This book had been on my radar for a long time, and I finally got round to reading it this year... It's brilliant! It won't be everybody's cup of tea, but for those with the right sense of humour it will become an instant favourite. Jonathan Swift (Gulliver's Travels) wrote: "When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him." The true genius in question is the grotesque anti-hero of this novel, Ignatius Reilly. If Don Quixote and Sir John Falstaff had a love child with Asperger's syndrome, who was easily titillated, but also had a strong sense of moral outrage - then that would be Ignatius Reilly. But you'd have to add to the mix: gluttony, hypochondria and a devotion to Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy... Having been to New Orleans (where the book is set) made it a bit more interesting. The story of John Kennedy Toole's failure to get a publisher and his (resultant) suicide is tragic - but perhaps the most apt response is to read the book and (with luck) share his belief (and especially his mother's belief) in its worth. One Amazon review dismissed it as 'a load of rubbish' and claimed to have got half way through the book and not laughed once. I would advise that if you haven't at lease chuckled to yourself within 20 pages of so, then I would put it to one side - it's not the book for you! A Confederacy of Dunces earned Toole a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1981.