I own Gravity’s Rainbow (I think I’ve seen it somewhere on the shelf). I haven’t read it, and haven’t bought it. A couple of months ago I found a copy of Mason Dixon by the same author that someone was giving away, and I couldn’t get through two pages of it. Unreadable gibberish, just like the Hairy Potty books that got me in trouble here yesterday with the fanatics of the penny dreadful literature who follow the nation of sheep in their reading choices (ugly personal attacks using tired cliches, just like their beloved semi-literate author - 6 cliches per page of Hairy Potty.) The other day I read somewhere on the Web and interview with some author, I forget his name, I forget where I read it, I only remember that he said he was currently reading Anatole France. Hmmm, I’ll have to check out ole Anatole. I admit, I haven’t read Joyce, but I read James Fenimore Cooper, and attempted to read Louis L’Amour (not his real name, that’s fer shore, Shirley!), and I once saw on the street Sidney Sheldon, when he was still alive, (tried to see him after he was alive, but no luck!) emerging from a very small chain bookstore, Waldenbooks, I think it was, where he had been signing his masterpieces. I recommend John Burnside, and Kent Wascom.
I tend to read more autobiography (often fictionalized too) or historical/research.