'Books That Shaped America' from the Library of Congress

[MissBarbara]

'Books That Shaped America' from the Library of Congress
By Deirdre Donahue and Lindsay Deutsch, USA TODAY

To kick off its new exhibition, "Books That Shaped America," the Library of Congress asked curators and experts to compile a list of books that have influenced us as a nation. The selections come from different centuries and different experiences. They range from Thomas Paine's Common Sense, to Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, to The Autobiography of Malcolm X, to the "Big Book" of Alcoholics Anonymous . The exhibit will be on view from June 25 through Sept. 29 at the Library's Thomas Jefferson Building. Do you agree with the list? Comment at loc.gov/bookfest.

Here is their list of 88 books, in the order in which they were published:

1. Benjamin Franklin, Experiments and Observations on Electricity (1751)

2. Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard Improved (1758) and The Way to Wealth

3. Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776)

4. Noah Webster, A Grammatical Institute of the English Language (1783)

5. The Federalist (1787)

6. A Curious Hieroglyphick Bible (1788)

7. Christopher Colles, A Survey of the Roads of the United States of America (1789)

8. Benjamin Franklin, The Private Life of the Late Benjamin Franklin, LL.D. (1793)

9. Amelia Simmons, American Cookery (1796)

10. New England Primer (1803)

11. Meriwether Lewis, History of the Expedition Under the Command of the Captains Lewis and Clark (1814)

12. Washington Irving, TheLegend of Sleepy Hollow (1820)

13. William Holmes McGuffey, McGuffey's Newly Revised Eclectic Primer (1836)

14. Samuel Goodrich, Peter Parley's Universal History (1837)

15. Frederick Douglass, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845)

16. Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter (1850)

17. Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale (1851)

18. Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852)

19. Henry David Thoreau, Walden; or, Life in the Woods (1854)

20. Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass (1855)

21. Louisa May Alcott, Little Women, or, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy (1868)

22. Horatio Alger Jr., Mark, the Match Boy (1869)

23. Catharine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe, The American Woman's Home (1869)

24. Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884)

25. Emily Dickinson, Poems (1890)

26. Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives (1890)

27. Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage (1895)

28. L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900)

29. Sarah H. Bradford, Harriet, the Moses of Her People (1901)

30. Ida Tarbell, The History of Standard Oil (1904)

31. Jack London, The Call of the Wild (1903)

32. W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (1903)

33. Upton Sinclair, The Jungle (1906)

34. Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams (1907)

35. William James, Pragmatism (1907)

36. Zane Grey, Riders of the Purple Sage (1912)

37. Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan of the Apes (1914)

38. Margaret Sanger, Family Limitation (1914)

39. William Carlos Williams, Spring and All (1923)

40. Robert Frost, New Hampshire (1923)

41. F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (1925)

42. Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues (1925)

43. William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury (1929)

44. Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest (1929)

45. Irma Rombauer, Joy of Cooking (1931)

46. Margaret Mitchell, Gone With the Wind (1936)

47. Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936)

48. Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937)

49. Federal Writers' Project, Idaho: A Guide in Word and Pictures (1937)

50. Thornton Wilder, Our Town: A Play (1938)

51. Alcoholics Anonymous (1939)

52. John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath (1939)

53. Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940)

54. Richard Wright, Native Son (1940)

55. Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1943)

56. Benjamin A. Botkin, A Treasury of American Folklore (1944)

57. Gwendolyn Brooks, A Street in Bronzeville (1945)

58. Benjamin Spock, The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care (1946)

59. Eugene O'Neill, The Iceman Cometh (1946)

60. Margaret Wise Brown, Goodnight Moon (1947)

61. Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire (1947)

62. Alfred C. Kinsey, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948)

63. J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye (1951)

64. Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (1952)

65. E. B. White, Charlotte's Web (1952)

66. Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 (1953)

67. Allen Ginsberg, Howl (1956)

68. Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged (1957)

69. Dr. Seuss, The Cat in the Hat (1957)

70. Jack Kerouac, On the Road (1957)

71. Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird (1960)

72. Joseph Heller, Catch-22 (1961)

73. Robert E. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land (1961)

74. Jack Ezra Keats, The Snowy Day (1962)

75. Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are (1963)

76. James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time (1963)

77. Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (1963)

78. Malcolm X and Alex Haley, The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965)

79. Ralph Nader, Unsafe at Any Speed (1965)

80. Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (1962)

81. Truman Capote, In Cold Blood (1966)

82. James D. Watson, The Double Helix (1968)

83. Dee Brown, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (1970)

84. Boston Women's Health Book Collective, Our Bodies, Ourselves (1971)

85. Carl Sagan, Cosmos (1980)

86. Toni Morrison, Beloved (1987)

87. Randy Shilts, And the Band Played On (1987)

88. César Chávez, The Words of César Chávez (2002)

[Hilda]

Books That Shaped America' from the Library of Congress
By Deirdre Donahue and Lindsay Deutsch, USA TODAY

I see that Benjamin Franklin appears three times.

I haven't read any of his works at length, but one of my research projects led me to some unpublished poems by his son William.

In his old age William was a regular participant in an English literary circle. The circle members referred to him as "Governor Franklin" and it took me forever to ask the obvious question: "Could he be. . . ?"

Yes, he was.

[purpleshoes]

Interesting that the last one on the list was published over 20 years ago. None at all published in the 1990s.

I didn't count, but I'd estimate I've read about a quarter of the list, or maybe slightly less than that. I tend to read mostly fiction.

Woo 3115 for the topic.

[MissBarbara]

Interesting that the last one on the list was published over 20 years ago. None at all published in the 1990s.

I didn't count, but I'd estimate I've read about a quarter of the list, or maybe slightly less than that. I tend to read mostly fiction.

Woo 3115 for the topic.

The list was compiled in 2011, so the "omission" of books published after 2002 is more understandable in that context.

It's also worth noting that the list is comprised of "books that influenced the nation," and not the "greatest" books.

Still, it's fascinating to scroll through the list. I've never heard of several of the entries, like "Federal Writers' Project, Idaho: A Guide in Word and Pictures (1937)."  The Federal Writers Project was a New Deal initiative during the Great Depression that hired out of work authors to develop a series of books providing an overview of the country and its places. The program produced hundreds of books, including "guides" to each of the then 48 states.

[Dudester]

I don't see Tom Clancy or Clive Cussler on the list. Because both men are excellent researchers, I strongly believe that Tom's first five books and Clive's first 19 books should be considered.