Research Paper Book List * = Available in the Library 18th Century “Rags to Riches” story of the famous Founding Father Benjamin Franklin The Autobiography * Washington Irving The Sketch Book* Various tales (like “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”) and observations of New England/New England Life All novels about a 18th-19th Century rugged frontiersman, his Native American companion, and their adventures on the Frontier. James Fenimore Cooper The Pioneers The Last of the Mohicans The Prairie William Apess, a Pequot A Son of the Forest, The Experiences of Five Christian Indians of the Pequot Tribe and Eulogy on King Philip (All 3 combined) – Early Native American Stories/Reflections Margaret Fuller Woman in the Nineteenth Century – A mid 19th Century nonfictional feminist analysis of women’s rights and place in society Nathaniel Hawthorne The House of the Seven Gables* - Story of a house haunted by the sins of the family that inhabits it The Blithedale Romance – The experiences of several people living an attempt at utopia. Based on Hawthorne’s experiences on Brook Farm Henry David Thoreau Walden* - Thoreau’s autobiographical reflections about his attempts at independence and living autonomously at Walden Pond. Full of irony, satire, humor and reflections on Nature. Herman Melville Moby-Dick or The Whale* - Famous philosophical America epic of a vengeful captain and his crew hunting the sperm whale that bit off his leg and has destroyed ships. Lydia Maria Child Hobomok And Other Writings on Indians – Stories of early Native American peoples the important, but forgotten, Hobomok Frederick Douglass Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave – Powerful and poignant autobiographical reflections of the orator that escaped slavery. Harriet Beecher Stowe Uncle Tom’s Cabin* - Famous, controversial novel about slavery Harriet A. Jacobs Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself* - Feminine autobiographical account about slavery Mark Twain Roughing It – Twain’s humorous accounts of his experiences in the Nevada territory, California, and Hawaii The Innocence Abroad – Twain’s humorous observations about a journey to Europe and the Holy Land The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today – Twain (and Charles Dudley Warner) satirize the economic production and greed of post Civil War America. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court – Story of New Englander mysteriously Back in time to the Middle Ages and the mythical realm of Camelot. Pudd’nhead Wilson – Story of two sons, one the son of wealthy white land owner, the other the son of a female slave, whose places and identities are switched by the black mother to protect her son from growing up in slavery. Stephen Crane Maggie: A Girl of the Streets – Naturalist story of the struggles of a young girl trying to survive in New York The Red Badge of Courage* - Naturalist story of a young boy fighting in the Civil War. Frank Norris McTeague* - Naturalist story of a bizarre San Francisco dentist and his strange life The Octopus: A California Story* - Novel about the conflicts between the railroad industry and the wheat Harvesting industry in early 20 th Century CA Theodore Dreiser Sister Carrie – Novel of a young girl moving from the farm to Chicago to achieve her dreams. Charles Chesnutt The Marrow of Tradition – Historical novel about a race riot, massacre and coup d’état in late 19th Century America Upton Sinclair The Jungle* - Novel about the hideous meatpacking industry in Chicago that lead to reform and the creation of the Food and Drug Administration Jack London Martin Eden – Story of a struggling writer longing to win the love of his life Edith Wharton The House of Mirth – Novel of manners about a woman trying to secure a husband and a place in wealthy society The Age of Innocence – Novel of an East Coat upper class couple, their impeding wedding, and a “disgraceful” woman who enters their relationship Ernest Hemingway: The Sun Also Rises * - Novel about the “Lost Generation” after WWI, drinking, fighting, Fooling around and going to Bull Fights in Spain and France A Farewell to Arms* - Novel about romance between an American soldier in WWI and a nurse For Whom The Bell Tolls* - Novel about an American volunteering to fight in the Spanish Civil War Old Man and the Sea* - Novel about a Cuban fisherman trying to catch a huge marlin F. Scott Fitzgerald: This Side of Paradise* - Novel about young adults after WWI, their romances and being caught up in aspirations of wealth and status The Beautiful and the Damned – Novel about the complexities of marriage, alcoholism, the Jazz Age, and Eastern socialites in 1920s America Tender is the Night* - Novel about a young Psychiatrist, his wife who is also one of his The Love of The Last Tycoon – Unfinished novel about a film executive in 1930s Hollywood patients, alcoholism and power in a relationship William Faulkner The Sound and the Fury* - Stream of Consciousness novel about a Southern family told from Several different perspectives As I Lay Dying - Stream of Consciousness novel about a Southern family burying its matriarch Light in August – Novel about racial and gender divide in the South Absalom, Absalom! – A Southern Gothic novel about three families before, during and after the Civil War John Dos Passos The 42nd Parallel 1919 The Big Money Three Soldiers Collectively, all 3 of these novels comprise a trilogy about American society in the first 3 decades of the 20th Century. They are told through different mediums. Read one of the three, but you want to glance at the other two for context Epic, influential anti-war novel about WWI Willa Cather: O Pioneers! - Novel about an immigrant woman, her romances, fellow immigrants and their lives on the Nebraska prairie. My Antonia – Novel of several immigrant families living on the Nebraska prairie A Lost Lady – The downfall of a woman on the prairie as it transforms from an agrarian landscape to an industrialized region Death Comes for the Archbishop – Novel about a priest coming to New Mexico to establish a parish church James Weldon Johnson The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man – Novel about a young biracial man having to deal with the complexities of being both Caucasian and African-American Nella Larsen Quicksand & Passing – Read both stories. Both deal with young biracial women who struggle with the complexities of being both Caucasian and African-American Djuna Barnes Nightwood – One of the first lesbian novels to be published. About a young woman and her struggles at love and relationships. John Steinbeck The Grapes of Wrath* - Novel about the Great Depression, the Dust Bowls, and the hardships of a family moving to CA from Oklahoma to find work and survive Cannery Row* - Novel about the lives of different men living on a small street lined with sardine fisheries in Monterrey, CA during the Great Depression Americo Paredez George Washington Gomez - This first novel written in the 1930s by the dean of Mexican-American folklore charts the coming of age of a young Mexican American on the Texas-Mexico border against the background of guerrilla warfare, banditry, land grabs, abuses by the Texas Rangers and the overpowering pressures to disappear into the American melting pot. Richard Wright Black Boy* - Wright’s autobiography about his struggles growing up as a black boy in the South in the early 1900s and his move to the North. A text about race, communism, and the power of literacy Native Son – Novel about a young African-American man living in the slums of Chicago who commits some horrible crimes that are connected to the racial inequalities he’s experienced Paul Bowles The Sheltering Sky – Novel about a young married couple that travels to North Africa, in part to resolve their marriage difficulties, but finds new dangers Robert Penn Warren All the King’s Men – A novel about a powerful political populist in the South in the 1930s. The novel deals with politics, power, and sin amongst others. Norman Mailer The Naked and the Dead – Novel about WWII and the fighting against the Japanese in the South Pacific. Ralph Ellison Invisible Man – Novel about many of the issues facing African-Americans in the first half of The 20th Century including identity, Marxism, Black Nationalism, movement to the North and individuality. Flannery O’Connor Wise Blood – A novel about the problems between agrarian conservativeness vs. big city Marketing in the South, reality vs. absurdity, religious philosophy, and the grotesque Jack Kerouac On the Road – Novel that defines the Beat Generation, characterized by jazz music, drug experimentation, and confessional poetry. Autobiographical text about Kerouac’s journeys across America. John Okada No-No Boy – Japanese American novel about a Japanese internee during WWII who answered no to two intense questions and the harsh experiences he faces after the war. Joseph Heller Catch-22 – Dark satire about a WWII bomber group and one of its members who faces the unavoidable terrors and absurdities of war. John Barth The Floating Opera – According to Barnes, “an unsuccessful mass-murder/suicide attempt by a middle-aged small-town bachelor lawyer with prostate trouble and a hair-trigger hear condition The End of the Road – About identity, philosophical twists and confusions and ultimately a complicated love triangle that turns out bizarrely Saul Bellow Henderson the Rain King – About a discontent, wealthy, middle-aged man who goes to Africa to try and find happiness and fulfillment. Herzog – About a middle-aged Jewish writer divorcee who’s having a mid-life crisis. J.D. Salinger Franny & Zooey* - About the two youngest siblings of the Glass family in New York and their introspections into the philosophies of life as the sagacious older brother comforts his younger sister. Deals with Zen Buddhism and Hinduism. Louis Chu Eat a Bowl of Tea* - About bachelors in New York’s Chinatown after WWII that addresses conflicts between modern American society and traditional Chinese ideals and customs. Richard Yates Revolutionary Road – Poignant novel about the couple living in the midst of the Age of Conformity in the 1950s and the tragedy it causes. Truman Capote In Cold Blood – Non-fiction novel about a mass-murder of a family in Kansas that has a lot of psychological depth in it about the two killers and how they came to commit the crime James Baldwin Go Tell It on the Mountain* - Baldwin’s first novel examines the role of the Christian church as both a suppressive and hypocritical institution as well as the center of inspiration for the African-American community. It also looks at racism. The Fire Next Time* - The genre here is essay as the book is composed of two essays by Baldwin, one about race and the other about the relationship between race and religion Sylvia Plath The Bell Jar* - A semi-autobiographical text about a woman’s descent into emotional and psychological unrest and neurosis. N. Scott Momaday House Made of Dawn – A Pulitzer prize winning account of a young man torn between the Native American heritage of his family and the demands of the industrialized society he lives in. This book paved the way for modern Native American literature. Kurt Vonnegut Slaughterhouse Five – Antiwar novel about the firebombing of the city of Dresden in WWII that includes alien abduction and time travel Joan Didion Play It As It Lays – Feminist novel about the struggles, affairs and journeys of a woman with a broken past and a complicated present. Eudora Welty The Optimist’s Daughter – A poignant Pulitzer Prize winning novel about a woman struggling with the illness and death of her father, her shrewish step-mother and memories of her family. Joyce Carol Oates them – Novel about downtrodden working class figures struggling to acquire the American Dream. E.L. Doctorow Ragtime* - Historical fiction that takes place in the early 1900s during the musical era known as Ragtime. The novel deals with 3 separate families and their interweaving stories. Rudolfo Anaya Bless Me, Ultima* - Story of a young Hispanic boy growing up in New Mexico and being raised in part by his herbalist grandmother Michael Herr Dispatches – Absurdist antiwar New Journalistic account of the Vietnam War. Tim O’Brien Going After Cacciato – A novel that’s like Alice In Wonderland meets the Vietnam War. It’s about a platoon that follows a member who has gone A.W.O.L and their journey takes them across southern Asia all the way to Paris. The Things They Carried – Post-modern novel about the absurdities, tragedies, and resolve of the men who fought in the Vietnam War. Toni Morrison The Bluest Eye* - Novel about a Midwestern African-American family around the time of the Great Depression that is told from five different family members’ perspectives. It is particularly about a young black girl and the difficulties and abuses she endures. Song of Solomon* - Story about the search for African-American identity in mid 20th Century America. Many allusions to the Bible and a host of different characters, though the main character is a young man named “Milkman” Sula* - Novel about two African-American women, one very conservative and the other unconventional, the town they live in, and how the return of one of these women as an adult transforms the community Alice Walker The Color Purple* - Epistolary novel about the hardships that African American women faced in the South in and around the 1930s including poverty, racism and marital abuse. Paul Auster The New York Trilogy: City of Glass, Ghosts & The Locked Room – A series of detective stories that are very bizarre and mysterious and deal with the psychology of the characters. Jane Smiley A Thousand Acres – Smiley’s King Lear allegory of a Iowa farmer, his three daughters, and their troubled family. Bharati Mukherjee Jasmine – About an Indian American girl trying to survive in the U.S by going through different identities. Julia Alvarez How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents – About the lives of 4 Dominican sisters and their journey to America. It is a novel about immigration, identity and growing up Latina. Gus Lee China Boy – Memoirs of Gus Lee’s upbringing in and around San Francisco; it addresses the hardships of growing up as an ethnic minority. Amy Tan The Joy Luck Club* - Tan’s Chinese mother/daughter narrative spans seven different perspectives through a web of interconnected vignettes that demonstrate the power of culture, storytelling and of course the impact mothers have on their children Alfredo Vea Jr. La Maravilla – About a Chicano boy being raised by his grandparents, who have both retained the customs and spiritual heritage of their ancestors, at the behest of his Mother. It takes place in a town in 1950s Arizona that is very culturally diverse. Chang-Rae Lee Native Speaker – About Korean-American Henry Park trying to adapt to American life and simultaneously deal with his Korean heritage and upbringing. John Krakauer Into Thin Air – Autobiographical adventure story about the disastrous experience Krakauer and other adventurers had while trying to climb Mt. Everest Into the Wild – Non-fictional work about Christopher McCandless who severed ties with his family, abandoned his car, education and money and went off to live in the wilderness Charles Baxter Feast of Love – Contemporary novel about the different manifestations of love amongst different couples Karen-Tei Yamashita Tropic of Orange – Story that occurs in and around the L.A. area, full of Magic Realism, that concerns different characters whose lives intertwine in creative and peculiar ways. Anthony Swafford Jarhead – Autobiography about Swafford’s experiences in the marines and the first Gulf War Ana Menendez Loving Che – Novel about Cuban-American identity that centers around one unnamed woman and her journey to discover her heritage, which has connections to the mythic revolutionary of the Cuban Communist Revolution – Che Guevara Jeffrey Eugenides Middlesex – A novel about Greek immigrants and awkward situations with sexuality that make the search for identity difficult. Lauren Weisberger The Devil Wears Prada – A novel about the young, determined woman working for an incredibly demanding boss within the fiercely competitive New York business world of modern day fashion. Edward P. Jones The Known World – Post-modern historical novel about slavery and the hardships it creates and the power of the individuals that rise above it. Susan-Lori Parks Getting Mother’s Body – Story about a down-and-out African-American family searching the Texas panhandle in the 1960s for a “treasure” where the mother is buried. Walter Mosley The Man in My Basement – Post-modern detective fiction/mystery where a young out of work and a down-on-his-luck African-American man suddenly experiences a strange change of events when a man asks to rent out his basement and turn it into a prison. Jonathan Safran Foer Everything is Illuminated – A young American Jew and a young Ukrainian search for an important connection to their past, in the context of the Holocaust, all told through an innovative style of changing narrative perspectives. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close*- A precocious 9-year-old boy wonders the boroughs of New York city looking for a lock that matches a key his father, who was killed in the 9-11 terrorist attacks, had left behind. Along the way he meets an assortment of people, and it is novel of humor, pain, and catharsis. Don DeLillo Falling Man – An account of a traumatized Keith Neudecker who escaped from the World Trade Center on 9-11 and the aftermath that he and his estranged wife and son must bare. Nicole Krauss The History of Love – Story of an old Jewish man, who survived the Holocaust, going on a quest in New York City to find his lost son who’d written the novel (within the novel) called The History of Love, and the woman who’s named after a character in this book. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao – Story of a Dominican boy, obsessed with fantasy and science fiction, growing up in New Jersey, whose story recalls the family’s dealings with a dictatorship back home. This book has multiple, complex narrators. Junot Diaz