#52. "The Crying of Lot 49" by Thomas Pynchon

If the point of writing is to find deeper meaning about the human condition, then Thomas Pynchon's novella "The Crying of Lot 49" fails. It's a detective story in search of discovering a mysterious postage company only to discover that, maybe, it is all a delusion. As one of the premiere voices of the postmodernist movement, Pynchon has created some of the most provocative, confusing stories and it never gets more odd than here, where everything means something and nothing at the same time. It's one of the greatest works of fiction, leaving the reader with plenty to think about as they discover more details that will either make the story greater or them more likely to become a conspiracy theorist.

#51. "Don Quixote" by Miguel de Cervantes

If one wanted to understand the history of literature in a single novel, it begins and ends with Miguel de Cervantes' epic "Don Quixote," which was written in two parts and published in 1605 and 1615. The noble "knight" is known as the man who fought windmills thinking that they were giants, but there's so much more to the story than that. It's a satire of Spanish romance novels where heroes fought dragons and had grandiose adventures that would capture the audiences' affection. What Cervantes strove for was to deconstruct this mythology while creating a book that not only commented on the futility of the genre, but the lingering success of "Don Quixote" in literature. In many ways, it's the postmodern novel written over 350 years before it became a popular genre. It's an incredible feat made all the more impressive by the fact that underneath it all, Don Quixote isn't all that incredible of an individual. The journey he goes on is one that continues to captivate audiences and inspire imitations but alas, nobody did it better than Cervantes.

#50. "Dog Man: Brawl of the Wild" by Dav Pilkey

The legacy of Dog Man is one that's full of confusion. It's a spin-off written by characters in the "Captain Underpants" franchise that has slowly developed a bigger heart than its origins suggest. Written by "George and Harold" (but actually by Dav Pilkey), the stories have chronicled their maturity as they discover classic literature and learn how to grow as writers. As stories geared at children, it's a pretty ingenious evolution and one that adds pathos to the talking animals that inhabit this world. With the latest entry, "Brawl of the Wild," the series breaks from recent tradition and goes for an extremely silly story. Sure, there's lessons by the end about loving each other, but there's more jokes than heart here, and that's perfectly fine.