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BOOK TITLE
AUTHOR
Genre/time period
YOUR NAME
Harriet Beecher
Stowe
Benjamin
Franklin
James Fenimore
Cooper
Margaret Mitchell
Revolutionary writers
Revolutionary
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Revolutionary writer
Autobiography
Historical Fiction
Historical fiction
Shelby Foote
Romance; historical
fiction
Historical fiction
William Styron
Historical fiction
John Hersey
Historical; military
Tim O’Brien
Meta-fiction; military
James Jones
World War II fiction
Washington
Irving
Nathaniel
Hawthorne (no
Romanticism
Romanticism
Romanticism
The Pioneers;
Deerslayer; The Last
of the Mohicans (not
the movie)
Gone with the Wind
Follow me Down;
Shiloh; Love In A
Dry Season
Lie Down in
Darkness; The
Confession of Nat
Turner
Hiroshima; A Bell for
Adano
If I Die in a Combat
Zone, Box Me Up and
Ship Me Home;
Northern Light;
Going After
Cacciato; The Things
They Carried; In The
Lake of the Woods
From Here to
Eternity; The Thin
Red Line; Some
Came Running;
Whistle
The Sketchbook
Scarlet Letter)
Stephen Crane
Henry James
Realism/Naturalism
Naturalism
Realism; psychological
realism
Jack London (no
Realism; Naturalism
Call of the Wild or
White Fang)
William Dean
Realism; Civil War writer
Howells
Theodore Dreiser Early 1900s
Edith Wharton (no Naturalist
Ethan Frome)
Frank Norris
Progressive era;
Naturalism
Herman Melville
Henry David
Thoreau
Louisa May
Alcott
Maggie a Girl of the
Streets; Red Badge of
Courage
The Portrait of a
Lady
The Turn of the
Screw
The Rise of Silas
Lapham
Sister Carrie: An
American Tragedy
The House of Mirth;
The Age of Innocence
The Octopus
Transcendentalism/AntiTranscendentalism
Anti-Transcendentalism
Moby Dick
Transcendentalism
Walden
Transcendentalism; Civil
War
Local Color
Mark Twain (no
Too many to list; depends
Huckleberry Finn) on the work
Modernism/The Lost
Generation (1915-1946)
Modern; The Lost
Generation
War; Romance; The Lost
Generation
Sherwood
Anderson
Ernest
Hemingway (no
Old Man and the
Sea)
F. Scott Fitzgerald Modern; The Lost
(no Great Gatsby) Generation
Little Women; Jo's
Boys…
A Connecticut
Yankee…Arthur’s
Court
Winesburg, Ohio
For Whom the Bell
Tolls; The Sun Also
Rises
This Side of
Paradise; The
Beautiful and
John Dos Passos
Gertrude Stein
William Faulkner
Willa Cather
Thomas Wolfe
J. D. Salinger (no
Catcher in the
Rye)
John Updike
Katherine Ann
Porter
Dorothy Parker
Sinclair Lewis
Ayn Rand (no
Anthem)
Damned; Tender is
the Night; The Last
Tycoon
The Lost Generation;
Manhattan Transfer
The Lost Generation;
The Autobiography of
modernist; avant-garde
Alice B. Toklas;
Three Lives
"Southern" writer;
A Light in August;
Modernism; Stream of
Intruder in the Dust;
Consciousness
As I Lay Dying
Modern
O Pioneers!; My
Antonia
Modern; Diversity in
You Can't Go Home
American Culture; fiction, Again; Look
yet autobiographical
Homeward, Angel
Modern
Collection of Short
Stories: Nine Stories
or Franny and Zoey
Modernist
Rabbit series (Rabbit
Run; Rabbit Redux;
Rabbit is Rich;
Rabbit at Rest;
Rabbit Remembered).
Modern Fiction
The Ship of Fools
Modernism; satire
objectivism
John Knowles
Joyce Carol Oates
Post Modernism (1946present)
Post modern
Post Modern
Tom Robbins
Post modernism; satire
Joan Didion
Post Modern; non-fiction
on conspiracy theorists,
paranoiacs, & sociopaths
Gore Vidal
Post Modernism;
homosexuality; political
Main Street; Babbit;
Arrowsmith
Fountainhead; Atlas
Shrugged
A Separate Peace
We Were the
Mulvaneys; Blond;
The Grave Diggers
Daughter
Even Cowgirls Get
the Blues; Another
Roadside Attraction
The White Album;
Where I Was From
Several others to
choose from
Myra Breckinridge;
The City and The
Pillar
One Flew Over the
Cuckoo’s Nest;
Sometimes a Great
Notion
The Naked and the
Dead; An American
Dream
Trout Fishing in
America; A
Confederate General
from Big Sur; The
Hawkline Monster: A
Gothic Western
Naked Lunch
Ken Kesey
Beatnik generation;
hippies; Post modernism
Norman Mailer
New Journalism
Richard Brautigan
Counter culture era; black
comedy; parody; satire;
Zen Buddhism
William
Burroughs
Jack Kerouac
Beat generation; sci/fi;
satire; avant- garde
Beat generation; stream of On The Road
consciousness
Post modernism
White Noise
Several to pick from
New Journalism; gonzo
In Our Time; The
journalism' nonfiction;
Electric Kool-Aid
fiction
Acid Test
(nonfiction); A Man
in Full; I am
Charlotte Simmons;
Back to Blood
New Criticism
All the Kings Men
Don Delillo
Tom Wolfe (no
The Bonfire of the
Vanities)
Robert Penn
Warren
Paul Bowles
American Existentialist
James Purdy
Post Modern
Philip Roth aka
Nathan
Zuckerman
Anne Tyler
Post modern; Fiction
John Irving
Post modern
Post modern
The Sheltering Sky;
Let It Come Down;
The Spider’s House;
Up Above the World;
Too Far From Home
Malcolm; Gertrude
of Stony Island
Avenue; Moe’s Villa
Many to choose from
Breathing Lessons;
The Accidental
Tourist; Dinner at the
Homesick Restaurant
A Prayer for Owen
Meany; The World
Pat Conroy
Post modern
Annie Dillard
Nonfiction; fiction; nature
theology
Jim Carroll
Diaries/prose
Robert Pirsig
Metaphysics of quality
Dalton Trumbo
Anti-war movement;
Hollywood blacklist
Saul Bellow
Cultural Writers
Asian cultures; women's
rights
Jewish writer
Bernard Malamud
Jewish
Isaac Bashevis
Singer
Yiddish Literary
Movement
Amy Tan
Chinese-American
Julia Alvarez
Latin American literature;
The dictator novel
Pearl S. Buck
Jerzy Kosinski (no Polish American
The Painted Bird)
Ralph Ellison
According to Garp;
The Cider House
Rules
The Great Santini;
The Lords of
Discipline; My
Losing Season; The
Prince of Tides
Pilgrim at Tinker
Creek; The Living;
The Maytrees
The Basketball
Diaries; Forced
Entry
Zen and the Art of
Motorcycle
Maintenance…
Johnnie Got His Gun
The Good Earth
Adventures of Auggie
March; Herzog;
Humbolt's Gift
The Fixer; The
Natural
The Family Moskat;
Satan In Goray; The
Wicked City; Shosha
Joy Luck Club;
Kitchen God’s Wife;
Bonesetter’s
Daughter; Saving
Fish From Drowning
How the Garcia Girls
Lost Their Accents;
In the Time of
Butterflies
Steps; Being There
African American
Writers
Criticism; Fiction; African Invisible Man
Richard Wright
Langston Hughes
Zora Neale
Hurston
James Baldwin
Malcolm X
Toni Cade
Bambara
American writer
African American culture;
Harlem Renaissance
African American culture;
Harlem Renaissance
African American culture;
Harlem Renaissance
African American culture;
Harlem Renaissance
Black Nationalism; PanAfricanism
African American
Jamaica Kincaid
Maya Angelou
autobiography
Gwendolyn
Brooks
African American
literature/poetry
Joseph Heller
Upton Sinclair
Kurt Vonnegut
Flannery
O’Connor
Truman Capote
(no In Cold
Blood)
Harriet Arnow
Carson McCullers
Satire/Black Comedy
Satire; Black comedy
Political propaganda;
political satire
Satire; black comedy;
science fiction
Southern
Gothic/Southern
Writers
Southern gothic
Southern Gothic
Southern Appalachian
Writer
Southern Gothic
Native Son; Black
Boy; Uncle Tom's
Children
Mulatto (play); Not
Without Laughter
Their Eyes Were
Watching God
Go Tell It On the
Mountain; Giovanni's
Room; Another
Country
The Salt Eaters;
Those Bones Are Not
My Child
Lucy; Annie John;
The Autobiography of
My Mother
I Know Why the
Caged Bird Sings
Malcolm X
Catch-22
The Jungle
Cat’s Cradle;
Slaughterhouse-Five;
Breakfast of
Champions
A Good Man Is Hard
to Find
Breakfast At Tiffanies
Hunter's Horn; The
Doll Maker
The Heart is a Lonely
Hunter; Reflections
in a Golden Eye; The
Member of the
Wedding
E. B. White (no
Charlotte’s Web)
Sylvia Plath
Children's Literature
Children's literature
Women's Issues
Semi-autobiographical;
confessional poetry
Ellen Glasgow
Kate Chopin
Barbara
Kingsolver
Margaret Atwood
Thomas Pynchon
Ursela K. Le Guin
Local Color writer;
women's issues
Fiction; historical fiction;
feminism; social justice;
environmentalism
Romance; historical
fiction; speculative
fiction; dystopian society
Science Fiction/
Fantasy/Horror
Historical fiction; satire;
science fantasy; post
modernism
Science Fiction; fantasy
Edgar Rice
Burroughs
Robert Heinlein
(No Starship
Trooper)
Adventure; Lost Worlds;
Sci/Fi; Westerns
Sci/Fi; Fantasy
H. P. Lovecraft
Sci/fi; Horror; Cosmicism
Philip K. Dick
Sci/fi; post modernism
Stuart Little; The
Trumpet of the Swan
MUST read both
The Bell Jar
The Wheel of Life;
Virginia; Barren
Ground; In This Our
Life
The Awakening
The Bean Trees; The
Poisonwood Bible;
Pigs in Heaven; High
Tide in Tucson
The Handmaid's
Tale; Alias Grace;
The Blind Assassin
Gravity's Rainbow
Earthsea novels;
Hainish Cycle novels
Several to pick from
Barsoom Series;
Tarzan Series
Double Star;
Stranger in a Strange
Land; The Moon is a
Harsh Mistress
Macabre stories;
Death Cycle; Cthulhu
myths
A Scanner Darkly;
VALIS
Richard Matheson
(no I Am Legend)
Sci/fi; fantasy; horror
Isaac Asimov
Sci/Fi
Ray Bradbury
Sci/Fi
Elmore Leonard
Raymond
Chandler
Jim Thompson
Crime Fiction/Detective
Pulp fiction; westerns;
crime fiction
Crime fiction
Crime fiction; pulp fiction
Dashiell Hammet
Detective stories
Barbara Neely
African American
mystery; female detective
Gangster
William Kennedy
P. G. Wodehouse
James Thurber
Comedy/Humor
Comedy; romantic
comedy
Humorist; children's
literature
Thornton Wilder
Modern Drama
Modern Drama
August Wilson
Modern Drama
A Stir of Echoes; The
Shrinking Man; Hell
House
The Caves of Steel;
The Naked Sun; The
Robots of Dawn;
Robots and Empire
(lots more to choose
from)
Lots to pick from
Lots to pick from.
The Long Goodbye;
Farewell My Lovely
The Killer Inside Me;
Savage Night
The Maltese Falcon;
The Thin Man; The
Simple Art of Murder
Blanche novels
(series)
Ironweed; Very Old
Bones; Billy Phelan's
Greatest Game;
Roscoe
My Life and Hard
Times
Must read both
children's lit. books--The 13 Clocks and
The White Deer
3 plays---many to
pick from
The Bridge of San
Luis Rye (novel)
3 plays---Fences; The
Piano Lesson; Ma
Rainey’s Black
Tennessee
Williams
Modern Drama;
homosexuality;
alcoholism; mental
instability
Eugene O’Neill
Modern Drama;
techniques of realism;
American vernacular
Theater of the Absurd;
Post Modern Drama
Edward Albee
Sam Shepard
David Mamet
Larry McMurtry
John Steinbeck
(no Of Mice and
Men)
Zane Grey
Westerns Influence
western
California influence
Westerns
Bottom; Joe Turner’s
Come and Gone
3 plays---A Streetcar
Named Desire; Night
of the Iguana; Cat on
a Hot Tin Roof; The
Glass Menagerie;
The Rose Tattoo
3 plays---many to
choose from
3 plays---Who’s
Afraid of Virginia
Wolfe; The Zoo
Story; The Sandbox;
The American Dream
3 plays---Buried
Child; True West; A
Lie of the Mind;
Curse of the Starving
Class
3 plays---Glengary
Glen Ross; Speedthe-Plow; Wag the
Dog
Novels---The Wicked
Son; The Old
Religion; Five Cities
of Refuge…; Bambi
vs. Godzilla
Several others to
choose from
Lonesome Dove
The Grapes of Wrath;
Cannery Row; East
of Eden
Tons to pick from
Requires Signed Parent Permission to do any of these.
Brett Easton Ellis (no Postmodernism;
American Psycho)
satire
Charles Bukowski
Transgressive
fiction; dirty
realism
Hunter S. Thompson Gonzo
Journalism; New
Journalism
Vladimir Nabakov
Modernism; post
modernism
Toni Morrison
African
American
studies; Post
Modern
Alice Walker
African
American studies
Elderidge Cleaver
Black
(no Soul on Ice)
Nationalism;
Nation of Islam
James Dickey
Less Than Zero
Ham on Rye; Post
Office; Factotum
Fear and Loathing in
Las Vegas; Hells
Angels
Lolita
The Bluest Eye; Sula;
Beloved; Song of
Solomon
The Color Purple
Soul on Fire
Deliverance; Alnilam;
To the White Sea