Best Classic American Literature Books
Here you will get Best Classic American Literature Books For you.This is an up-to-date list of recommended books.
1. The Song of Achilles: A Novel
Author: by Madeline Miller
Ecco
English
416 pages
A New York Times BestsellerAt once a scholar’s homage to The Iliad and startlingly original work of art. A book I could not put down. Ann Patchett, author of The Dutch HouseA thrilling, profoundly moving, and utterly unique retelling of the legend of Achilles and the Trojan War from the bestselling author of CirceA tale of gods, kings, immortal fame, and the human heart, The Song of Achilles is a dazzling literary feat that brilliantly reimagines Homer’s enduring masterwork, The Iliad.
An action-packed adventure, an epic love story, a marvelously conceived and executed page-turner, Miller’s monumental debut novel has already earned resounding acclaim from some of contemporary fiction’s brightest lightsand fans of Mary Renault, Bernard Cornwell, Steven Pressfield, and Colleen McCullough’s Masters of Rome series will delight in this unforgettable journey back to ancient Greece in the Age of Heroes.
Mary Renault lives again! Emma Donoghue, author of Room
2. 1984 (Signet Classics), Book Cover May Vary
Author: by George Orwell
0451524934
English
328 pages
Written more than 70 years ago, 1984 was George Orwell’s chilling prophecy about the future. And while 1984 has come and gone, his dystopian vision of a government that will do anything to control the narrative is timelier than ever… Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears.
It was their final, most essential command. Winston Smith toes the Party line, rewriting history to satisfy the demands of the Ministry of Truth. With each lie he writes, Winston grows to hate the Party that seeks power for its own sake and persecutes those who dare to commit thoughtcrimes.
But as he starts to think for himself, Winston can’t escape the fact that Big Brother is always watching… A startling and haunting novel, 1984 creates an imaginary world that is completely convincing from start to finish. No one can deny the novel’s hold on the imaginations of whole generations, or the power of its admonitionsa power that seems to grow, not lessen, with the passage of time.
3. Fahrenheit 451
Author: by Ray Bradbury
1451673310
Simon & Schuster
English
NOW AN HBO FILM STARRING MICHAEL B. JORDAN AND MICHAEL SHANNON Sixty years after its originally publication, Ray Bradbury’s internationally acclaimed novel Fahrenheit 451 stands as a classic of world literature set in a bleak, dystopian future. Today its message has grown more relevant than ever before.
Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television family.
But when he meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces him to a past where people didn’t live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known.
4. Lord of the Flies
Author: by William Golding
Penguin Books
English
224 pages
Golding’s iconic 1954 novel, now with a new foreword by Lois Lowry, remains one of the greatest books ever written for young adults and an unforgettable classic for readers of any age. This edition includes a new Suggestions for Further Reading by Jennifer Buehler.
At the dawn of the next world war, a plane crashes on an uncharted island, stranding a group of schoolboys. At first, with no adult supervision, their freedom is something to celebrate. This far from civilization they can do anything they want.Anything.
But as order collapses, as strange howls echo in the night, as terror begins its reign, the hope of adventure seems as far removed from reality as the hope of being rescued.
5. To Kill a Mockingbird
Author: by Harper Lee
English
336 pages
0060935464
Voted America’s Best-Loved Novel in PBS’s The Great American ReadHarper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning masterwork of honor and injustice in the deep Southand the heroism of one man in the face of blind and violent hatredOne of the most cherished stories of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird has been translated into more than forty languages, sold more than forty million copies worldwide, served as the basis for an enormously popular motion picture, and was voted one of the best novels of the twentieth century by librarians across the country.
A gripping, heart-wrenching, and wholly remarkable tale of coming-of-age in a South poisoned by virulent prejudice, it views a world of great beauty and savage inequities through the eyes of a young girl, as her fathera crusading local lawyerrisks everything to defend a black man unjustly accused of a terrible crime.
6. Circe
Author: by Madeline Miller
Back Bay Books
English
416 pages
“A bold and subversive retelling of the goddess’s story,” this #1 New York Times bestseller is “both epic and intimate in its scope, recasting the most infamous female figure from the Odyssey as a hero in her own right” (Alexandra Alter, The New York Times).
In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child – not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power – the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves.
Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus.
But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love.
7. Of Mice and Men
Author: by John Steinbeck
Penguin Books
English
107 pages
A controversial tale of friendship and tragedy during the Great Depression They are an unlikely pair: George is “small and quick and dark of face”; Lennie, a man of tremendous size, has the mind of a young child. Yet they have formed a “family,” clinging together in the face of loneliness and alienation.
Laborers in California’s dusty vegetable fields, they hustle work when they can, living a hand-to-mouth existence. For George and Lennie have a plan: to own an acre of land and a shack they can call their own. When they land jobs on a ranch in the Salinas Valley, the fulfillment of their dream seems to be within their grasp.
But even George cannot guard Lennie from the provocations of a flirtatious woman, nor predict the consequences of Lennie’s unswerving obedience to the things George taught him. “A thriller, a gripping tale … That you will not set down until it is finished.
Steinbeck has touched the quick.” The New York Times
8. Wuthering Heights (Penguin Classics)
Author: by Emily Brontë
Penguin Classics
English
416 pages
One of English literature’s classic masterpiecesa gripping novel of love, propriety, and tragedy. Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American ReadEmily Bront’s only novel endures as a work of tremendous and far-reaching influence. The Penguin Classics edition is the definitive version of the text, edited with an introduction by Pauline Nestor.
Lockwood, the new tenant of Thrushcross Grange, situated on the bleak Yorkshire moors, is forced to seek shelter one night at Wuthering Heights, the home of his landlord. There he discovers the history of the tempestuous events that took place years before.
What unfolds is the tale of the intense love between the gypsy foundling Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw. Catherine, forced to choose between passionate, tortured Heathcliff and gentle, well-bred Edgar Linton, surrendered to the expectations of her class. As Heathcliff’s bitterness and vengeance at his betrayal is visited upon the next generation, their innocent heirs must struggle to escape the legacy of the past.
9. J.R.R. Tolkien 4-Book Boxed Set: The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings
Author: by J.R.R. Tolkien
English
1728 pages
0345538374
THE BOOKS THAT INSPIRED THE EPIC MOTION PICTURES J.R.R. TOLKIEN THE LORD OF THE RINGS THE HOBBIT THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING THE TWO TOWERS THE RETURN OF THE KING New Line Productions, Inc. All rights reserved. THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY and the names of the characters, items, events and places therein are trademarks of The Saul Zaentz Company d/b/a Middle-earth Enterprises under license to New Line Productions, Inc.
(s12) Motion Picture Artwork 2012 Warner Bros.Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.
10. Brave New World
Author: by Aldous Huxley
English
288 pages
0060850523
Now more than ever: Aldous Huxley’s enduring masterwork must be read and understood by anyone concerned with preserving the human spirit “A masterpiece…. One of the most prophetic dystopian works.” Wall Street Journal Aldous Huxley’s profoundly important classic of world literature, Brave New World is a searching vision of an unequal, technologically-advanced future where humans are genetically bred, socially indoctrinated, and pharmaceutically anesthetized to passively uphold an authoritarian ruling orderall at the cost of our freedom, full humanity, and perhaps also our souls.
A genius [who] who spent his life decrying the onward march of the Machine (The New Yorker), Huxley was a man of incomparable talents: equally an artist, a spiritual seeker, and one of history’s keenest observers of human nature and civilization.
Brave New World, his masterpiece, has enthralled and terrified millions of readers, and retains its urgent relevance to this day as both a warning to be heeded as we head into tomorrow and as thought-provoking, satisfying work of literature. Written in the shadow of the rise of fascism during the 1930s, Brave New World likewise speaks to a 21st-century world dominated by mass-entertainment, technology, medicine and pharmaceuticals, the arts of persuasion, and the hidden influence of elites.
11. The Catcher in the Rye
Author: by J. D. Salinger
0316769177
Bay Back Books
English
Anyone who has read J.D. Salinger’s New Yorker stories-particularly A Perfect Day for Bananafish, Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut, The Laughing Man, and For Esme With Love and Squalor-will not be surprised by the fact that his first novel is full of children.
The hero-narrator of The Catcher in the Rye is an ancient child of sixteen, a native New Yorker named Holden Caulfield. Through circumstances that tend to preclude adult, secondhand description, he leaves his prep school in Pennsylvania and goes underground in New York City for three days.
The boy himself is at once too simple and too complex for us to make any final comment about him or his story. Perhaps the safest thing we can say about Holden is that he was born in the world not just strongly attracted to beauty but, almost, hopelessly impaled on it.
There are many voices in this novel: children’s voices, adult voices, underground voices-but Holden’s voice is the most eloquent of all. Transcending his own vernacular, yet remaining marvelously faithful to it, he issues a perfectly articulated cry of mixed pain and pleasure.
12. No Longer Human
Author: by Osamu Dazai
New Directions
English
177 pages
The poignant and fascinating story of a young man who is caught between the breakup of the traditions of a northern Japanese aristocratic family and the impact of Western ideas. Portraying himself as a failure, the protagonist of Osamu Dazai’s No Longer Human narrates a seemingly normal life even while he feels himself incapable of understanding human beings.
Oba Yozo’s attempts to reconcile himself to the world around him begin in early childhood, continue through high school, where he becomes a “clown” to mask his alienation, and eventually lead to a failed suicide attempt as an adult. Without sentimentality, he records the casual cruelties of life and its fleeting moments of human connection and tenderness.
13. Meditations: A New Translation
Author: by Marcus Aurelius
0812968255
English
256 pages
Nearly two thousand years after it was written, Meditations remains profoundly relevant for anyone seeking to lead a meaningful life. Few ancient works have been as influential as the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, philosopher and emperor of Rome (A.D.161180).
A series of spiritual exercises filled with wisdom, practical guidance, and profound understanding of human behavior, it remains one of the greatest works of spiritual and ethical reflection ever written. Marcus’s insights and adviceon everything from living in the world to coping with adversity and interacting with othershave made the Meditations required reading for statesmen and philosophers alike, while generations of ordinary readers have responded to the straightforward intimacy of his style.
For anyone who struggles to reconcile the demands of leadership with a concern for personal integrity and spiritual well-being, the Meditations remains as relevant now as it was two thousand years ago. In Gregory Hays’s new translationthe first in thirty-five yearsMarcus’s thoughts speak with a new immediacy.
14. Their Eyes Were Watching God
Author: by Zora Neale Hurston
0061120065
Amistad
English
A PBS Great American Read Top 100 PickA deeply soulful novel that comprehends love and cruelty, and separates the big people from the small of heart, without ever losing sympathy for those unfortunates who don’t know how to live properly. Zadie SmithOne of the most important and enduring books of the twentieth century, Their Eyes Were Watching God brings to life a Southern love story with the wit and pathos found only in the writing of Zora Neale Hurston.
Out of print for almost thirty yearsdue largely to initial audiences’ rejection of its strong black female protagonistHurston’s classic has since its 1978 reissue become perhaps the most widely read and highly acclaimed novel in the canon of African-American literature.
15. The Stranger
Author: by Albert Camus
0679720200
Vintage (March 13, 1989)
English
With the intrigue of a psychological thriller, Camus’s masterpiece gives us the story of an ordinary man unwittingly drawn into a senseless murder on an Algerian beach. Behind the intrigue, Camus explores what he termed “the nakedness of man faced with the absurd” and describes the condition of reckless alienation and spiritual exhaustion that characterized so much of twentieth-century life.
First published in 1946; now in translation by Matthew Ward.
