Reading Don DeLillo, the cult novelist who ascended to literary superstardom, can be a tense, exhausting experience. The universes he creates for us are threatening, chaotic, and mercurial. There are few happy people in them, and fewer happy accidents. Suspicious of society and institutions and overstuffed with reference, allusion, and wordplay, his novels are equal parts brilliance and unease.

Brilliance isn’t equally distributed, of course—even DeLillo has his minor works. Which of his books belongs on top, and which at the bottom? Here’s how we see it—starting with the cream of the crop.

White Noise

This 1985 novel broke DeLillo into the big-time, and for good reason: it’s awesome. It gave English the wonderful phrase “airborne toxic event,” and it is that event that translates the growing paranoia, unease, and suburban malaise of the novel’s first section into physical form. Exploring the exciting field of Hitler studies, death and mortality, and madness, DeLillo makes you feel like the universe is a slowly constricting trap that will eventually crush you. This is where all of the author’s tricks, tics, and obsessions came together as perfectly as possible.

Libra

The Kennedy assassination is an event DeLillo might have invented if it hadn’t actually happened. The way he makes Lee Harvey Oswald—a man who is largely invisible and mysterious even though he actually existed—into a compellingly original character without compromising authenticity is genius. Sometimes this one is overshadowed by other titles, but arguably it and White Noise are DeLillo’s masterworks.

Underworld

Huge, complex, and slippery, this one sparks the most debate among DeLillo fans—some people think it’s his best, some people think it’s an indulgent whole with brilliant parts. We’re in the former camp—the prologue, published separately as Pafko at the Wall, is a near-perfect short story that sets up the themes of the novel; from there, the story splits into a non-linear narrative spanning several decades. It’s as if DeLillo tried to paint an emotional picture of the 20th century by starting at its end and then moving inexorably backwards, stripping everything away until we get to the kernel of it all.

The Names

DeLillo’s grand investigation into the power of words and language, this sprawling novel was published a few years before White Noise and is usually lumped in with his 1970s work despite hitting shelves in 1982. It’s one of those books with a plot that comes together in fragments as DeLillo introduces and follows several characters, centered on a businessman who becomes involved with a string of ritualistic murders being committed by a “language cult” while traveling in Greece and the Middle East. Challenging and cerebral, the central question of the novel concerns how far context and words go towards shaping perception and, therefore, reality?

Great Jones Street

A trippy, deliriously fun novel, published in 1973, drips with the 1960s hangover so many were experiencing at the time. Following a rock star modeled on Bob Dylan (supposedly) there’s not so much a plot as a series of brilliant, often hilarious vignettes that startle and amaze. It’s a short novel, which works in its favor, and it’s often wrongfully downgraded because it lacks DeLillo’s later dour paranoia and density—but it’s a fantastic book that deserves to be read more widely.

Mao II

DeLillo’s lengthy consideration of terrorism and the potential link between violence and the stories we tell ourselves, this one is also divisive, mainly because it doesn’t have much of a plot and can be perceived as DeLillo disappearing into himself—but when you’re as strong a writer as DeLillo, you can get away with that. Its seemingly prophetic vision of terrorist acts to come (it was published in 1991) grant the book gravitas, as terrorism and violence chip away at individual liberties and take art’s place as as a driving cultural force.

Point Omega

Saying that a book is one of DeLillo’s best means less when you consider the thin, mostly subjective lines separating them. Point Omega gets lost in the shuffle sometimes, seen as a bit of throat-clearing. It’s short—almost a novella—concerning itself with two men who seek to reshape their reality and fail. With echoes and references to the Iraq War and Bush-era propaganda, it’s one of the few DeLillo novels to feel dated despite its relatively recent vintage. Yet it’s far from a poor effort, and the questions it asks about the vanity of trying to change reality are haunting.

Americana

If Americana were by a different author, it might be forgotten by now; it’s loose to the point of parody, and overstuffed with philosophical nattering that doesn’t seem to truly connect to its strange road trip narrative. As the first novel DeLillo published, however, it’s fascinating—all the standard stuff is in it, and sometimes there are glimpses of the brilliance to come. It’s not so much a bad novel as a forgettable one, with the ultimate fate of being solidly in the middle.

Zero K

DeLillo’s most recent novel lands in the middle of the pack mainly due to its undercooked feel; relatively short, the unanswered questions and dangling philosophical participles it leaves on the table leave you wanting a few hundred more pages. Still, the writing is sharp. DeLillo inspires dread in a way few writers can, and the story, an unsettling journey through mortality, family, and possibly the end of the world, builds a lot of suspense, even if the payoff isn’t all there.

End Zone

Mainly notable as the novel with which DeLillo crystallized his style, this goofy sophomore effort uses a football game as an extended metaphor for nuclear war (or vice versa), and gets extra points for being really, really funny. But there’s not much of a story here, and after meandering about for a while, it sort of just stops dead in its tracks. Another plus that elevates it, though, is the fact that’s it’s one of the easiest DeLillo books to read, and a great place for newbies to start.

Falling Man

Like the Kennedy assassination, 9/11 seems like an ideal historical event for a DeLillo novel—but perhaps because he dealt with many of these themes earlier in Mao II, there’s something missing. This story of a man who survives the collapse of the Twin Towers would rank with some writers’ best work, but for DeLillo, it’s an uncharacteristically restrained, showing only the occasional bit of his magic.

Players

Your mileage will vary on this one; some people rank it much higher, but we suspect that’s largely because of the absolutely brilliant opening sequence, which depicts an act of brutal violence observed in a piano bar on a jetliner; it’s all downhill from this bravado performance. Well, not all downhill, as it’s still a pretty readable chronicle of the lives of two bored, affluent people who willfully seek chaos and violence. But it feels very much like DeLillo is still warming up with this one.

Cosmopolis

A novel set entirely in a lavish limousine as its occupant is driven a short way through a traffic-jammed Manhattan on his way to a haircut might seem like a ludicrous premise for a novel, but if anyone could pull it off, DeLillo could. Unfortunately, he doesn’t quite make it work—it’s a tour de force of nihilism, but to what end?

Ratner’s Star

The last of DeLillo’s early 1970s works, this ambitious mess of a novel reads like DeLillo is aping Pynchon and not quite pulling it off. There are so many ideas and so many crazy tangents, the reading experience can be headache-inducing. If there are some seeds of the DeLillo To Come in there, generally speaking the next page will cover them over.

Running Dog

Like Players, which directly precedes it, Running Dog shows flashes of what’s to come. It’s a dreary novel about a journalist trying to track down a porn film starring none other than Adolph Hitler; one gets the feeling that, having had such a fantastic idea for a book, DeLillo just assumed whatever he came up with would be great.

Amazons

Co-written with Sue Burke and published under a pseudonym (DeLillo has never officially claimed it), this story of the first female to play for a pro hockey team sold well, and is often hilarious. But DeLillo has all but disowned it, and unless your curious enough to try to figure out why, consider it an appendix to his body of work.

The Body Artist

Published after Underworld, you get the feeling, reading this one, that DeLillo was exhausted, and maybe should have waited a bit longer before pushing out another book. Like a late-era Twin Peaks episode, it tells the story of a grieving widow who finds a strange man in her house who echoes conversations she had with her suicidal husband as she becomes increasingly disconnected from the world. Much as you will become increasingly disconnected from this novel.

What’s your favorite Don DeLillo novel?