# American Books You've Liked **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 27, 2020, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-books-youve-liked/850387 "2020-03-27T02:04:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2020, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-books-youve-liked/850387/22 "2020-03-27T14:44:55Z")
Definitely **Red Harvest,** also Dashiell Hammett’s **The Maltese Falcon** and **The Glass Key.** Charles Finley’s **The Circus of Dr. Lao,** a marvelous 1935 fantasy which prefigured all the later “spooky circus” novels, only it’s FUNNY Dorothy B. Hughes’s **In a Lonely Place,** (1947) one of the best serial killer novels ever Ann Petry’s **The Street,** (1946) first bestseller by an African-American woman, will rip your heart right out of your chest ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2020, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-books-youve-liked/850387/23 "2020-03-27T15:01:51Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > Canadian\* is\* American You’re going to get a lot of pushback on that. In my experience, whenever people talk about the/a “Great American Novel” or “American Literature” they mean the USA. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2020, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-books-youve-liked/850387/24 "2020-03-27T15:14:22Z")
Plus Canadians are justifiably proud of Margaret Atwood and would probably not appreciate her being considered American. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2020, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-books-youve-liked/850387/25 "2020-03-27T17:56:28Z")
William March’s **Company K** (1933). Generally considered the best piece of American literature to arise from the Great War, consists of 113 vignettes from POV of 113 U.S. Marines — some horrific, some containing offbeat, black humor. Compare to **Catch-22.** **The Man with the Golden Arm** (1949). Nobody reads Nelson Algren any more, I don’t know why. A compulsive piece of mid-century realism, set on seedy Division Street, Chicago. Frankie Machine is a hell of a guy. Henry Kessring’s **The Cook** (1965). Short, darkly humorous novel culminating in horror. Shirley Jackson would have been proud to have written it. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2020, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-books-youve-liked/850387/26 "2020-03-27T18:01:17Z")
I like everything by Jim Harrison, especially _Dalva_ (1988) and \*The Road Home \*(1998) > **[The must-read works of the late, great Jim Harrison](https://www.mlive.com/entertainment/2016/03/the_must-read_works_of_the_lat.html)** > > A poet, a literature professor and one of Harrison's longtime best friends share their picks for the American literary giant's essential works. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2020, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-books-youve-liked/850387/27 "2020-03-27T18:02:54Z")
The great majority of novels by John D. MacDonald (especially the Travis McGee series). Early to mid career novels by Lawrence Block (including such works as “When The Sacred Ginmill Closes”). Also Dashiell Hammett. If we’re including non-fiction, books by Erik Larsen (“Isaac’s Storm” is far and away his best). ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2020, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-books-youve-liked/850387/28 "2020-03-27T18:23:36Z")
Maybe I’m impatient, but I prefer novellas to novels. 🙂 Here are some good ones: _The Old Man and the Sea_, by Ernest Hemingway _Of Mice and Men_, by John Steinbeck _The Pearl_, by John Steinbeck _Call of the Wild_, by Jack London _Bartleby, the Scrivener_, by Herman Melville [del]_The Quiet American_, by Graham Greene[/del] . . Oops – Greene is English, not American _Gone Fishin’_, by Walter Mosley ---
**Author:** ![Tarataratara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Tarataratara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tarataratara)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2020, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-books-youve-liked/850387/29 "2020-03-27T18:35:18Z")
Little Women ---
**Author:** ![Wilson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/96bed5/32.png) [@Wilson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wilson)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2020, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-books-youve-liked/850387/30 "2020-03-27T18:43:24Z")
William Gaddis, **The Recognitions** and **A Frolic of His Own**. Michael Chabon, **The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay**. Wallace Stegner, **Angle of Repose** Russell Banks, **Continental Drift** Recent: Richard Powers, **The Overstory**. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2020, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-books-youve-liked/850387/31 "2020-03-27T18:47:06Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > You’re going to get a lot of pushback on that. In my experience, whenever people talk about the/a “Great American Novel” or “American Literature” they mean the USA. Well, I know that Atwood is Canadian. I almost called the thread “non-Brit lit,” just so I could include\* My Brilliant Career.\* ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2020, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-books-youve-liked/850387/32 "2020-03-27T19:25:42Z")
_In Cold Blood,_ Truman Capote _Ender’s Game_ Orson Scott Card _Tender is the Night_ Fitzgerald _Witness_ Whitaker Chambers ---
**Author:** ![Tarataratara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Tarataratara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tarataratara)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2020, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-books-youve-liked/850387/33 "2020-03-27T19:37:14Z")
Charlotte’s Web ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2020, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-books-youve-liked/850387/34 "2020-03-27T21:03:25Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > Well, I know that Atwood is Canadian. I almost called the thread “non-Brit lit,” just so I could include\* My Brilliant Career.\* In that case, there are some well-known American classics like _Maria Chapdelaine…_ ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2020, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-books-youve-liked/850387/35 "2020-03-27T21:09:02Z")
Let me also put in _A Confederacy of Dunces_ ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2020, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-books-youve-liked/850387/36 "2020-03-28T01:22:07Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > The Grapes of Wrath, by Steinbeck Add to that, _The Jungle_ by Upton Sinclair. > [@RealityChuck](#): > > Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut Also two of his others, _Slaughterhouse Five_ and _Sirens of Titan_. > [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > Charles Finley’s **The Circus of Dr. Lao,** a marvelous 1935 fantasy which prefigured all the later “spooky circus” novels, only it’s FUNNY Nit-pick: Charles Finney. Original edition had surreal illustrations by Boris Artzybasheff, which apparently were omitted from later editions :smack: Also: _The Cat In The Hat_ by Everyone-Knows-Who ! ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2020, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-books-youve-liked/850387/37 "2020-03-28T01:28:12Z")
Oops, “Finley” was a spellcheck typo, sorry. If you can still buy the University of Nebraska Press Speculative Fiction reprint, it contains the (superlative) Artzybasheff illustrations. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2020, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-books-youve-liked/850387/38 "2020-03-29T01:57:22Z")
Seconds to anything by Jim Harrison and Steinbeck. Brown Dog cracks me up! ---
**Author:** ![Purd\_Werfect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e47c2d/32.png) [@Purd\_Werfect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Purd_Werfect)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2020, 8:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-books-youve-liked/850387/39 "2020-03-29T08:51:45Z")
_Sometimes A Great Notion_ by Ken Kesey _The Dog Stars_ by Peter Heller _A Tale For The Time Being_ by Ruth Ozeki ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2020, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-books-youve-liked/850387/40 "2020-03-29T13:44:52Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > Housekeeping, by Marilyn Robinson If you liked Housekeeping, I would recommend Gilead as well. IMO, Gilead is Robinson’s best work (the entire trilogy is beautiful) Sent from my Pixel 4 XL using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2020, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-books-youve-liked/850387/41 "2020-03-29T13:55:24Z")
Prince of the Blood or the King’s Buccaneer by Raymond Feist [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-books-youve-liked/850387.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-books-youve-liked/850387.md?page=3)