Honors Threads

American Authors Book List

Choose one group; pick three to four books from the group. 

Let me know your choice by:  ___________

 

Themes                                   Novels  __________________________________

 

The American Adventure:         Lonesome Dove (first semester)- Larry McMurtry

                                                On The Road - Jack Kerourac

                                                Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert Pirsig

                                                O' Pioneers - Willa Cather

 

The American Woman: Portrait of a Lady - Henry James

                                                Woman Warrior - Maxine Hong Kingston

                                                My Antonia      - Willa Cather

                                                Beloved - Toni Morrison

                                                The Joy Luck Club - Amy Tan

                                                The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver

 

The South:                                Sound and the Fury (first semester)- William Faulkner

                                                The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers

                                                "Streetcar Named Desire" - Tennessee Williams

                                                Flannery O'Connor - "The complete stories"

                                                Secret Life of Bees - Sue Monk Kidd

 

The American Misanthrope: (curiously, also Bay Area Writers Club):                

Wonder Boys - Michael Chabon

Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius - Dave Eggers

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test - Ken Kesey

Dharma Bums - Jack Kerouac

                                               Microserfs - Douglas Couplandd

                                               Generation X - Douglas Coupland

 

America at War

Cold Mountain - Charles Fraizer

Farewell to Arms - Ernest Hemingway

In a Lake of the Woods - Tim O'Brian

Red Badge of Courage - Stephen Crane

Choose one - Lies and the Lying Liars - Al Franken; Stupid White Men  - Michael Moore;

Bush at War - Woodward;  The Enemy Within:… - Michael Savage; Deliver Us From Evil - Sean Hannity

 

Racism in America:

 

Invisible Man (first semester)- Ralph Ellison

Native Son - Richard Wright

Beloved - Toni Morrison

Flannery O'Connor - "Everything that Rises Must Converrge"; "The complete stories"

The Color Purple - Alice Walker

In Search of my Mother's Gardens - Alice Walker

Manchild:  The Promised Land - Claude Brown

 

 

American Weirdness (book that mess with your head):

 

Slaughterhouse Five - Vonnugut

Breakfast of Champions - Vonnugut

Dead Eye Dick - Vonnugut

I, Robot - Asimov

Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

 

American Classics:

 

Ethan Frome - Edith Wharton

Portrait of a Lady - Henry James

Moby Dick - Herman Melville

Ragtime - E.L. Doctorow

Winesburg, Ohio - Sherwood Anderson

Tender is the Night - F.Scott Fitzgerald

 

The American Jewish Experience:

 

Herzog - Saul Bellow

The Human Stain - Phillip Roth

Ghost Writer - Phillip Roth

Call it Sleep - Henry Roth

Neil Simon - Any plays ("The Good Doctor"; "The Odd Couple": "Barefoot in the Park"; "Lost in Yonkers"; "Sweet Charity"

The Amazing Adventures of Kavallier and Clay - Michael Chabon

Maus - Art Spiegelman