Ex-reporter Laura Lippman may be known as a gritty crime novelist, but her Tess Monaghan series sends love notes to Baltimore's food, music and literature—an artsy side explained, perhaps, by her habit of rereading "Marjorie Morningstar" every year.

My Five Most Important Books

1. "Lolita" by Vladimir Nabokov. I began reading this at 12 because I had inferred that it was very dirty. I think I was 19 by the time I identified the dirty parts, and by then I no longer cared. My favorite novel, hands down.
2. "Dancing Bear." Most James Crumley aficionados pick "The Last Good Kiss," but this is the one I read first, and it remains my sentimental favorite.
3. It's hard to pick just one Philip Roth book, but I'll go with "Zuckerman Unbound," if only for the character of Alvin Pepler, the Jewish Marine.
4. "Love Story," by Ruth McKenney. She's best known for her stories about her sister Eileen, but this memoir of her marriage hints at the far more complicated/melancholic story of her life.
5. The Betsy-Tacy novels by Maud Hart Lovelace, especially "Betsy in Spite of Herself." There are two kinds of women: those who know these books (including Anna Quindlen and Bette Midler) and those who don't.

A classic that, on rereading, disappointed: "The Catcher in the Rye," by J. D. Salinger. As an adult, I have no use for it.

A Certified Important Book you haven't read: Proust's "Remembrance of Things Past." It was one of only three novels I packed for a three-month fellowship in Mexico. I don't think I ever got past page three.