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Thomas Pynchon

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Thomas Pynchon


Born
in Glen Cove, Long Island, New York, The United States
May 08, 1937

Website

Genre
Literary Fiction, Classics

Influences
Richard Fariña, T.S. Eliot, Vladimir Nabokov, Kafka, Henry Miller, Jac ...more


Thomas Ruggles Pynchon Jr. is an American novelist noted for his dense and complex novels. His fiction and nonfiction writings encompass a vast array of subject matter, genres and themes, including history, music, science, and mathematics. For Gravity's Rainbow, Pynchon won the 1973 U.S. National Book Award for Fiction.

Hailing from Long Island, Pynchon served two years in the United States Navy and earned an English degree from Cornell University. After publishing several short stories in the late 1950s and early 1960s, he began composing the novels for which he is best known: V. (1963), The Crying of Lot 49 (1966), and Gravity's Rainbow (1973). Rumors of a historical novel about Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon had circulated as early as ...more

Combine Editions

Average rating: 4.16 · 1,730,398 ratings · 72,881 reviews · 48 distinct works • Similar authors
The Crying of Lot 49
3.69 avg rating — 96,942 ratings — published 1966 — 175 editions
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Gravity’s Rainbow
4.01 avg rating — 48,024 ratings — published 1973 — 11 editions
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Inherent Vice
3.80 avg rating — 38,206 ratings — published 2009
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V.
3.97 avg rating — 25,281 ratings — published 1963 — 135 editions
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Vineland
3.76 avg rating — 16,914 ratings — published 1990 — 84 editions
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Mason & Dixon
4.14 avg rating — 12,534 ratings — published 1997 — 70 editions
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Bleeding Edge
3.62 avg rating — 14,146 ratings — published 2013 — 61 editions
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Against the Day
4.05 avg rating — 10,212 ratings — published 2006 — 52 editions
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Slow Learner
3.53 avg rating — 5,409 ratings — published 1984 — 40 editions
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Shadow Ticket
3.63 avg rating — 3,717 ratings — published 2025 — 11 editions
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More books by Thomas Pynchon…

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Quotes by Thomas Pynchon  (?)
Quotes are added by the Goodreads community and are not verified by Goodreads. (Learn more)

“Every weirdo in the world is on my wavelength.”
― Thomas Pynchon
2485 likes
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“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers.”
― Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
tags: paranoia, proverbs, wit
1752 likes
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“Life's single lesson: that there is more accident to it than a man can ever admit to in a lifetime and stay sane.”
― Thomas Pynchon, V.
1199 likes
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1st Quarter 2025 - Fantasy #2

 
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The Estate by Sarah Jost (416 pp)
 
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