Red, White and Blue

In honor of our nation's 233rd birthday this weekend, I set out to find "American" books for a Librarian Next Door list/post. What I found, however, is that it is exceedingly difficult to determine what qualifies as distinctly American literature when American literature is so vast and varied.

So, I did my best. My list of quintessentially American books, poems, and plays represents all 233 years of our country's history and tries to cover all major events and/or time periods while also acknowledging that "America" is whatever we decide we want it to be.

You may notice, due to my own slight OCD tendencies, that the list is roughly in chronological order, starting with the birth of the U.S.A. in the 1770's and leading up to present day.

(Note: I spent nearly a week compiling and revising this list. In no way do I mean to offend anyone by leaving an author or literary work off or by what I have decide to include. Feel free to argue - respectfully - with me in the comments.)

• Common Sense - Thomas Paine
• The Federalist Papers - Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, James Madison
• Walden - Henry David Thoreau
  
• Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman
• Uncle Tom's Cabin - Harriet Beecher Stowe
  
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
• The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
• The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
• To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
• Death of a Salesman - Arthur Miller
• Rabbit, Run - John Updike
  
• Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut
• A Raisin in the Sun - Lorraine Hansberry
  
• Roots: The Saga of an American Family - Alex Haley
• White Noise - Don DeLillo
• Song of Solomon - Toni Morrison
  
• Angels in America - Tony Kushner
• The House on Mango Street - Sandra Cisneros
  
• The Joy Luck Club - Amy Tan
• The Corrections - Jonathan Franzen