Story Cycles

Reading Colum McCann's LET THE GREAT WORLD SPIN a few months ago, kicked off a run of other story cycles (WHERE THE GOD OF LOVE HANGS OUT and OLIVE KITTERIDGE and THE IMPERFECTIONISTS). I read lots of short stories (especially when someone bestows their back copies of The New Yorker on me), and lots of novels. This roll of reading has offered a happy blend of the two, after a fall and winter with too many disappointing reads. (I was so excited about Lethem's CHRONIC CITY that I bought it in hardcover, and finished only the first few chapters; Mary Karr's LIT, which I also bought in hardcover? I'm a huge Karr fan, but this one is preachy and pedantic. She found God and got sober. HALF-BROKE HORSES by Jeanette Walls is not nearly as compelling as her stellar debut, THE GLASS CASTLE.) Anyhoo, the linked stories got me thinking that some of my all-time favorite books have been story cycles (or linked short stories or novel-in-stories or whatever you want to call them). Two that come immediately to mind are Faulkner's AS I LAY DYING, which I first read in maybe 10th or 11th grade (thanks, Paul O'Rourke), and got me thinking about point of view for the first time, and Tim O'Brien's THE THINGS THEY CARRIED. Since I'm on a bender here, I'd welcome other reading (or rereading) suggestions.