Read The Crying of Lot 49

V-2 rockets, a lieutenant whose erections predict strikes and the end of the war; Pynchon's monster.

A salesman-detective in a 1979 motel, the DS held like a book; Cing's noir.

Monterey mothers, a school fundraiser and a death; Kidman, Witherspoon and Streep.

A start-up with a compression algorithm and the tech industry as farce; Mike Judge.

The Joads drive from the Dust Bowl to California; Steinbeck's angriest and best.

George and Lennie and the farm they will never have; a hundred pages every school reads.

Cain and Abel in the Salinas Valley across two generations; Steinbeck's own favourite.

Six classics students at a Vermont college and the murder they commit; Donna Tartt's debut.