Anyone else here read Time out of Joint by Philip K. Dick?
I thought this was a nice, concise, and original read, and my first real attempt at an American SF story. I went into it with very little background, only a brief blurb written in Mark Fisher's The Weird and the Eerie about Dick's description of the uncanny feeling of driving to the outskirts of one's own town - one of the most memorable scenes from the book. The first half is certainly the better, while the second half's over-explained and sort of goofy rational explanation for everything took away a bit of the intrigue.
Very cinematic. Funny when it needed to be, moody throughout, and pretty transgressive to [my idea of] the standards of the late-50s.
Props to SF Masterworks for making such a great presentation. I always try to find their prints of books whenever possible.
You might want to build up to it instead, but if you want Dick at his best, I think you should try The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch.