The 12 Best Literary Novels of the 1990s

Doorstop epics sit beside slim campus thrillers, and critics and cult readers disagree on the order.

1. 1
   Infinite Jest

   David Foster Wallace's 1996 sprawling novel of addiction, tennis and entertainment.
   1000pts
2. 2
   Fight Club

   Chuck Palahniuk's 1996 transgressive cult novel.
   666pts
3. 3
   Disgrace

   J. M. Coetzee's 1999 Booker winner on post-apartheid South Africa.
   444pts
4. 4
   Underworld

   Don DeLillo's 1997 Cold War epic that opens on a baseball game.
   444pts
5. 5
   American Pastoral

   Philip Roth's 1997 Pulitzer winner on a family undone by the 1960s.
   363pts
6. 6
   The English Patient

   Michael Ondaatje's 1992 lyrical wartime novel set in an Italian villa.
   363pts
7. 7
   The Secret History

   Donna Tartt's 1992 campus murder tale told in retrospect.
   363pts
8. 8
   The Shipping News

   Annie Proulx's 1993 Pulitzer winner about a Newfoundland newspaperman.
   266pts
9. 9
   The God of Small Things

   Arundhati Roy's 1997 Booker winner set in Kerala.
   266pts
10. 10
    The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

    Haruki Murakami's 1994 surreal search for a missing wife.
    266pts
11. 11
    Possession

    A. S. Byatt's 1990 literary-detective romance.
    266pts
12. 12
    A Suitable Boy

    Vikram Seth's 1993 doorstop of postcolonial India.
    0pts

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