Requires Signed Parent Permission to Do Any of These

This list is not all-inclusive. See me if you have another request not on this list. Most of the authors and works on this list are readily available in our MediaCenter, with the exception of a few of the novels.

***Several of the works on this sheet may contain mature subject matter. Please investigate your author and discuss possible concerns with your parents prior to selecting the novel for your research.

AUTHOR / Genre/time period / BOOK TITLE / YOUR NAME
Revolutionary writers
Harriet Beecher Stowe / Revolutionary / Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Benjamin Franklin / Revolutionary writer / Autobiography
Historical Fiction
James Fenimore Cooper / Historical fiction / The Pioneers; Deerslayer; The Last of the Mohicans (not the movie)
Margaret Mitchell / Romance; historical fiction / Gone with the Wind
Shelby Foote / Historical fiction / Follow me Down; Shiloh; Love In A Dry Season
William Styron / Historical fiction / Lie Down in Darkness; The Confession of Nat Turner
John Hersey / Historical; military / Hiroshima; A Bell for Adano
Tim O’Brien / Meta-fiction; military / If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home; Northern Light; Going After Cacciato; The Things They Carried; In The Lake of the Woods
James Jones / World War II fiction / From Here to Eternity; The Thin Red Line; Some Came Running; Whistle
Romanticism
WashingtonIrving / Romanticism / The Sketchbook
Nathaniel Hawthorne (no Scarlet Letter) / Romanticism
Realism/Naturalism
Stephen Crane / Naturalism / Maggie a Girl of the Streets; Red Badge of Courage
Henry James / Realism; psychological realism / The Portrait of a Lady
The Turn of the Screw
Jack London (no Call of the Wild or White Fang) / Realism; Naturalism
William Dean Howells / Realism; Civil War writer / The Rise of Silas Lapham
Theodore Dreiser / Early 1900s / Sister Carrie: An American Tragedy
Edith Wharton (no Ethan Frome) / Naturalist / The House of Mirth; The Age of Innocence
Frank Norris / Progressive era; Naturalism / The Octopus
Transcendentalism/Anti-Transcendentalism
Herman Melville / Anti-Transcendentalism / Moby Dick
Henry David Thoreau / Transcendentalism / Walden
Louisa May Alcott / Transcendentalism; Civil War / Little Women; Jo's Boys…
Local Color
Mark Twain (no Huckleberry Finn) / Too many to list; depends on the work / A Connecticut Yankee…Arthur’s Court
Modernism/The Lost Generation (1915-1946)
Sherwood Anderson / Modern; The Lost Generation / Winesburg, Ohio
Ernest Hemingway (no Old Man and the Sea) / War; Romance; The Lost Generation / For Whom the Bell Tolls; The Sun Also Rises
F. Scott Fitzgerald (no Great Gatsby) / Modern; The Lost Generation / This Side of Paradise; The Beautiful and Damned; Tender is the Night; The Last Tycoon
John Dos Passos / The Lost Generation; / Manhattan Transfer
Gertrude Stein / The Lost Generation; modernist; avant-garde / The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas; Three Lives
William Faulkner / "Southern" writer; Modernism; Stream of Consciousness / A Light in August; Intruder in the Dust; As I Lay Dying
Willa Cather / Modern / O Pioneers!; My Antonia
Thomas Wolfe / Modern; Diversity in American Culture; fiction, yet autobiographical / You Can't Go Home Again; Look Homeward, Angel
J. D. Salinger (no Catcher in the Rye) / Modern / Collection of Short Stories: Nine Stories or Franny and Zoey
John Updike / Modernist / Rabbit series(Rabbit Run; Rabbit Redux; Rabbit is Rich; Rabbit at Rest; Rabbit Remembered).
Katherine Ann Porter / Modern Fiction / The Ship of Fools
Dorothy Parker / Modernism; satire
Sinclair Lewis / Main Street; Babbit; Arrowsmith
Ayn Rand (no Anthem) / objectivism / Fountainhead; Atlas Shrugged
Post Modernism (1946-present)
John Knowles / Post modern / A Separate Peace
Joyce Carol Oates / Post Modern / We Were the Mulvaneys; Blond; The Grave Diggers Daughter
Tom Robbins / Post modernism; satire / Even Cowgirls Get the Blues; Another Roadside Attraction
Joan Didion / Post Modern; non-fiction on conspiracy theorists, paranoiacs, & sociopaths / The White Album; Where I Was From
Several others to choose from
Gore Vidal / Post Modernism; homosexuality; political / Myra Breckinridge; The City and The Pillar
Ken Kesey / Beatnik generation; hippies; Post modernism / One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest; Sometimes a Great Notion
Norman Mailer / New Journalism / The Naked and the Dead; An American Dream
Richard Brautigan / Counter culture era; black comedy; parody; satire; Zen Buddhism / Trout Fishing in America; A Confederate General from Big Sur; The Hawkline Monster: A Gothic Western
William Burroughs / Beat generation; sci/fi; satire; avant- garde / Naked Lunch
Jack Kerouac / Beat generation; stream of consciousness / On The Road
Don Delillo / Post modernism / White Noise
Several to pick from
Tom Wolfe (no The Bonfire of the Vanities) / New Journalism; gonzo journalism' nonfiction; fiction / In Our Time; The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (nonfiction); A Man in Full; I am Charlotte Simmons; Back to Blood
Robert Penn Warren / New Criticism / All the Kings Men
Paul Bowles / American Existentialist / The Sheltering Sky; Let It Come Down; The Spider’s House; Up Above the World; Too Far From Home
James Purdy / Post Modern / Malcolm; Gertrude of Stony Island Avenue; Moe’s Villa
Philip Roth aka Nathan Zuckerman / Post modern; Fiction / Many to choose from
Anne Tyler / Post modern / Breathing Lessons; The Accidental Tourist; Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant
John Irving / Post modern / A Prayer for Owen Meany; The World According to Garp; The Cider House Rules
Pat Conroy / Post modern / The Great Santini; The Lords of Discipline; My Losing Season; The Prince of Tides
Annie Dillard / Nonfiction; fiction; nature theology / Pilgrim at Tinker Creek; The Living; The Maytrees
Jim Carroll / Diaries/prose / The Basketball Diaries; Forced Entry
Robert Pirsig / Metaphysics of quality / Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance…
Dalton Trumbo / Anti-war movement; Hollywood blacklist / Johnnie Got His Gun
Cultural Writers
Pearl S. Buck / Asian cultures; women's rights / The Good Earth
Saul Bellow / Jewish writer / Adventures of Auggie March; Herzog; Humbolt's Gift
Bernard Malamud / Jewish / The Fixer; The Natural
Isaac Bashevis Singer / Yiddish Literary Movement / The Family Moskat; Satan In Goray; The Wicked City; Shosha
Amy Tan / Chinese-American / Joy Luck Club; Kitchen God’s Wife; Bonesetter’s Daughter; Saving Fish From Drowning
Julia Alvarez / Latin American literature; The dictator novel / How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents; In the Time of Butterflies
Jerzy Kosinski (no The Painted Bird) / Polish American / Steps; Being There
African American Writers
Ralph Ellison / Criticism; Fiction; African American writer / Invisible Man
Richard Wright / African American culture; Harlem Renaissance / Native Son; Black Boy; Uncle Tom's Children
Langston Hughes / African American culture; Harlem Renaissance / Mulatto (play); Not Without Laughter
Zora Neale Hurston / African American culture; Harlem Renaissance / Their Eyes Were Watching God
James Baldwin / African American culture; Harlem Renaissance / Go Tell It On the Mountain; Giovanni's Room; Another Country
Malcolm X / Black Nationalism; Pan-Africanism
Toni Cade Bambara / African American / The Salt Eaters; Those Bones Are Not My Child
Jamaica Kincaid / Lucy; Annie John; The Autobiography of My Mother
Maya Angelou / autobiography / I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Gwendolyn Brooks / African American literature/poetry / Malcolm X
Satire/Black Comedy
Joseph Heller / Satire; Black comedy / Catch-22
Upton Sinclair / Political propaganda; political satire / The Jungle
Kurt Vonnegut / Satire; black comedy; science fiction / Cat’s Cradle; Slaughterhouse-Five; Breakfast of Champions
Southern Gothic/Southern Writers
Flannery O’Connor / Southern gothic / A Good Man Is Hard to Find
Truman Capote (no In Cold Blood) / Southern Gothic / Breakfast At Tiffany’s
Harriet Arnow / Southern Appalachian Writer / Hunter's Horn; The Doll Maker
Carson McCullers / Southern Gothic / The Heart is a Lonely Hunter; Reflections in a Golden Eye; The Member of the Wedding
Children's Literature
E. B. White (no Charlotte’s Web) / Children's literature / Stuart Little; The Trumpet of the Swan MUST read both
Women's Issues
Sylvia Plath / Semi-autobiographical; confessional poetry / The Bell Jar
Ellen Glasgow / The Wheel of Life; Virginia; Barren Ground; In This Our Life
Kate Chopin / Local Color writer; women's issues / The Awakening
Barbara Kingsolver / Fiction; historical fiction; feminism; social justice; environmentalism / The Bean Trees; The Poisonwood Bible; Pigs in Heaven; High Tide in Tucson
Margaret Atwood / Romance; historical fiction; speculative fiction; dystopian society / The Handmaid's Tale; Alias Grace; The Blind Assassin
Science Fiction/ Fantasy/Horror
Anne Rice / Vampire Genre
Ursela K. Le Guin / Science Fiction; fantasy / Earthsea novels; Hainish Cycle novels
Several to pick from
Edgar Rice Burroughs / Adventure; Lost Worlds; Sci/Fi; Westerns / Barsoom Series; Tarzan Series
Robert Heinlein (No Starship Trooper) / Sci/Fi; Fantasy / Double Star; Stranger in a Strange Land; The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
H. P. Lovecraft / Sci/fi; Horror; Cosmicism / Macabre stories; Death Cycle; Cthulhu myths
Philip K. Dick / Sci/fi; post modernism / A Scanner Darkly; VALIS
Richard Matheson (no I Am Legend) / Sci/fi; fantasy; horror / A Stir of Echoes; The Shrinking Man; Hell House
Isaac Asimov / Sci/Fi / The Caves of Steel; The Naked Sun; The Robots of Dawn; Robots and Empire (lots more to choose from)
Ray Bradbury / Sci/Fi / Lots to pick from
Crime Fiction/Detective
Elmore Leonard / Pulp fiction; westerns; crime fiction / Lots to pick from.
Raymond Chandler / Crime fiction / The Long Goodbye; Farewell My Lovely
Jim Thompson / Crime fiction; pulp fiction / The Killer Inside Me; Savage Night
Dashiell Hammet / Detective stories / The Maltese Falcon; The Thin Man; The Simple Art of Murder
Barbara Neely / African American mystery; female detective / Blanche novels(series)
William Kennedy / Gangster / Ironweed; Very Old Bones; Billy Phelan's Greatest Game; Roscoe
Comedy/Humor
P. G. Wodehouse / Comedy; romantic comedy
James Thurber / Humorist; children's literature / My Life and Hard Times
Must read both children's lit. books---The 13 Clocks and The White Deer
Modern Drama
Thornton Wilder / Modern Drama / 3 plays---many to pick from
The Bridge of San Luis Rye (novel)
August Wilson / Modern Drama / 3 plays---Fences; The Piano Lesson; Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom; Joe Turner’s Come and Gone
Tennessee Williams / Modern Drama; homosexuality; alcoholism; mental instability / 3 plays---A Streetcar Named Desire; Night of the Iguana; Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; The Glass Menagerie; The Rose Tattoo
Eugene O’Neill / Modern Drama; techniques of realism; American vernacular / 3 plays---many to choose from
Edward Albee / Theater of the Absurd; Post Modern Drama / 3 plays---Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolfe; The Zoo Story; The Sandbox; The American Dream
Sam Shepard / 3 plays---Buried Child; True West; A Lie of the Mind; Curse of the Starving Class
David Mamet / 3 plays---Glengary Glen Ross; Speed-the-Plow; Wag the Dog
Novels---The Wicked Son; The Old Religion; FiveCities of Refuge…; Bambi vs. Godzilla
Several others to choose from
Westerns Influence
Larry McMurtry / western / Lonesome Dove
John Steinbeck (no Of Mice and Men) / California influence / The Grapes of Wrath; Cannery Row; East of Eden
Zane Grey / Westerns / Tons to pick from

Requires Signed Parent Permission to do any of these.

Brett Easton Ellis (no American Psycho) / Postmodernism; satire / Less Than Zero
Charles Bukowski / Transgressive fiction; dirty realism / Ham on Rye; Post Office; Factotum
Hunter S. Thompson / Gonzo Journalism; New Journalism / Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas; Hells Angels
Vladimir Nabakov / Modernism; post modernism / Lolita
Toni Morrison / African American studies; Post Modern / The Bluest Eye; Sula; Beloved; Song of Solomon
Alice Walker / African American studies / The Color Purple
Elderidge Cleaver (no Soul on Ice) / Black Nationalism; Nation of Islam / Soul on Fire
James Dickey / Deliverance; Alnilam; To the White Sea
Thomas Pynchon / Historical fiction; satire; science fantasy; post modernism