Books That Shaped America 2012

TOP 25: Favorites in 2012

  1. Ayn Rand (1905–1982). Atlas Shrugged, 1957
  2. Harper Lee (1926–2016). To Kill a Mockingbird, 1960
  3. Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835–1910). The Adventures of Huckleberry, 1884
  4. Thomas Paine (1737–1809). Common Sense, 1776
  5. Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896). Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly, 1852
  6. The Federalist: A Collection of Essays, Written in Favour of the New Constitution, 1788
  7. Upton Sinclair (1878–1968). The Jungle, 1906
  8. J. D. Salinger (1919–2010). The Catcher in the Rye, 1951
  9. John Steinbeck (1902–1968). The Grapes of Wrath, 1939
  10. Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How More Than One Hundred Men Have Recovered from Alcoholism, 1939
  11. Ray Bradbury (1920–2012). Fahrenheit 451, 1953
  12. F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940). The Great Gatsby, 1925
  13. Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888). Little Women; or, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy, 1868
  14. Margaret Mitchell (1900–1949). Gone With the Wind, 1936
  15. Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel, 1904–1991). The Cat in the Hat, 1957
  16. Rachel Carson (1907–1964). Silent Spring, 1962
  17. Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862). Walden; or, Life in the Woods, 1854
  18. Jack Kerouac (1922–1969). On the Road, 1957
  19. Betty Friedan (1921–2006). The Feminine Mystique, 1963
  20. L. Frank Baum (1856–1919). The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, 1900
  21. Herman Melville (1819–1891). Moby-Dick; or, the Whale, 1851
  22. Dale Carnegie (1888–1955). How to Win Friends and Influence People, 1936
  23. Joseph Heller (1923–1999). Catch-22, 1961
  24. Walt Whitman (1819–1892). Leaves of Grass, 1855
  25. Benjamin Spock (1903–1998). The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care, 1946

America Reads 2016

TOP 40: Nominations for 2016

  1. Ayn Rand (1905–1982). The Fountainhead, 1943
  2. Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007). Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death, 1969
  3. Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867–1957). Little House in the Big Woods, 1932 (Little House Series)
  4. Joseph Smith, Translator(1805–1844).The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ, 1830
  5. Willa Cather (1873–1947). My Ántonia, 1918
  6. Alex Haley (1921–1992). Roots, 1976
  7. Ayn Rand (1905–1982). Anthem, 1938
  8. Alice Walker (b. 1944). The Color Purple, 1982
  9. John Steinbeck (1902–1968). Of Mice and Men, 1937
  10. John Steinbeck (1902–1968). East of Eden, 1952
  11. Sylvia Plath (1932–1963). The Bell Jar, 1963
  12. Tim O’Brien (b. 1946). The Things They Carried, 1990
  13. Carl Bernstein (b. 1944) and Bob Woodward (b. 1943). All the President’s Men, 1974
  14. Arthur Miller (1915–2005). Death of a Salesman, 1949
  15. Arthur Miller (1915–2005). The Crucible, 1953
  16. Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961). The Old Man and the Sea, 1952
  17. Ken Kesey (1935–2001). One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, 1962
  18. Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005). Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, 1972
  19. Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961). The Sun Also Rises, 1926
  20. John F. Kennedy (1917–1963). Profiles in Courage, 1956
  21. Stephen King (b. 1947). The Stand, 1978
  22. Larry McMurtry (b. 1936). Lonesome Dove, 1985
  23. Judy Blume (b. 1938). Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret, 1970
  24. Howard Zinn (1922–2010). A People’s History of the United States, 1980
  25. James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851). The Last of the Mohicans: A Narrative of 1757, 1826
  26. Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988). The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, 1966
  27. Wilson Rawls (1913–1984). Where the Red Fern Grows,1961
  28. Madeleine L’Engle (1918–2007). A Wrinkle in Time, 1962
  29. Frank Herbert (1920–1986). Dune, 1965
  30. Thomas Pynchon (b. 1937). Gravity’s Rainbow, 1973
  31. Simone Beck (1904–1991), Louisette Bertholle (1905–1999), and Julia Child (1912–2004), Mastering the Art of French Cooking, 1961
  32. Kate Chopin (1850–1904). The Awakening, 1899
  33. Shel Silverstein (1930–1999). The Giving Tree, 1964
  34. Milton Friedman (1912–2006). Capitalism and Freedom,1962
  35. Milton Friedman (1912–2006) and Rose Friedman (1910–2009). Free to Choose, 1980
  36. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882). Nature, 1836
  37. Napoleon Hill (1883–1970). Think and Grow Rich, 1937
  38. John Kennedy Toole (1937–1969). A Confederacy of Dunces, 1980
  39. Robert Penn Warren (1905–1989). All the King’s Men, 1946
  40. Robert Pirsig (b. 1928). Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, 1974

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