I’m gonna put this out there with little comment. The other day I got to thinking about the most influential American books. That is, those books that defined us or changed us. Those books that, should visitors from another planet drop in, would give them a pretty good idea of who we are, who we’ve been, who we think we are or pretend to be, and what it’s been like reconciling all the realities, aspirations, and myths contained therein. Note: The books don’t have to be written by an American or in Americe. Okay? Here goes, in no particular order:
- The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America (sic), proclamation by Thomas Jefferson and the Committee of Five, with editing by the Second Continental Congress, 1776
- Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, by Herman Melville, 1851
- The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, 1906
- Peyton Place, by Grace Metalious, 1956
- Unsafe at Any Speed; The Designed-In Dangers of the American Automobile, by Ralph Nader, 1965
- Ball Four: My Life and Hard Times Throwing the Knuckleball in the Big Leagues, by Jim Bouton, edited by Leonard Schecter, 1970
- Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, by J.K. Rowling, 1997
- The Bible, anthology in several languages by multiple authors plus compiled oral lore, from c. 500 BCE to 1st century CE
- Valley of the Dolls, by Jacqueline Susann, 1966
- The Feminine Mystique, by Betty Friedan, 1963
- To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, 1960
- Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, 1885
- The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck, 1939
- Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison, 1952
- Common Sense, pamphlet by Thomas Paine, 1775-1776
- Democracy in America, (De la démocratie en Amérique), by Alexis de Tocqueville, 1935 and 1840
- Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself, 1845
- An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith, 1776
- Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly, by Harriet Beecher Stowe, 1852
- Beloved, by Tone Morrison, 1987
- Walden; or, life in the Woods, by Henry David Thoreau, 1854
- Native Son, by Richard Wright, 1954
- Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson, 1962
- All the King’s Men, by Robert Penn Warren, 1946
- All the President’s Men, by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, 1974
- The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1925
- Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, by Anita Loos, 1952
- A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith, 1943
- The Color Purple, by Alice Walker, 1982
- The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood, 1985
- The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams, 1979
- Catch-22, by Jeseph Heller, 1961
- Tales of the City, by Armistead Maupin, 1978
- My Ántonia, by Willa Cather, 1918
As an added bonus, I offer you my choice as the greatest American novel ever written: Little Big Man, by Thomas Berger, 1964.
Feel free to let me know how wrong I am about any of this.