Posted by MaggieH (admin)
Jun 29, 2009 9:00 am

Replies (16)

Posted by

• Ernest Hemingway.

  Jun 29, 2009 12:57 pm
  by Kats4515

• Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff about the glory days of the space program. Not the favorite, but a favorite American writer of mine in that he reflects the time period well.

  Jun 29, 2009 5:26 pm
  by dreamdust

• Wow, this is a tough choice. My top 4 are Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mark Twain, James Fenimore Cooper, and Louisa May Alcott. I'd have to say over all, Mark Twain is my favorite; his writings are so humorous, yet deal with some deep issues at the same time.

  Jun 30, 2009 12:06 pm
  by adrialien

• Allen Ginsberg because he never screened his thoughts while writing. Kaddish is my favorite.

  Jul 1, 2009 12:31 pm
  by snider

• David Eddings, the first American author that comes to mind. He wrote his books with his wife, so Leigh Eddings as well...

  Jul 1, 2009 10:49 pm
  by books

• I agree with @adrialien--this is a tough choice! I guess I'll have to go by my favorite American novels to pick:
  1 To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
  2 The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald)
  3 Winesburg, Ohio (Sherwood Anderson)
  
  I suppose that I would pick Harper Lee because I love her writing style--I love how she tells a story which even children can enjoy while dealing with quite serious issues. I like writers who can intertwine a character's day-to-day life and their greatness in taking a stand for the things in which they believe.

  Jul 2, 2009 2:48 pm
  by newsgirl057

• John Steinbeck wrote of America. His prose was spartan and precise. "The Grapes of Wrath" must stand as one of the greatest novels. It is a testament to the American spirit.

  Jul 3, 2009 5:29 pm
  by doverrover

• William Faulkner is my favorite American author.

  Jul 4, 2009 12:07 am
  by psycheinaboat

• This is a tough one. I would have to say John Stienbeck. He painted a picture that stuck in my head with so many of his books. "The Grapes of Wrath" is a great American classic.

  Jul 5, 2009 4:50 pm
  by love2read217

• Ernest Hemingway

  Jul 9, 2009 10:18 pm
  by teresalovesscotland

• I want to throw in a couple of living authors-John Irving and Larry McMurtry.

  Jul 12, 2009 9:09 am
  by EDITHJWHARTON

• And I did not mean to kill off Harper Lee and Tom Wolfe. I think that I intimated that everyone else had named non living authors.

  Jul 12, 2009 9:11 am
  by EDITHJWHARTON

• H. P. Lovecraft. This giant of speculative fiction went largely unread in his day, but his highly original work took root decades later, capturing the minds of mainstream American writers of the 70s and 80s. It still casts shadows in this day and age of shrill entertainment, hopelessness and faithless solitude.

  Jul 22, 2009 2:12 pm
  by christe

• I've started with a southern storyteller known as the "Father of the American Novel." Then history brought me to the most influential and highly educated African-Americans of the beginning of the 20th century who were beginning change. And from there I continued with writers who I believe helped change the political, racial and misogynistic attitudes prevailing in here these United States. Each brought their part in reshaping the American landscape (some good, some maybe not so good), Yet it resonated in the heart and minds of folks across this diverse country a sense of personal freedom and the right to say what we believe. Writers gained new found respect as the troubadours of free press and speech and got doors opened that had been long shut to ordinary folks for centuries.
  Let me know what you think of my choices, please - I love feedback!!! MY PICKS ARE BELOW /

  Aug 25, 2009 7:25 pm
  by elliott57

• Mark Twain: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1876)
  Booker T. Washington: Up from Slavery (1901)
  W.E.B. Dubois: The Souls of Black Folk (1903)
  D.H. Lawrence: Sons and Lovers (1913)
  W. Somerset Maugham: Of Human Bondage (1915)
  James Joyce: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916)
  Edith Wharton: The Age of Innocence (1920)
  F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby (1925)
  Ernest Hemingway: The Sun Also Rises (1926)
  Ayn Rand: Anthem (1938)
  John Steinbeck: The Grapes of Wrath (1939)
  Eleanor Roosevelt: On the Adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Speeches (1948, Paris)
  J.D. Salinger: The Catcher in the Rye (1951)
  Vladimir Nabokov: Lolita (1955)
  Jack Kerouac: On the Road (1957)
  William Burroughs: Naked Lunch (1959)
  John Updike: Run Rabbit (1960)
  John Irving: The World According to Garp (1978)
  Bella Pollen: Hunting Unicorns (2004)^^^
  ^^^ A prediction on my part that she will become an author of note in the coming decades.

  Aug 25, 2009 7:25 pm
  by elliott57

• As of this moment, the author of The Egyptian and Prague--Arthur Phillips. The Egyptian had me enthralled: history, unreliable narrators, changing points of view, changing time frames--a mystery in the truest sense of the word.

  Aug 26, 2009 3:54 pm
  by BookMuncher