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about fitting justice to an overly-pompous man in full. A masterful writing style illuminating bigger than life characters in constantly imploding circumstances make this book as pedantically playful as it is deliciously descriptive. A literary opus!

4. Cold Mountain, by Charles Frazier. This book, published in 1997, is incredibly detailed about the customs, conditions, and way of life of people in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina during the Civil War era as a badly-wounded soldier named Inman leaves his fellow soldiers and the weariness of the war he has come to resent to return to his home on Cold Mountain where he had been forced to leave Ada, the woman he loved. Paralleling Inman's journey through the mountains, in separate chapters, is Ada's journey to survive her life on a farm she inherited but knew nothing about running. The courage, resilience, resourcefulness, and undeterred perseverance of both characters eventually brings them together again. As inspiring as it is tragic, as often humorous as it is maddening, this book uses a love story to draw its main characters together while also exposing the cruelty that humans inflict upon one another - in both war and in the name of peace.

5. The Magus, by John Fowles. This book, published in 1965 then fearlessly rewritten and released in a provocatively expanded version in 1977, will baffle, confuse, conflict, and challenge the reader to discover its intent. In a book as cleverly-crafted and intricately plotted as the honeycombs of a beehive, Mr. Fowles purposefully wraps the reader in the stunning beauty of a Greek island then slyly leaves them to find their way through the labyrinthine pathways where the magic of a sorcerer appears to be merely the innocence of juxtaposition as reality is transformed by mythos. Trying to understand what is real and what is imagined allows Fowles the delight of tormenting the reader like the spider who approaches the bug caught on his web; is escape possible, or is it - hopefully - merely a dream?

6. Alaska, by James Michener. Published in 1988, Mr. Michener describes the Alaskan territory in an evolutionary panorama that humbles the reader with the uniqueness of its insight while explaining the transformative stories of its myriad characters. Anthropomorphically treating the reader to first person experiences as mountains being shaped by glaciers, wooly mammoths stalked by sabre tooth tigers, and salmon spawning in rivers, the story of Alaska unfolds with the Russians first crossing the Bering Strait before eventually selling the land back to President James Buchanan, the Eskimos hunting whales and seals, the reckless, undeterred rush for gold in the early 1900's, the completion of the railroad, the Alcan Highway, and finally making it our forty-ninth state in 1958. A book as towering and compelling as Mt. McKinley itself, the tallest mountain in North America which resides in Alaska.

These are six novels that should be read for their richness, their insight, the depth of their characters, the intricacies of their stories, and the magnificence of their language. Taking the time to read them is like investing properly in the future the more you invest, the greater will be your reward.

Learn more about this author, Carl Conrad.
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