136 Great American Novels


Here’s the list from The Atlantic (paywall-free).

It’s a fun list – eclectic and not too snooty. I’d add The World According to Garp by John Irving there, also A Confederacy of Dunces.

I got 43, I’ve put *’s next to the ones that left a lasting impression on me:

  1. The Great Gatsby*
  2. A Farewell to Arms
  3. Sound and the Fury
  4. The Big Sleep*
  5. Grapes of Wrath*
  6. Catcher in the Rye
  7. Charlotte’s Web
  8. Invisible Man*
  9. Fahrenheit 451*
  10. Giovanni’s Room*
  11. Haunting of Hill House
  12. Catch 22
  13. A Wrinkle in Time
  14. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest*
  15. The Bell Jar*
  16. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
  17. Portnoy’s Complaint
  18. Slaughterhouse Five*
  19. The Dispossessed
  20. The Stand
  21. Kindred*
  22. Watchmen*
  23. Blood Meridian
  24. Dawn*
  25. Bastard Out of Carolina
  26. Secret History
  27. Shipping News
  28. Sabbath’s Theater
  29. Infinite Jest
  30. The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier and Clay*
  31. The Corrections*
  32. The Namesake*
  33. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao*
  34. A Visit From the Goon Squad
  35. Americanah*
  36. The Fifth Season
  37. The Sellout
  38. Lincoln in the Bardo
  39. Severance
  40. There There*
  41. Lost Children Archive*
  42. No One Is Talking About This*
  43. Biography of X*