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Literature is books that are "considered of superior or lasting artistic merit." (from Oxford) Merit is subjective and debatable. What counts as fiction vs. literature? Opinions vary. For my purposes, I used several sources:
- Modern Library's Top 100 Novels
- Great American Novel selections
- Howard County School System's Reading List selections (as stocked at my local library)
- Books I wanted to read
My goal was to sample the best of American authors and the themes they highlighted during our country's short history.
The below are 111 books by American authors, presented alphabetically (by author's first name). I include children's literature at the end (also by first name). I'm sure this list will grow and evolve over the next few years. I have read a percentage of these already; I will add links as I have the time, or you can search the blog.
Anita Loos Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
Anthony Burgess A Clockwork Orange
Arthur Miller The Crucible
Ayn Rand Atlas Shrugged
Booth Tarkington The Magnificent Ambersons
Carson McCullers The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
Cormac McCarthy The Road
Cormac McCarthy Blood Meridian
Dashiell Hammett The Maltese Falcon
David Foster Wallace Infinite Jest
Don DeLillo Underworld
E. Annie Proulx The Shipping News
E.L. Doctorow Ragtime
Edgar Allan Poe The Raven and Other Tales
Edith Wharton The Age of Innocence
Edith Wharton The House of Mirth
Ernest Hemingway For Whom the Bell Tolls
Ernest Hemingway The Sun Also Rises
Ernest Hemingway A Farewell to Arms
Ernest J. Gaines The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman
Erskine Caldwell Tobacco Road
F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald Tender is the Night
Frank Norris McTeague
H.G. Wells The War of the Worlds
Harper Lee To Kill a Mockingbird
Harriet Beecher Stowe Uncle Tom's Cabin
Henry David Thoreau Walden
Henry James Wings of the Dove
Henry James The Ambassadors
Henry James The Golden Bowl
Herman Melville Moby-Dick
J.D. Salinger The Catcher in the Rye
Jack Kerouac On the Road
Jack London Call of the Wild
Jack London White Fang
James Agee A Death in the Family
James Baldwin Go Tell it on the Mountain
James Dickey Deliverance
James Fenimore Cooper Last of the Mohicans
James Jones From Here to Eternity
James M. Cain The Postman Always Rings Twice
James T. Farrell The Studs Lonigan Trilogy
John Cheever The Wapshot Chronicles
John Dos Passos U.S.A. (trilogy)
John Irving A Prayer for Owen Meany
John Knowles A Separate Peace
John O'Hara Appointment in Samarra
John Steinbeck Of Mice and Men
John Steinbeck The Grapes of Wrath
John Updike The Centaur
Jonathan Franzen Freedom
Joseph Heller Catch-22
Ken Kesey One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Kurt Vonnegut Slaughterhouse Five
Margaret Mitchell Gone with the Wind
Mark Twain A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
Mark Twain The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Mark Twain The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Maya Angelou I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Michael Chabon Telegraph Avenue
Nathanael West The Day of the Locust
Nathaniel Hawthorne The Scarlet Letter
Nathaniel Hawthorne The House of the Seven Gables
Pearl S. Buck The Good Earth
Ralph Ellison The Invisible Man
Ray Bradbury Fahrenheit 451
Ray Bradbury Something Wicked This Way Comes
Richard Wright Native Son
Robert Penn Warren All the King's Men
Saul Bellow The Adventures of Augie March
Saul Bellow Henderson the Rain King
Sherwood Anderson Winesburg, Ohio
Sinclair Lewis Main Street
Stephen Crane Red Badge of Courage
Theodore Dreiser An American Tragedy
Theodore Dreiser Sister Carrie
Thomas Pynchon Gravity's Rainbow
Thornton Wilder The Bridge of San Luis Rey
Toni Morrison Beloved
Truman Capote In Cold Blood
Upton Sinclair The Jungle
Vladimir Nabokov Lolita
Walker Percy The Moviegoer
Wallace Stegner Angle of Repose
Washington Irving Legend of Sleepy Hollow & Rip Van Winkle
Willa Cather O Pioneers!
Willa Cather Death Comes for the Archbishop
William Faulkner As I Lay Dying
William Faulkner Light in August
William Faulkner Absalom, Absalom
William Faulkner The Sound and the Fury
William Kennedy Ironweed
William Styron Sophie's Choice
Wilson Rawls Where the Red Fern Grows
E. B. White Charlotte's Web
Esther Forbes Johnny Tremain
Fred Gipson Old Yeller
Laura Ingalls Wilder Little House on the Prairie
Lois Lowry The Giver
Lois Lowry Number the Stars
Louis Sachar Holes
Louisa May Alcott Little Women
Lynne Reid Banks The Indian in the Cupboard
Madeliene L'Engle A Wrinkle in Time
Neil Gaiman Coraline
R. L. Stine Goosebumps
Scott O'Dell The Island of the Blue Dolphin
Sid Fleischman The Whipping Boy
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