| The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald "It is humor, irony, ribaldry, pathos and loveliness...A curious book, a mystical, glamorous story of today." - The New York Times Books about The Great Gatsby | 1984 George Orwell "[T]he most contemporary novel of the year and who knows of how many past and to come." - The New York Times Books about 1984 | |
| Catcher in the Rye J.D. Salinger "[A]n unusually brilliant novel...the unconscious humor, the repetitions, the slang and profanity, the emphasis, all are just right." - The New York Times Books about Catcher in the Rye | The Lord of the Flies | |
| The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck "Steinbeck has written a novel from the depths of his heart with a sincerity seldom equaled." - The New York Times Books about The Grapes of Wrath | Beloved Toni Morrison "A masterwork... Wonderful... I can't imagine American literature without it." - Los Angeles Times Books about Beloved | |
| The Color Purple Alice Walker "[A] work to stand beside literature of any time and place." - The San Francisco Chronicle Books about The Color Purple | Ulysses James Joyce "[O]ne of the most significant and beautiful books of our time." - The Nation Books about Ulysses | |
| Of Mice and Men John Steinbeck "[A] thriller, a gripping tale running to novelette length that you will not set down until it is finished. It is more than that; but it is that... .Steinbeck has touched the quick in his little story." - The New York Times Books about Of Mice and Men | Catch-22 Joseph Heller "A monumental artifact of contemporary American literature, almost as assured of longevity as the statues on Easter Island." - The New York Times Books about Catch-22 | |
| Brave New World Aldous Huxley "Mr. Huxley is eloquent in his declaration of an artist's faith in man, and it is his eloquence, bitter in attack, noble in defense, that, when one has closed the book, one remembers." - Saturday Review Books about Brave New World | The Sun Also Rises Ernest Hemingway "No amount of analysis can convey the quality of The Sun Also Rises. It is a truly gripping story, told in a lean, hard, athletic narrative prose that puts more literary English to shame." - The New York Times Books about The Sun Also Rises | |
| As I Lay Dying William Faulkner "For range of effect, philosophical weight, originality of style, variety of characterization, humor, and tragic intensity, [Faulkner's works] are without equal in our time and country." - Robert Penn Warren Books about As I Lay Dying | Song of Solomon Toni Morrison "It places Toni Morrison in the front rank of contemporary American writers. She has written a novel that will endure." - The Washington Post Books about Song of Solomon | |
| Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad "Heart of Darkness has had an influence that goes beyond the specifically literary... one of the great, if troubling, visionary works of western civilization." - Joyce Carol Oates Books about Heart of Darkness | Their Eyes were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston "Their Eyes belongs in the same categorywith that of William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ernest Hemingwayof enduring American literature." - Saturday Review Books about Their Eyes were Watching God | |
| A Clockwork Orange Anthony Burgess "I do not know of any other writer who has done as much with language as Mr. Burgess has done here." - William S. Burroughs Books about A Clockwork Orange | A Farewell to Arms Ernest Hemingway "[S]eldom has a literary style so precisely jumped with the time... a moving and beautiful book." - The New York Times Books about A Farewell to Arms | |
| Gone with the Wind Margaret Mitchell "This is beyond a doubt one of the most remarkable first novels produced by an American writer. It is also one of the best." - The New York Times Books about Gone with the Wind | Go Tell it on the Mountain James Baldwin "Baldwin... has really unusual substantive powers but conventional ingenuity in form...[a] beautiful, furious first novel." - The New York Times Books about Go Tell it on the Mountain | |
| One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Ken Kesey "A work of genuine literary merit. What Mr. Kesey has done in his unusual novel is to transform the plight of a ward of inmates in a mental institution into a glittering parable of good and evil." - The New York Times Books about One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest | Slaughterhouse Five Kurt Vonnegut "Highly imaginative, nearly psychedelic...It is very tough and very funny; it is sad and delightful; it is very Vonnegut; and it works." - The New York Times Books about Slaughterhouse Five | |
| For Whom the Bell Tolls Ernest Hemingway "This is the best book Ernest Hemingway has written, the fullest, the deepest, the truest. It will, I think, be one of the major novels in American literature." - The New York Times Books about For Whom the Bell Tolls | The Call of the Wild James Baldwin "Baldwin... has really unusual substantive powers but conventional ingenuity in form...[a] beautiful, furious first novel." - The New York Times Books about The Call of the Wild | |
| All the King's Men Robert Penn Warren "Mr. Warren has employed vivid characterization and strong language combined with subtle overtones to write a vital, compelling narrative." - Booklist Books about All the King's Men | The Jungle Upton Sinclair “When people ask me what has happened in my long lifetime I do not refer them to the newspaper files and to the authorities, but to [Sinclair's] novels.” - George Bernard Shaw Books about The Jungle | |
| Lady Chatterley's Lover DH Lawrence "Nobody concerned with the novel in our century can afford not to read it." - Lawrence Durrell Books about Lady Chatterley's Lover | Invisible Man | |
| In Cold Blood Truman Capote "The best documentary account of an American crime ever written... The book chills the blood and exercises the intelligence... harrowing." - The New York Review of Books Books about In Cold Blood | Satanic Verses Salman Rushdie "Swift's Gulliver's Travels, Voltaire's Candide, Sterne's Tristram Shandy... Salman Rushdie, it seems to me, is very much a latter-day member of their company." - The New York Times Books about Satanic Verses | |
| Sons and Lovers DH Lawrence "There is probably no phrase much more hackneyed than that of 'human document,' yet it is the only one which at all describes this very unusual book." - The New York Times Books about Sons and Lovers | Naked Lunch | |
| A Separate Peace John Knowles "[An] engrossing tale of love, hate, war, and peace...Intense, mesmerizing, and complelling." - School Library Journal Books about A Separate Peace | Cat's Cradle Kurt Vonnegut "A free-wheeling vehicle...An unforgettable ride!" - The New York Times Books about Cat's Cradle | |
| Women in Love DH Lawrence "No other writer of [Lawrence's] imaginative standing has in our time written books that are so open to life." - Alfred Kazin Books about Women in Love | The Naked and the Dead Norman Mailer "The best novel to come out of the... war, perhaps the best book to come out of any war." - San Francisco Chronicle Books about The Naked and the Dead | |
| An American Tragedy Theodore Dreiser "Mr. Dreiser is not imitative and belongs to no school. He is at heart a mysticist and a fatalist, though using the realistic method. He is, on the evidence of this novel alone, a power." - The New York Times Books about An American Tragedy | Rabbit, Run John Updike "Brilliant and poignant....By his compassion, clarity of insight and crystal-bright prose, [Updike] makes Rabbit's sorrow his and our own." - The Washington Post Books about Rabbit, Run | |
| Tropic of Cancer Henry Miller "One of the most remarkable, most truly original authors of this or any age." - Saturday Review Books about Tropic of Cancer | Native Son Richard Wright "Certainly, Native Son declares Richard Wright's importance... as an American author as distinctive as any of those now writing." - The New York Times Books about Native Son |
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