"This is a book that manages to distill the idea of America," says David Duchovny. Estimating that he has reread the novel about once a decade since high school, he mentions a passage on the final page in which the narrator imagines an early explorer in a state of wonder as he sees America. "The brilliance of Fitzgerald is that, for Gatsby, Daisy was something commensurate with his capacity for wonder," Duchovny says. "So it's the biggest story and the smallest story. It's about the human imagination being sparked by nature and God, but also by this woman." What's more, the story seems to tell itself. "His writing is so clear and simple. I don't like watching people work if they're making art. Fitzgerald makes it look like it flows out."

Lessons number one, two, and three: You can't win 'em all.

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Great Expectations may be Charles Dickens' most psychologically acute self-portrait. Find out more about this Oprah's Book Club selection.

Esch Batiste is the only female in the Pit, a hardscrabble patch of bayou country she has shared with her father and three brothers since their mother died in childbirth.