Courtesy of THE WEEK here is a list of Best Books...chosen by Simon Winchester.

Life: A User’s Manual by Georges Perec (Godine, $20). Perec was a literary gymnast famous for writing a novel without once using the letter E. In this wondrously optimistic book, he sidles through the lives of the inhabitants of a single Paris apartment block and manages to convey scintillas of every aspect of the human condition—proving that, while ultimately without point, life is a continuum rich beyond belief, and so very well worth living.

Stoner by John Williams (New York Review, $15). Few finer novels exist than this melancholy, sparely lyrical, and very erotic account of life, love, and academic struggle in a small Midwestern university. Williams wrote very little, and his books slipped into obscurity. The recent revival of this impeccably crafted 1965 work is an act of great publishing genius.

Phineas Finn by Anthony Trollope (Dodo, $26). In his 40-odd grand novels, high-order soap operas all, Trollope managed perfectly to capture the quiddities of Victorian Beltway society. Through his painstakingly constructed dramas—this being the best—he reminds us both what a lame and artless form politics has become today, and how noble—and yet still how dirty—it once used to be.

A Box of Matches by Nicholson Baker (Vintage, $13). To my mind the most elegant writer alive, Nicholson Baker has created in this gem—the narrator uses the lighting of a fire in the cold of 50 winter mornings as moments to ruminate on an assortment of challenges—a novel of the highest philosophic moment.

Sheep and Man by M.L. Ryder (Duckworth, $149). I relish books written with the passion of an obsessive. M.L. Ryder’s encyclopedic account of mankind’s first domesticated animal; of the human need for wool and meat, for tools made of horn; and of, inter alia, the chemistry of lanolin and the structure of hooves, make Sheep and Man the perfect bedside book.

Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh (Back Bay, $15). No wittier novel exists in the English language. Only the Welsh will strenuously object to this—for Waugh objects to them—and perhaps a few politically correct Americans will have to bite their tongues. But those cavils aside, this clever, quick and artfully sculpted little book will linger in the memory for a lifetime.