A wonderful top 10 list of Great American Novels, Jack! “The Confessions of Nat Turner” is severely underrated and ought to be more well-known. William Styron deserved better than to be attacked and smeared by black authors. Tom Wolfe’s The Bonfire of the Vanities is also criminally underrated and deserves much more attention. Lonesome Dove is a tour de force and was made into an equally great TV miniseries. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell will live forever. It commits the cardinal sin of daring to humanize white Southerners during and after the Civil War. That’s why the woke inquisitors hate it and have tried to memory hole it. But have never been successful in doing so. It’s just too popular and too beloved and rightly so.
Some other great American novels I would add as honorable mentions would be the following:
• The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
• The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
• The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
• Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
• Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
• East of Eden by John Steinbeck
• Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
• Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
• Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
• The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
• Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
• The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
• All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren
• The Call of the Wild by Jack London
• A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
• For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
I also would agree that as disgusting and awful as the word “nigger” is, we shouldn’t censor it, Jack. It is an ugly but important part of the African-American experience. That doesn’t mean everyone should go around saying it all the time. It should never be used in everyday parlance ever again. But referring to it or using it in historical context is perfectly fine and shouldn’t get anyone cancelled or fired from their job or anything of that sort.
Another thing I wanted to mention in relation to the topic of this article, we need to stop vilifying the South and the Confederacy. The Confederate States of America was a typical society for its time. Slavery was practiced in every corner of the globe back then not just in the American South. Furthermore, it’s not like the North didn’t at one time have it too. They simply got rid of because they didn’t need it anymore as they had factories and free labor. But this doesn’t mean Northerners loved the black man, far from it. Both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line slave or free were equally racist. Plus, slavery wasn’t the only cause of the Civil War nor the only reason the South seceded from the Union. The Confederates also were NOT traitors but separatists. The Civil War is a VERY complex subject and I’m sorry to see it get so over-simplified today with things like calling the Confederate Flag a symbol of racism, it is not and was never intended as such. Confederate Monuments should also remain up. Here are some good books I’d recommend to Jack and his subscribers to get a more nuanced picture of the Civil War, Slavery and the American South:
* The Civil War and Reconstruction: Second Edition with Enlarged Bibliography by J.G. Randall & David Donald
* The Causes of the Civil War: The Political, Cultural, Economic, and Territorial Disputes between North and South by Paul Calore
* North of Slavery: The Negro in the Free States, 1790-1860 by Leon F. Litwick
* Black Slaveowners: Free Black Slave Masters in South Carolina, 1790-1860 by Larry Koger
* Blacks in Gray Uniforms: A New Look at the South’s Most Forgotten Combat Troops, 1861-1865 by Phillip Thomas Tucker
* Life and Labor in the Old South by Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
* Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made by Eugene Genovese
* Within the Plantation Household: Black and White Women of the Old South by Elizabeth Fox-Genovese
* Origins of the New South, 1877-1913: A History of the South by C. Vann Woodward
* Tom Watson: Agrarian Rebel by C. Vann Woodward
We can both honor the heroism and courage of Confederate soldiers and sailors while also getting rid of the Lost Cause, acknowledging the injustices done to black Americans in the postwar era and recognizing that the history of the war was whitewashed in later years. Instead of blowing up reconciliation between North and South, we need to add minorities into the grand narrative of the Civil War.
In my antediluvian undergrad days our History 101 mandatory reading included C Vann Woodward’s Burden of Southern History. I have to agree with those who pick Blood Meridian as his most notable work; yes, it’s dark as hell and when it was published those of us who knew him thought he’d gone barking mad but it has strange literary power. (My second choice for a McCarthy is Outer Dark).
I got 8 out of 10. Acceptable. I always believed that "The Confessions of Nat Turner" should be mandatory high school reading, along with Styron's "Sophie's Choice." Great list.
Jack; Haven’t read them all but of those I did, I won’t dispute value of having read books that have not been redacted to sooth the savage beasts who check every word with the intention to demean the author and/or the entire work.
I thought “Brave New World” or “Stranger in a Strange Land” might have been in here but reading this. I realized they represent a totally different genre.
Adding an odd note, my former wife loved “Gone with the Wind” to the extent that she attempted to memorize it. Did a fair job of it, I might add
She would invite friends to challenge her to recite a passage from memory by giving a page number from her copy. “Page 182, first paragraph” they would say, and Damn it if she didn’t get it almost word for word. I often though she set it up as I told her it was impossible for
HAVING READ IT, I WAS SUSPISIOUS, BUT SHE RARELY WAS WRONG, THAT'S WHY I THINK SHE SET ME UP, PLANTING THE EVENT WITH FRIENDS & BROUGHT UP THE SUBJECT.
Wow, agree completely about Faulkner, sophomore English teacher in HS was getting his Ph.D and we spent forever on “The Sound and the Fury.’ Horrible. I just gave up on Chernow’s Mark Twain precisely for the reason you listed. Twain was a man of his times. NO need to apologize for his perspective. And your book “Untenable” deserves a Pulitzer.
IMO Tom Wolfe's "A Man in Full" is a 10; "Bonfire" is 9.60.
"A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole is on my bedside table always. In event of depression or lethargy, 10 pages are better than medication. You've spent some time there, and I was at LSU at the time it was written. Burma Jones is a character who cannot be forgotten...His devious motto "sabotage" is inspired and dignifies his situation in undignified circumstances. Every character is unique, hilarious and true.
Great list Jack, I read most if these, the others in parts. I whole heartedly agree with the #1 pick of "Lonesome Dove". Along with "Shogun" it is one of my alI-time favorites (it's hard to pick #1). I often recommend both, but "Lonsome Dove" is unique in a way no other book, that I have seen, is. That uniqueness being the TV miniseries version.
The 70's and 80's aired a number of miniseries, few if any true to the book. "Shogun", one of my top ten all time aired in 1980. It was h-o-r-r-i-b-l-e. Most of the others were
as well, but only to a lesser degree of horrible. So I avoided miniseries abd the 1989 airing and reruns of "Lonesome Dove", a book I had not read nor knew about and blew it off for 10 years, until...
While traveling for business I spent a week in a small town in the middle of Texas with the one bar, one hotel, one place to eat, and only 2 TV stations available. Bored and not having a book to read, I turned on the TV where, much to my chagrin, the 3-night miniseries "Lonesome Dove" was airing. Oh well, with nothing else to do, after avoiding it for many years, I turned it on.
I have always read a lot. And, I have seen many movies of books that I have had read. I came to believe that, 'No movie was ever as good as the book." They lack detail. The miniseries "Shogun" - 1980, and most of the others reaffirmed that belief. So I was expecting the same from "Lonesome Dove" as I turned it on that first night, just to peek.
IT WAS FANTASIC.
Wow, not what I expected, I was hooked and had to watch it all. It was so good I had to read the book, because the book is always better than the movie.
"Lonesome Dove" the book was a fantastic read as Jack states, but it was NOT better than the miniseries, it was the SAME. Later while reading it I kept thinking, tell me something not in the movie. I could not find it. The miniseries had faithfully and completely followed the book. That is the uniqueness of this book, of this story, one I have never experienced with any other. Wish they were more like this.
So, yes "Lonesome Dove" is a great choice for #1. Not only to read, but to view on TV, either of which tell the same complete story.
Midnight In The Garden of Good & Evil…. and Ava’s Man by Rick Bragg! I have read the latter at least 5 times! The writing is beautiful, the story is heartbreaking! A “southern” novel
I have read or at least seen the movie adaptation (some both) of 6 of the list. Of those I concur. I read "Lonesome Dove" in one sitting, not having the patience to wait to see what happens next. I read "Huckleberry Finn" in the 8th grade. I read "Bonfire of the Vanities" a year before the woefully mis-cast movie was released. I shall endeavor to read the remainder in due time.
Thank you for not including "The Great Gatsby"! Hated the book in high school. Hated the movies. When one of my kids had to read it for high school, I read it again. Still sucks.
A fascinating and idiosyncratic list. You slight some of the acknowledged classics in favor of what many people besides myself would consider "good bad" books. To me, Gone With the Wind is the greatest potboiler ever written. Lonesome Dove was a fine read, but literature? The Confessions of Nat Turner gave me the ick (and I'm white) because Styron decided that a rebellious slave's greatest obsession was not freedom, but his white mistress. I also love Bonfire of the Vanities. I would include A Farewell to Arms and/or The Sun Also Rises, The Age of Innocence, The Great Gatsby and Fahrenheit 451.
Once you settle into the syntax Moby Dick emerges as the "masterpiece we haven't read". I dunno what led me to that book this year but finally, I get it. Great list, thank you.
A wonderful top 10 list of Great American Novels, Jack! “The Confessions of Nat Turner” is severely underrated and ought to be more well-known. William Styron deserved better than to be attacked and smeared by black authors. Tom Wolfe’s The Bonfire of the Vanities is also criminally underrated and deserves much more attention. Lonesome Dove is a tour de force and was made into an equally great TV miniseries. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell will live forever. It commits the cardinal sin of daring to humanize white Southerners during and after the Civil War. That’s why the woke inquisitors hate it and have tried to memory hole it. But have never been successful in doing so. It’s just too popular and too beloved and rightly so.
Some other great American novels I would add as honorable mentions would be the following:
• The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
• The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
• The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
• Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
• Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
• East of Eden by John Steinbeck
• Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
• Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
• Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
• The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
• Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
• The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
• All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren
• The Call of the Wild by Jack London
• A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
• For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
I also would agree that as disgusting and awful as the word “nigger” is, we shouldn’t censor it, Jack. It is an ugly but important part of the African-American experience. That doesn’t mean everyone should go around saying it all the time. It should never be used in everyday parlance ever again. But referring to it or using it in historical context is perfectly fine and shouldn’t get anyone cancelled or fired from their job or anything of that sort.
Another thing I wanted to mention in relation to the topic of this article, we need to stop vilifying the South and the Confederacy. The Confederate States of America was a typical society for its time. Slavery was practiced in every corner of the globe back then not just in the American South. Furthermore, it’s not like the North didn’t at one time have it too. They simply got rid of because they didn’t need it anymore as they had factories and free labor. But this doesn’t mean Northerners loved the black man, far from it. Both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line slave or free were equally racist. Plus, slavery wasn’t the only cause of the Civil War nor the only reason the South seceded from the Union. The Confederates also were NOT traitors but separatists. The Civil War is a VERY complex subject and I’m sorry to see it get so over-simplified today with things like calling the Confederate Flag a symbol of racism, it is not and was never intended as such. Confederate Monuments should also remain up. Here are some good books I’d recommend to Jack and his subscribers to get a more nuanced picture of the Civil War, Slavery and the American South:
* The Civil War and Reconstruction: Second Edition with Enlarged Bibliography by J.G. Randall & David Donald
* The Causes of the Civil War: The Political, Cultural, Economic, and Territorial Disputes between North and South by Paul Calore
* North of Slavery: The Negro in the Free States, 1790-1860 by Leon F. Litwick
* Black Slaveowners: Free Black Slave Masters in South Carolina, 1790-1860 by Larry Koger
* Blacks in Gray Uniforms: A New Look at the South’s Most Forgotten Combat Troops, 1861-1865 by Phillip Thomas Tucker
* Life and Labor in the Old South by Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
* Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made by Eugene Genovese
* Within the Plantation Household: Black and White Women of the Old South by Elizabeth Fox-Genovese
* Origins of the New South, 1877-1913: A History of the South by C. Vann Woodward
* Tom Watson: Agrarian Rebel by C. Vann Woodward
We can both honor the heroism and courage of Confederate soldiers and sailors while also getting rid of the Lost Cause, acknowledging the injustices done to black Americans in the postwar era and recognizing that the history of the war was whitewashed in later years. Instead of blowing up reconciliation between North and South, we need to add minorities into the grand narrative of the Civil War.
My favorite book by C.Vann Woodward is The Strange Career of Jim Crow.
In my antediluvian undergrad days our History 101 mandatory reading included C Vann Woodward’s Burden of Southern History. I have to agree with those who pick Blood Meridian as his most notable work; yes, it’s dark as hell and when it was published those of us who knew him thought he’d gone barking mad but it has strange literary power. (My second choice for a McCarthy is Outer Dark).
To Kill a Mockingbird
I got 8 out of 10. Acceptable. I always believed that "The Confessions of Nat Turner" should be mandatory high school reading, along with Styron's "Sophie's Choice." Great list.
Jack; Haven’t read them all but of those I did, I won’t dispute value of having read books that have not been redacted to sooth the savage beasts who check every word with the intention to demean the author and/or the entire work.
I thought “Brave New World” or “Stranger in a Strange Land” might have been in here but reading this. I realized they represent a totally different genre.
Adding an odd note, my former wife loved “Gone with the Wind” to the extent that she attempted to memorize it. Did a fair job of it, I might add
She would invite friends to challenge her to recite a passage from memory by giving a page number from her copy. “Page 182, first paragraph” they would say, and Damn it if she didn’t get it almost word for word. I often though she set it up as I told her it was impossible for
anyone to do it.
My daughter, as a 9-year old, could have given her a run.
OBVIOUSLY DADDY'S LITTLE GIRL. INTELLIGENCE RUNNING IN THE FAMILY.
If she wasn't playing around, that is really impressive. The book is almost fifteen hundred pages long, just like "War and Peace."
HAVING READ IT, I WAS SUSPISIOUS, BUT SHE RARELY WAS WRONG, THAT'S WHY I THINK SHE SET ME UP, PLANTING THE EVENT WITH FRIENDS & BROUGHT UP THE SUBJECT.
It’s very funny, if she did that. It sounds like a “Seinfeld” show.
Lonesome Dove is indeed a great read.
Loved the mini series; Tommy Lee Jones & Robert Duvall are the best.
And the cinematographer captured "the thumbnail moon" and so many other settings that McMurtry created on the page.
Wow, agree completely about Faulkner, sophomore English teacher in HS was getting his Ph.D and we spent forever on “The Sound and the Fury.’ Horrible. I just gave up on Chernow’s Mark Twain precisely for the reason you listed. Twain was a man of his times. NO need to apologize for his perspective. And your book “Untenable” deserves a Pulitzer.
You made my day!
IMO Tom Wolfe's "A Man in Full" is a 10; "Bonfire" is 9.60.
"A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole is on my bedside table always. In event of depression or lethargy, 10 pages are better than medication. You've spent some time there, and I was at LSU at the time it was written. Burma Jones is a character who cannot be forgotten...His devious motto "sabotage" is inspired and dignifies his situation in undignified circumstances. Every character is unique, hilarious and true.
Good choice
Thank you, in spite of my omission of the key words "New Orleans" in my remarks. Sigh...
Beat me to it. Harold Bloom had it on his LIST>
Great list Jack, I read most if these, the others in parts. I whole heartedly agree with the #1 pick of "Lonesome Dove". Along with "Shogun" it is one of my alI-time favorites (it's hard to pick #1). I often recommend both, but "Lonsome Dove" is unique in a way no other book, that I have seen, is. That uniqueness being the TV miniseries version.
The 70's and 80's aired a number of miniseries, few if any true to the book. "Shogun", one of my top ten all time aired in 1980. It was h-o-r-r-i-b-l-e. Most of the others were
as well, but only to a lesser degree of horrible. So I avoided miniseries abd the 1989 airing and reruns of "Lonesome Dove", a book I had not read nor knew about and blew it off for 10 years, until...
While traveling for business I spent a week in a small town in the middle of Texas with the one bar, one hotel, one place to eat, and only 2 TV stations available. Bored and not having a book to read, I turned on the TV where, much to my chagrin, the 3-night miniseries "Lonesome Dove" was airing. Oh well, with nothing else to do, after avoiding it for many years, I turned it on.
I have always read a lot. And, I have seen many movies of books that I have had read. I came to believe that, 'No movie was ever as good as the book." They lack detail. The miniseries "Shogun" - 1980, and most of the others reaffirmed that belief. So I was expecting the same from "Lonesome Dove" as I turned it on that first night, just to peek.
IT WAS FANTASIC.
Wow, not what I expected, I was hooked and had to watch it all. It was so good I had to read the book, because the book is always better than the movie.
"Lonesome Dove" the book was a fantastic read as Jack states, but it was NOT better than the miniseries, it was the SAME. Later while reading it I kept thinking, tell me something not in the movie. I could not find it. The miniseries had faithfully and completely followed the book. That is the uniqueness of this book, of this story, one I have never experienced with any other. Wish they were more like this.
So, yes "Lonesome Dove" is a great choice for #1. Not only to read, but to view on TV, either of which tell the same complete story.
And that is unique!
Keep em comming Jack.
Agreed. I read the book first, but the mini-series fulfilled its promise.
Midnight In The Garden of Good & Evil…. and Ava’s Man by Rick Bragg! I have read the latter at least 5 times! The writing is beautiful, the story is heartbreaking! A “southern” novel
Ava’s Man , I had forgotten that one. Also enjoyed “ All over But The Shoutin” by Bragg.
Throw in William Faulkner's Light in August and that's a great list
Read them all but #3. Great list
I have read or at least seen the movie adaptation (some both) of 6 of the list. Of those I concur. I read "Lonesome Dove" in one sitting, not having the patience to wait to see what happens next. I read "Huckleberry Finn" in the 8th grade. I read "Bonfire of the Vanities" a year before the woefully mis-cast movie was released. I shall endeavor to read the remainder in due time.
I was in the 8th grade when I read H Finn as well. I remember being puzzled by the line, "Shet de do."
Thank you for not including "The Great Gatsby"! Hated the book in high school. Hated the movies. When one of my kids had to read it for high school, I read it again. Still sucks.
I loved the image of oculist Doctor T. J. Eckleburg as God watching everyone.
A fascinating and idiosyncratic list. You slight some of the acknowledged classics in favor of what many people besides myself would consider "good bad" books. To me, Gone With the Wind is the greatest potboiler ever written. Lonesome Dove was a fine read, but literature? The Confessions of Nat Turner gave me the ick (and I'm white) because Styron decided that a rebellious slave's greatest obsession was not freedom, but his white mistress. I also love Bonfire of the Vanities. I would include A Farewell to Arms and/or The Sun Also Rises, The Age of Innocence, The Great Gatsby and Fahrenheit 451.
You missed the importance of Nat Turner.
Walker Percy, The Moviegoer
Once you settle into the syntax Moby Dick emerges as the "masterpiece we haven't read". I dunno what led me to that book this year but finally, I get it. Great list, thank you.