Demons was surprisingly page turnly. I think Neville did it better with “The Eight” about 15 years ago, but you gotta appeal to all kinds…