The Crying of Lot 49 is also good to start with because it's only 150 pages or so. His collection of short stories, Slow Learner, has some gems in it. I really

The Crying of Lot 49 is also good to start with because it's only 150 pages or so. His collection of short stories, Slow Learner, has some gems in it. I really liked the second story, Low-lands, the last time I read it. Around 20 years ago, when I was in college, I collected as much of his non-book stuff as I could and put it on a web page. Oddly, it seems it has survived: http://www.pynchon.pomona.edu/uncollected/index.html http://www.pynchon.pomona.edu/uncollected/index.html My favorite piece there is the article for Aerospace Safety, from when Pynchon worked at Boeing: http://www.pynchon.pomona.edu/uncollected/together.html http://www.pynchon.pomona.edu/uncollected/together.html