Could you give us an official Bavitz-endorsed classics list? Like 10 or 15 must-reads, either with huge influence on your work, or just stuff you think is most essential?
Sure! I get this question time to time so I'm certain I've answered it before, but my list usually remains pretty consistent. Let's go with:
The Castle and The Trial by Franz Kafka
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
Paradise Lost by John Milton
King Lear by William Shakespeare (really any and all Shakespeare, but King Lear is the best)
The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon
The Brothers Karamazov and Demons by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Nightwood by Djuna Barnes
The Oresteia by Aeschylus
The Recognitions by William Gaddis
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Some other great books that are less of a traditional "classic" bent:
A Personal Matter by Kenzaburo Oe
Stoner by John Williams (this one is starting to acquire real classic status lately)
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
Misery and The Long Walk by Stephen King
The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
Underground by Haruki Murakami and Eyeless in Gaza by Aldous Huxley had a significant influence on When I Win the World Ends specifically; La Bas and A Rebours by Joris-Karl Huysmans had a significant influence on 1 Over X; The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser had a significant influence on Cleveland Quixotic (as did the aforementioned Paradise Lost).