What a bottle rocket eh? I remember thinking about forty pages in that there was no way he could maintain that level of intensity for the whole book.

Unfortunately I was right. Still an astonishing work, and now I need to go read some more of his stuff.

At the end of the "Fish" chapter in As I Lay Dying I literally threw the book across the room.

The reverse movie scene in Slaughterhouse Five made me cry as hard as I ever have over a book.

So let me nominate a few more:

The end of the first section of The Crossing, by Cormac McCarthy.

The first scene of Underworld, by Don Delillo. (Some of the clearest writing I've ever read.)

The next to last chapter of Ulysses (my favorite) and the last chapter of Ulysses (most critics favorite and my second.)

The first chapter of Beloved by Toni Morrison.

Cormac McCarthy and Thomas Pynchon have entered the chat.

I've always thought it overated.

Timbuk2 for the win. It's close to water proof, and comfortable. I use mine every day, sometimes all day. I've hauled small animals, bike frames, groceries, used it as a picnic mat, slept on it. After ten years or so some of the edging has started to wear.

Standard grind is one way. It doesn't hurt the standard grinder much to reverse, maybe just a little more wear. I used a Peugeot pepper grinder possibly ever thirty seconds for decades in restaurants. No fails.

The pewter one I have at home has seems to have not aged a bit in 17 years.