Where to start with E. L. Doctorow

American novelist, 1931–2015. Won the National Book Award for Fiction in 1986.

Best E. L. Doctorow book to start with: Ragtime (1975), on 3 of the 17 lists it could have made.

Ragtime is the obvious first Doctorow. It is short and brisk, and it is set around New York in the early 1900s, where invented families brush against real figures of the day. The tone is that of a historian who does not mind making things up.

World’s Fair won the National Book Award in 1986 and is a gentler book: a boyhood in the Bronx in the 1930s, told in small scenes. Billy Bathgate, shortlisted for the National Book Award in 1989 and the Pulitzer Prize in 1990, follows a teenage boy into a gangster’s circle, and it is the easiest of the lot to enjoy. The March, shortlisted for the National Book Award in 2005 and the Pulitzer in 2006, follows General Sherman’s army through the American Civil War, and it suits readers who like history told from several angles at once.

The Book of Daniel, shortlisted in 1972, is the earliest and the hardest. It draws on a real spy trial and is narrated by a bitter son trying to make sense of his parents’ case. Leave it until you know whether you like him.