50 Book Challenge #1: The Crying of Lot 49

I have never done LSD, and now I have no need to. This book is more than sufficient. It's chock-full of characters with too-clever names, multi-century long conspiracies, and 1960s cultural flavor. Pynchon manages to create a parade of oddballs and mysteries, and he leaves little resolved at the book's cliffhanger ending. For me, the weakest part was the broader thematic exploration of America - why not give us more bizarre stories of banditry and postal competition instead? But given my total disinterest in finishing Gravity's Rainbow, I found this book surprisingly engaging.