What is American Lit?
The following list was taken from the California Department of Education List of Recommended Reading.
The format is being changed to table form as I have time, please use it as you will.
Once the list is in table form, I will begin
adding things that I feel should be there whether the CDoE does or not. For
instance how can a list of American Lit not include Isaac Asimov's Foundation
Trilogy? Impossible!
*** means I have read this recently and
it is a favorite
(recently is relative)
|
A |
Title |
Comments |
|
Adams, Alice |
Careless Love |
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Adams, Alice |
Listening to Billie |
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Adams, Alice |
Second Chances |
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Adams, Henry |
The Education of Henry Adams |
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Agee, James |
A Death in the Family |
Biography |
|
Aiken, Conrad |
Blue Voyage |
|
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Alcott, Louisa May |
Little Women |
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Alcott, Louisa May |
Little Men |
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Alger, Jr, Horatio |
Ragged Dick, |
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Algren, Nelson |
The Man with the Golden Arm |
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Algren, Nelson |
A Walk on the Wild Side |
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Anderson, Sherwood |
Winesburg, Ohio |
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Baldwin, James |
Go Tell it on the Mountain |
Autobigraphical novel |
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Baldwin, James |
Notes of a Native Son |
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Baldwin, James |
Nobody Knows My Name |
Essays |
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Baldwin, James |
Another Country |
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Bellow, Saul |
Humboldts Gift |
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Bellow, Saul |
Henderson the Rain King |
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Bierce, Ambrose |
Essays, Short Stories |
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Bradbury, Ray |
Fahrenheit 451 |
*** |
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Caldwell, P. Erskine |
Tobacco Road |
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Caldwell, P. Erskine |
Gods Little Acre |
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|
Capote, Truman |
In Cold Blood |
*** |
|
Capote, Truman |
Breakfast at Tiffanys |
|
|
Cather, Willa |
O, Pioneers |
*** |
|
Cather, Willa |
My Antonia |
*** |
|
Cather, Willa |
Death Comes for the Archbishop |
|
|
Cheever, John |
The Wapshot Chronicle |
|
|
Chopin, Kate |
The Awakening |
*** |
|
Clark, Walter Van Tilburg |
The Ox-Bow Incicent |
*** |
|
Clavell, James |
Shogun |
*** |
|
Clavell, James |
Taipan |
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Conrad, Joseph |
The Secret Sharer |
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Conrad, Joseph |
Heart of Darkness |
|
|
Cooper, James Fenimore |
The Leatherstocking Tales (5 volumes) The
Pioneers |
|
|
Crane, Stephen |
The Red Badge of Courage |
*** |
|
Crane, Stephen |
Maggie, A Girl of the Streets |
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Dana, Richard Henry |
Two Years Before the Mast |
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Dickenson, Emily |
(Poems) |
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Didion, Joan |
(essays) |
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Didion, Joan |
Play it as it Lays |
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Dillard Annie |
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek |
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Doerr, Harriet |
Stones for Ibarra |
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Dos Passos, John |
U.S.A. (trilogy) |
|
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Douglass, Frederick |
Narrative of the Life of FD |
Biography |
|
Dreiser, Theodore |
Sister Carrie |
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Dreiser, Theodore |
Jennie Gerhardt |
*** |
|
Drieser, Theodore |
An American Tragedy |
*** |
E
|
Ellison, Ralph |
The Invisible Man |
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Emerson, Ralph Waldo |
(Poems), (Essays) |
|
F
|
Farrell, James T |
Studs Lonigan |
*** |
|
Faulkner, William |
A Light in August |
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Ferber, Edna |
Cimarron |
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Fitzgerald, F Scott |
This Side of Paradise |
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Franklin, Benjamin |
The Autobiography of Benjamin
Frankin |
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Frost, Robert |
(Poems) |
|
G
|
Grey, Zane |
The Last of the Plainsmen |
*** |
|
Guest, Judith |
Ordinary People |
|
H
|
Haley, Alex |
Roots |
*** |
|
Hall, James |
Mutiny on the Bounty |
|
|
Hawthorne, Nathaniel |
The Scarlet Letter |
|
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Heller, Joseph |
Catch 22 |
*** |
|
Hemingway, Ernest |
A Farewell to Arms |
*** |
|
Henry, O. |
(Short Stories) |
|
|
Hersey, John |
A Bell for Adano |
*** |
|
Hill, Ruth Beebe |
Hanta Yo |
|
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Hughes, Langston |
(Poems) |
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Hunter, Evan |
Blackboard Jungle |
|
|
Hurst, Fannie |
Imitation of Life |
|
|
Hurston, Zora Neale |
Their Eyes were Watching God |
*** |
I
|
Irving, John |
The World According to Garp |
|
J
|
Jackson, Helen Hunt |
Ramona |
|
|
James, Henry |
The American |
|
|
Johnson, James Weldon |
Autobiography of an Ex-coloured
Man |
*** |
|
Jones, James |
From Here to Eternity |
|
K
|
Kantor, Mackinlay |
Andersonville |
|
|
Kerouac, Jack |
On the Road |
|
|
Kesey, Ken |
One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest |
|
|
King, Martin Luther |
I Have a Dream |
|
|
Kingston, Maxine Hong |
The Woman Warrior |
|
|
Knowles, John |
A Separate Peace |
|
L
|
L’ÄôAmour, Louis |
Hondo |
|
|
La Farge, Oliver |
Laughing Boy |
|
|
Laurence and Lee |
Inherit the Wind |
|
|
Lee, Harper |
To Kill a Mockingbird |
*** |
|
Lewis, Sinclair |
Babbitt |
|
|
Lindbergh, Ann Morrow |
Gift from the Sea |
|
|
London, Jack |
The Seawolf |
*** |
M
|
Mailer, Norman |
The Naked and the Dead |
|
|
Malamud, Bernard |
The Assistant |
|
|
McCarthy, Mary |
The Group |
|
|
McCullers, Carson |
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter |
|
|
Melville, Herman |
Moby Dick |
|
|
Mitchell, Margaret |
Gone with the Wind |
|
|
Morrison, Toni |
The Bluest Eye |
|
N
|
Nabokov, Vladimir |
Lolita |
|
O
|
O’ÄôBrien, Tim |
Going After Cacciato |
|
|
O’ÄôConnor, Flannery |
Wise Blood |
|
P
|
Pirsig, Robert M |
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle
Maintenance |
|
|
Poe, Edgar A |
(Short Stories) |
|
|
Porter, Katherine Anne |
Ship of Fools |
|
|
Potok, Chaim |
The Chosen |
|
R
|
Rand, Ayn |
Atlas Shrugged |
|
|
Roberts, Kenneth |
Northwest Passage |
|
|
Roth, Philip |
Portnoy’Äôs Complaint |
|
S
|
Salinger, J.D. |
Catcher in the Rye |
|
|
Saroyan, William |
My Name is Aram |
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Schulberg, Budd What Makes Sammy Run
Shaw, Irwin The Young Lions
Shaw, Irwin The Young Lions
Sinclair, Upton The Jungle
Singer, Isaac Bashevis Yentl, the Yeshiva Boy
Smith, Betty A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Smiley, Jane A Thousand Acres
Stegner, Wallace Angle of Repose
Stegner, Wallace Crossing to Safety
Stein, Gertrude Things as they are
Steinbeck, John The Grapes of Wrath
Steinbeck, John Tortilla Flat
Steinbeck, John In Dubious Battle
Steinbeck, John Of Mice and Men
Steinbeck, John Cannery Row
Steinbeck, John Sweet Thursday
Steinbeck, John East of Eden
Steinbeck, John Winter of Our Discontent
Steinbeck, John Travels with Charley
Stevenson, Robert Lewis The Strange Case of Dr Jekyl and Mr Hyde
Stout, Rex If Death ever Slept
Stowe, Harriet Beecher Uncle Toms Cabin
Styron, William Lie Down in Darkness
Styron, William The confessions of Nat Turner
Styron, William Sophies Choice
T
Tan, Amy The Joy Luck Club
Tarkington, Booth Seventeen
Tarkington, Booth The Magnificent Ambersons
Thoreau, Henry David Walden
Thurber, James (Essays)
Twain, Mark Puddnhead Wilson
Twain, Mark The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Twain, Mark The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Twain, Mark Innocents Abroad
Twain, Mark The Prince and the Pauper
Twain, Mark A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court
Tyler, Anne The Accidental Tourist
Tyler, Anne Breathing Lessons
U
Updike, John Rabbit, Run
Updike, John The Witches of Eastwick
Uris, Leon Exodus
Uris, Leon Trinity
V
Vonnegut, Kurt, Jr Cats Cradle
Vonnegut, Kurt, Jr Breakfast of Champions
Vonnegut,Kurt, Jr. Slaughterhouse 5
W
Walker, Alice The Color Purple
Wallace, Irving The Chapman Report
Wambaugh, Joseph The New Centurions
Wambaugh, Joseph The Onion Field
Warren, Robert Penn All the Kings Men
Welty, Eudora The Optimists Daughter
Wharton, Edith The House of Mirth
Wharton, Edith Ethan Frome
Wharton, Edith The Age of Innocence
Wharton, William Birdy
Whitman, Walt Leaves of Grass
Wilder, Thornton Our Town
Wilder, Thornton The Bridge of San Luis Rey
Wister, Owen The Virginian
Wolfe, Thomas Look Homeward, Angel
Wolfe, Thomas You Cant Go Home Again
Wouk, Herman The Caine Mutiny
Wright, Richard Black Boy
Wright,Richard Native Son