I think my first was Phillip Dick’s “Eye In The Sky”… a still enjoyable little romp about a group of people caught into some kind of atomic accident and unconsciously creating their own parallel Earths. It was weird and fresh and brash, nothing like I’d seen in school - in other words, prime apple-in-the-garden-of-eden.
It wasn’t long after that until I had devoured my father’s collection and started on my own.
Damn, that was supposed to be a reply to the sci-fi thread, not a new one. Oh, well. List your favorite Dick books or something. 
Philip K Dick is a genius. I just wish his books were more consistent. Take what probably is his masterpiece, “Valis”. The first half of the book is truly beautiful, a real work of art. The second half is mediocre at best.
“The Man In the High Castle”
“Martian Time Slip”
“Ubik”
“Deus Iras”
Well, yeah, he’s inconsistent. He’s also, actually, a terrible writer. He’s also a genius.
Yes, he’s “technically” a poor writer, from a stylistic, namby pamby lit crit, but I have one word for you:
telefrigginpathicslimemold.
Have you ever read “The Shifting Realities of Philip K. Dick”? I have never managed to get a copy of that book. Can you tell me what it’s like?
So for someone who’s never read Dick, what’s a good starting book?
For starters? Maybe Ubik or Divine Invasion. Or his short stories.
A book NOT to start with would be “A Scanner Darkly.” I think PKD is a writer you have to be eased into (dig the homoerotic qualities of THAT metaphor!) and “A Scanner Darkly”, which I’ve just read for the first time, is a major mind-fuck. I might suggest “Clans of the Alphane Moon” or “Time Out of Joint.”
Philip K. Dick is the reason I did not like The Truman Show. I kept expecting it to go way off into left field and it just never quite got there.
I like his short stories–haven’t read many novels but liked “Time Out of Joint.” I especially like an introduction in a collection called “I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon.” I think it’s an address that he gave at a college or something. It has a great line in it–“Reality is that which, when you stop thinking about it, doesn’t go away.”
I’ve read many of Dick’s books, and they often get lumped into the Sci-Fi category even though that is a minor part of the story.
Anyway, A Scanner Darkly is just about the most chilling book that I have ever read. Read the little list of people that Phil knew at the back of the book, and you realize that [Mr. Garrison] drugs are bad. M’kay?[/Mr. Garrison]
Valis is also a trip because it is semi-autobiographical.
My favorites, and ones I always recommend are:
Confessions of a Crap Artist
Flow my tears, the policeman said
The Game Players of Titan
Now Wait for Last Year
and The Galactic Pot-Healer