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shadowkatSo, after going through the Great American Read, I realized many of the authors aren't American. And I wondered about doing a book meme in which you list anywhere from 10-100 books written by authors from the country that you currently reside in. For example if you reside in Australia, you would only list 50 -100 books written by Australian authors that you would recommend. Or say, Germany, you'd only list books written by German authors. Sweden? Only books written by Swedish authors. Nigeria? Nigerian authors. India? Indian authors. Great Britain -- only British Authors. Etc.
Rules?
1.) List 10-100 books that you would recommend people read (they can be favorites, genre, literary, comic books, web comics, anything -- as long as you have to read them).
2.) Books have to be written by authors who are citizens of the country that you reside in or are a citizen of currently -- your home country. (For instance don't list Americanha by Ngozi -- unless you happen to be Nigerian and living in Nigeria.) If American? They have to be American writers. If German, German writers. Etc. If Canadian? Canadian authors. Don't list anything by Margaret Atwood unless you are Canadian.
3.) Comment if you wish on each explaining why you would recommend them, but not necessary.
I was born in the United States, approximately fifth or sixth generation American. Below is my list of the Books Written by American Writers that I'd recommend. I chose these novels because I found them memorable.
1. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald - the story is about a self-made millionaire, who has redefined and re-created himself hoping to be able to fit into the world of the elite that he yearned for growing up. And in the process ends up losing himself completely. The world he wishes to enter is shallow like the dream he yearns for. It is an excellent critique of individualism and the American Dream. Haunts me to this day -- and I read it when I was 16.
2. Kindred by Octavia Butler -- a time travel novel about a young African-American woman who gets yanked back to the years of slavery, much against her will, due to her link to a White Ancestor and slaveholder. And she's not the only one who gets yanked back, her white husband does as well. Through these two characters, we view slavery from two modern perspectives, an African-American female who is yanked back as a slave, and a white man, who becomes an abolitionist. It may well be the best Time Travel novel, I've read. Written more as a horror novel than a romantic fantasy, which is often the case with Time Travel.
3. The Sparrow by Maria Doria Russell -- A science fiction novel by a cultural anthropologist -- the novel is told in flashback from the perspective of a Catholic Priest who has lost his faith and been traumatized and crippled by a horrific experience. When Earth receives a response to the messages they sent out into space via Voyager, they decide to send a group of mismatched travelers and volunteers to the alien planet. The group crash lands, and has to find a way to make it work on the new planet, but they stumble quite a bit, and with catastrophic consequences. This novel delves deep into cultural misunderstandings and the ethics of anthropological study, and religious cultural misappropriation. Still haunts me over 15 years after I read it.
4. Grass by Sherri S. Tepper -- another science-fiction novel that borrows heavily from biological and cultural anthropology and focuses on human/alien relations, and feels more like a horror novel than a sci-fi at times. A family travels to a new planet to escape a plague, only to discover the plague in question originated from that planet. The aliens in this one are creepy and how they deal with the humans is decidedly creepy. Tepper's novels delve into gender inequalities and communication problems.
5. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck -- the quintessential American novel, and a perfect companion novel to The Great Gatsby. It's about a bunch of migrant farmers who flee the Dust Bowl in the 1930s...and through it we see the pain of the American Dream gone awry.
6. Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain -- about a runaway boy and a runaway slave struggling to survive on The Mississippi in the 1800s.
7. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins -- the dystopian novel that started the YA dystopian trend, but the only one that really had much to say on the topic. Collins, who'd been a television writer, comments on reality television and war, and how violence affects children in a haunting story of a young woman who volunteers to fight to the death in a gladiator style broadly televised series of games in order to save her sister's life.
8. The Stand by Stephen King -- the horror novel to beat horror novels. It's also an in-depth depiction of American small town morals and community values. Very male in focus -- the male characters are admittedly better drawn than the women. But it gets across a lot of the toxic male culture that has embodied the US for so long. It blends the Western and Dystopian Genres with Horror. The story is about what happens after a plague decimates over 75% of the population. It ain't pretty.
9. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton - a good companion novel to The Great Gatsby but from a female perspective. It's mainly about repression, and yearning for what one can never have, and how society traps you in preconceived roles.
10. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson -- if King rules the roost for male horror writers, Jackson takes over the throne for women. She's subtle, where King is flowery, and her stories do not end well. This story is a psychological ghost story, where it remains unclear which ghosts are the worst...the ones that we imagine or the ones that are real.
11. The Maltese Falcon by Daniel Dashielle Hammett -- possibly among the best plotted and written detective novels written. Hammett created the hard-boiled detective novel, and this novel remains a classic of the form.
12. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green - notable in how Green connects to his cancer ridden teens through the device of a book fandom. The two leads meet at a cancer support group, but truly connect over their mutual love of a book, which they become obsessed fans of -- so obsessed that they make a trip to Sweden to meet the reclusive writer, and instead spend the day in Anne Frank's house.
13. Beloved by Toni Morrison -- a novel about slavery and it's long ragged scars via a ghost story.
Beloved is a ghost. The tale is told through the perspectives of a ghost, and those whom she haunts in stunningly beautiful stream of consciousness style.
14. Slaughter-House Five by Kurt Vonnegut - a comedic sci-fi novel about WWII and it's after-effects. The novel concentrates on the battle of Dresden, which Vonnegut survived and is haunted by, and it is about the absurdities and pains of war.
15. Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein -- a science fiction pulp writer, who wrote a very odd but fascinating book, about an alien who does not quite fit, and depicts our culture from the outside in.
16. Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy O'Tool -- it's an impossible story to explain. You'll either love it or hate it.
17. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner -- three brothers tell a story about their sister, Caddy. We're in their thoughts and point of view, and through them see their sister and see how they view women. It's a bit of a condemnation of the male mind, and much like King's The Stand, another good depiction of the toxic male persona that haunts American life.
18. The Color Purple by Alice Walker - like Beloved, this is a story about slavery, but also renewal and survival. The heroine in this tale survives slavery and domestic violence, to find love with a woman.
19. Walden Pond by Henry David Thoreaux -- more a series of essays about naturalism and living a simple life.
20. The Fall of the House of Usher and Murders in the Rogue Morgue by Edgar Allen Poe, who basically created the modern detective novel.
21. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee -- a coming of age tale in the deep south that focuses on a little girl who deals with issues of prejudice (racism and sexism) on multiple levels.
22. Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote -- sort of the American version of Gigi, it's about a male and female hustler who somehow strike up a friendship.
23. Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder -- Ingalls semi-autobiographical tale about a family struggling to survive on a farm in the mid-west during the 1800s.
24. Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger -- I didn't love this book, but I recommend for the same reasons I recommend Confederacy of Dunces -- it's a good look at how toxic our culture is.
25. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving
26. Their Eyes Are Watching God by Zora Neal Hurston
27. The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver -- It is the charming, engrossing tale of rural Kentucky native Taylor Greer, who only wants to get away from her roots and avoid getting pregnant. She succeeds, but inherits a 3-year-old native-American little girl named Turtle along the way.
28. Skinwalkers by Tony Hillerman (writes about two Native American Detectives in the American Southwest).
29. The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury - a series of short tales cobbled together that tells the story of how a society collapsed and why.
30. A Horseman Passed By -- aka Hud by Larry McMurtry -- a story about gender dynamics. It's a modern western that works well as a commentary on the Western Genre.
31. The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers -- another coming of age tale, about a young girl attending a sibling's wedding and her struggle with it and everything else.
32. The Grinch Who Stole Christmas by Doctor Seuss
33. The Three Stigmata of Palmer K. Eldritch - by Philip K. Dick -- an indictment of the American obsession with consumerism, and image. Scary if you read it today.
34. One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest by Ken Kesey - about the inner workings of an aslym for the criminally insane.
35. The Outsiders by SE Hinton - a book about a bunch of boys in the 1950s/1960s...about peer pressure and family.
36. Stuart Little by EB White - about a mouse who is adopted by a family and goes on a journey and falls in love with a bird.
37. The Bell Jar by Slyvia Plath -- a nice companion to One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, also about mental illness, and the publishing industry.
38. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving - a story about war and faith, and friendship.
39. Underworld by Don Deillo -- hard to describe, a modern take on existentialist angst. (I like him better than Philip Roth and Saul Bellow and John Updike. Less snooty.)
40. Get Shorty by Elmore Leonard -- the book is much better than the movie. He's the master of the short crime novel with quirky characters.
41. Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak - a children's book that has a sort of innate sense of fun.
42. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon, about comics and surviving in Brooklyn.
43. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn -- by Betty Smith -- a semi-autographical novel about a young girl growing up in Brooklyn, NY in the 1940s.
44. The Bonfire of the Vanities by Thomas Wolf -- about a couple who takes a wrong turn in NYC during the 1980s, a satirical take on the 1980s US.
45. The Secret History by Donna Tartt -- about a bunch of classics students who decide to do a Greek Ritual in the Woods, and end up committing murder instead. It discusses things like friendship and privilege.
46. Shards of Honor by Lois MacMasters Bujold - When Cordelia Naismith and her survey crew are attacked by a renegade group from Barrayar, she is taken prisoner by Aral Vorkosigan, commander of the Barrayan ship that has been taken over by an ambitious and ruthless crew member.
47. The Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Kroeber Le Guin - children's fantasy series and coming of age.
48. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle - a young girl must save her brilliant brother and father from an encompassing darkness.
49. Are You There God? It's Me Margret by Judy Bloom -- about a teenage girl who gets her period for the first time, struggles with faith, and growing up in the 1970s and 80s. A timeless tale and among the few about what it is like being a female teen in the US in the late 20th Century.
50. The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy -- a tale of the deep south, a young man struggles with a history of abuse and his childhood while beginning a relationship with a therapist.
51. Time and Again by Jack Finney -- it's a story about a man who finds a way to go back to 1800s NYC.
52. Work is Hell - a comic book by Matt Groenig
53. Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton -- about a team of scientists struggling to determine the cure to a deadly virus before it devours them. Crichton who'd been a medical doctor and pathologists digs deep into the science here. Best medical thriller.
54. Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice -- the novel that sort of gave birth to the vampire genre that we've seen today. She recreates it, and makes it a metaphor for disease, for societal ills. The Vampires in the story want to save the lives of loved ones but doom them to an eternity of pain. The story is told in flashback during an interview between a reporter and a vampire.
55. Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler -- middle class midwestern American suburban angst, told by a master.
56. A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley -- King Lear on a Kansas Farm.
57. Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem -- a noir tale with a detective who has Ausberger's Syndrom.
58. Advise and Consent by Allen Drury -- must read for anyone who wants to understand the politics behind the Senate confirmation process in the US. It really hasn't changed all that much. Also has a heavy dose of homophobia at its core.
59. All the Presidents Men by Woodward and Bernstein -- how they uncovered the Watergate Coverup.
60. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway - epic struggle between an old fisherman and a huge fish.
61. The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith - about a sociopath who insinuates himself into his friend's life and slowly takes it over.
62. Wicked - The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory MacGuire - nice commentary on the tropes established by The Wizard of Oz.
63. Demolished Man by Alfred Bester - about a government program that rehabilitates criminals by erasing the thing in their personality that made them a criminal. It remove free will -- asking the question whether doing so is ethical. (Similar to a Clockwork Orange but not as violent.)
64. The Beet Queen by Louise Erdritch (native american novelist) -- On a spring morning in 1932, young Karl and Mary Adare arrive by boxcar in Argus, North Dakota. After being orphaned in a most peculiar way, Mary seeks refuge in the butcher shop of their aunt and her husband, while Karl gets back on the train. So begins an exhilarating forty-year saga brimming with colorful, unforgettable characters: ordinary Mary, who will cause a miracle; seductive Karl, who lacks his sister’s gift for survival; Sita, their lovely but disturbed cousin; and the half-Native American Celestine James, who will become Mary’s best friend. Theirs is a story grounded in the tenacity of relationships, the extraordinary magic of natural events, and the unending mystery of the human condition.
65. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan -It focuses on four Chinese American immigrant families in San Francisco who start a club known as The Joy Luck Club, playing the Chinese game of mahjong for money while feasting on a variety of foods.
66. The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilmore about a housewife driven slowly insane.
67. Yellow Raft in Blue Water by Michael Dorris - Michael Dorris has crafted a fierce saga of three generations of Indian women, beset by hardships and torn by angry secrets, yet inextricably joined by the bonds of kinship. Starting in the present day and moving backward, the novel is told in the voices of the three women: fifteen-year-old part-black Rayona; her American Indian mother, Christine, consumed by tenderness and resentment toward those she loves; and the fierce and mysterious Ida, mother and grandmother whose haunting secrets, betrayals, and dreams echo through the years, braiding together the strands of the shared past.
68. The Kite Runner by Kahled Hosseni (American Citizen) -- about a boy returning to Afghanistan, and living in Afghanistan and the US.
69. Sunshine by Robin McKinley -- a weird ass dark fantasy novel about vampires and a heroine who has the gift of sunshine.
70. Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Waterson - a syndicated comic strip that also ended up in various book collections. Dealt with philosophy and satirized life on earth in general, as seen through the eyes of a precocious child and his stuffed tiger. Sort of the American version of Winnie the Pooh, but far more twisted and satirical.
I did 70. I couldn't think of any more. I'm sure I've read more, but my mind blanked. If you wish to add to the list above, do so in the comments.
Rules?
1.) List 10-100 books that you would recommend people read (they can be favorites, genre, literary, comic books, web comics, anything -- as long as you have to read them).
2.) Books have to be written by authors who are citizens of the country that you reside in or are a citizen of currently -- your home country. (For instance don't list Americanha by Ngozi -- unless you happen to be Nigerian and living in Nigeria.) If American? They have to be American writers. If German, German writers. Etc. If Canadian? Canadian authors. Don't list anything by Margaret Atwood unless you are Canadian.
3.) Comment if you wish on each explaining why you would recommend them, but not necessary.
I was born in the United States, approximately fifth or sixth generation American. Below is my list of the Books Written by American Writers that I'd recommend. I chose these novels because I found them memorable.
1. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald - the story is about a self-made millionaire, who has redefined and re-created himself hoping to be able to fit into the world of the elite that he yearned for growing up. And in the process ends up losing himself completely. The world he wishes to enter is shallow like the dream he yearns for. It is an excellent critique of individualism and the American Dream. Haunts me to this day -- and I read it when I was 16.
2. Kindred by Octavia Butler -- a time travel novel about a young African-American woman who gets yanked back to the years of slavery, much against her will, due to her link to a White Ancestor and slaveholder. And she's not the only one who gets yanked back, her white husband does as well. Through these two characters, we view slavery from two modern perspectives, an African-American female who is yanked back as a slave, and a white man, who becomes an abolitionist. It may well be the best Time Travel novel, I've read. Written more as a horror novel than a romantic fantasy, which is often the case with Time Travel.
3. The Sparrow by Maria Doria Russell -- A science fiction novel by a cultural anthropologist -- the novel is told in flashback from the perspective of a Catholic Priest who has lost his faith and been traumatized and crippled by a horrific experience. When Earth receives a response to the messages they sent out into space via Voyager, they decide to send a group of mismatched travelers and volunteers to the alien planet. The group crash lands, and has to find a way to make it work on the new planet, but they stumble quite a bit, and with catastrophic consequences. This novel delves deep into cultural misunderstandings and the ethics of anthropological study, and religious cultural misappropriation. Still haunts me over 15 years after I read it.
4. Grass by Sherri S. Tepper -- another science-fiction novel that borrows heavily from biological and cultural anthropology and focuses on human/alien relations, and feels more like a horror novel than a sci-fi at times. A family travels to a new planet to escape a plague, only to discover the plague in question originated from that planet. The aliens in this one are creepy and how they deal with the humans is decidedly creepy. Tepper's novels delve into gender inequalities and communication problems.
5. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck -- the quintessential American novel, and a perfect companion novel to The Great Gatsby. It's about a bunch of migrant farmers who flee the Dust Bowl in the 1930s...and through it we see the pain of the American Dream gone awry.
6. Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain -- about a runaway boy and a runaway slave struggling to survive on The Mississippi in the 1800s.
7. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins -- the dystopian novel that started the YA dystopian trend, but the only one that really had much to say on the topic. Collins, who'd been a television writer, comments on reality television and war, and how violence affects children in a haunting story of a young woman who volunteers to fight to the death in a gladiator style broadly televised series of games in order to save her sister's life.
8. The Stand by Stephen King -- the horror novel to beat horror novels. It's also an in-depth depiction of American small town morals and community values. Very male in focus -- the male characters are admittedly better drawn than the women. But it gets across a lot of the toxic male culture that has embodied the US for so long. It blends the Western and Dystopian Genres with Horror. The story is about what happens after a plague decimates over 75% of the population. It ain't pretty.
9. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton - a good companion novel to The Great Gatsby but from a female perspective. It's mainly about repression, and yearning for what one can never have, and how society traps you in preconceived roles.
10. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson -- if King rules the roost for male horror writers, Jackson takes over the throne for women. She's subtle, where King is flowery, and her stories do not end well. This story is a psychological ghost story, where it remains unclear which ghosts are the worst...the ones that we imagine or the ones that are real.
11. The Maltese Falcon by Daniel Dashielle Hammett -- possibly among the best plotted and written detective novels written. Hammett created the hard-boiled detective novel, and this novel remains a classic of the form.
12. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green - notable in how Green connects to his cancer ridden teens through the device of a book fandom. The two leads meet at a cancer support group, but truly connect over their mutual love of a book, which they become obsessed fans of -- so obsessed that they make a trip to Sweden to meet the reclusive writer, and instead spend the day in Anne Frank's house.
13. Beloved by Toni Morrison -- a novel about slavery and it's long ragged scars via a ghost story.
Beloved is a ghost. The tale is told through the perspectives of a ghost, and those whom she haunts in stunningly beautiful stream of consciousness style.
14. Slaughter-House Five by Kurt Vonnegut - a comedic sci-fi novel about WWII and it's after-effects. The novel concentrates on the battle of Dresden, which Vonnegut survived and is haunted by, and it is about the absurdities and pains of war.
15. Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein -- a science fiction pulp writer, who wrote a very odd but fascinating book, about an alien who does not quite fit, and depicts our culture from the outside in.
16. Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy O'Tool -- it's an impossible story to explain. You'll either love it or hate it.
17. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner -- three brothers tell a story about their sister, Caddy. We're in their thoughts and point of view, and through them see their sister and see how they view women. It's a bit of a condemnation of the male mind, and much like King's The Stand, another good depiction of the toxic male persona that haunts American life.
18. The Color Purple by Alice Walker - like Beloved, this is a story about slavery, but also renewal and survival. The heroine in this tale survives slavery and domestic violence, to find love with a woman.
19. Walden Pond by Henry David Thoreaux -- more a series of essays about naturalism and living a simple life.
20. The Fall of the House of Usher and Murders in the Rogue Morgue by Edgar Allen Poe, who basically created the modern detective novel.
21. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee -- a coming of age tale in the deep south that focuses on a little girl who deals with issues of prejudice (racism and sexism) on multiple levels.
22. Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote -- sort of the American version of Gigi, it's about a male and female hustler who somehow strike up a friendship.
23. Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder -- Ingalls semi-autobiographical tale about a family struggling to survive on a farm in the mid-west during the 1800s.
24. Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger -- I didn't love this book, but I recommend for the same reasons I recommend Confederacy of Dunces -- it's a good look at how toxic our culture is.
25. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving
26. Their Eyes Are Watching God by Zora Neal Hurston
27. The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver -- It is the charming, engrossing tale of rural Kentucky native Taylor Greer, who only wants to get away from her roots and avoid getting pregnant. She succeeds, but inherits a 3-year-old native-American little girl named Turtle along the way.
28. Skinwalkers by Tony Hillerman (writes about two Native American Detectives in the American Southwest).
29. The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury - a series of short tales cobbled together that tells the story of how a society collapsed and why.
30. A Horseman Passed By -- aka Hud by Larry McMurtry -- a story about gender dynamics. It's a modern western that works well as a commentary on the Western Genre.
31. The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers -- another coming of age tale, about a young girl attending a sibling's wedding and her struggle with it and everything else.
32. The Grinch Who Stole Christmas by Doctor Seuss
33. The Three Stigmata of Palmer K. Eldritch - by Philip K. Dick -- an indictment of the American obsession with consumerism, and image. Scary if you read it today.
34. One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest by Ken Kesey - about the inner workings of an aslym for the criminally insane.
35. The Outsiders by SE Hinton - a book about a bunch of boys in the 1950s/1960s...about peer pressure and family.
36. Stuart Little by EB White - about a mouse who is adopted by a family and goes on a journey and falls in love with a bird.
37. The Bell Jar by Slyvia Plath -- a nice companion to One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, also about mental illness, and the publishing industry.
38. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving - a story about war and faith, and friendship.
39. Underworld by Don Deillo -- hard to describe, a modern take on existentialist angst. (I like him better than Philip Roth and Saul Bellow and John Updike. Less snooty.)
40. Get Shorty by Elmore Leonard -- the book is much better than the movie. He's the master of the short crime novel with quirky characters.
41. Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak - a children's book that has a sort of innate sense of fun.
42. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon, about comics and surviving in Brooklyn.
43. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn -- by Betty Smith -- a semi-autographical novel about a young girl growing up in Brooklyn, NY in the 1940s.
44. The Bonfire of the Vanities by Thomas Wolf -- about a couple who takes a wrong turn in NYC during the 1980s, a satirical take on the 1980s US.
45. The Secret History by Donna Tartt -- about a bunch of classics students who decide to do a Greek Ritual in the Woods, and end up committing murder instead. It discusses things like friendship and privilege.
46. Shards of Honor by Lois MacMasters Bujold - When Cordelia Naismith and her survey crew are attacked by a renegade group from Barrayar, she is taken prisoner by Aral Vorkosigan, commander of the Barrayan ship that has been taken over by an ambitious and ruthless crew member.
47. The Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Kroeber Le Guin - children's fantasy series and coming of age.
48. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle - a young girl must save her brilliant brother and father from an encompassing darkness.
49. Are You There God? It's Me Margret by Judy Bloom -- about a teenage girl who gets her period for the first time, struggles with faith, and growing up in the 1970s and 80s. A timeless tale and among the few about what it is like being a female teen in the US in the late 20th Century.
50. The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy -- a tale of the deep south, a young man struggles with a history of abuse and his childhood while beginning a relationship with a therapist.
51. Time and Again by Jack Finney -- it's a story about a man who finds a way to go back to 1800s NYC.
52. Work is Hell - a comic book by Matt Groenig
53. Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton -- about a team of scientists struggling to determine the cure to a deadly virus before it devours them. Crichton who'd been a medical doctor and pathologists digs deep into the science here. Best medical thriller.
54. Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice -- the novel that sort of gave birth to the vampire genre that we've seen today. She recreates it, and makes it a metaphor for disease, for societal ills. The Vampires in the story want to save the lives of loved ones but doom them to an eternity of pain. The story is told in flashback during an interview between a reporter and a vampire.
55. Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler -- middle class midwestern American suburban angst, told by a master.
56. A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley -- King Lear on a Kansas Farm.
57. Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem -- a noir tale with a detective who has Ausberger's Syndrom.
58. Advise and Consent by Allen Drury -- must read for anyone who wants to understand the politics behind the Senate confirmation process in the US. It really hasn't changed all that much. Also has a heavy dose of homophobia at its core.
59. All the Presidents Men by Woodward and Bernstein -- how they uncovered the Watergate Coverup.
60. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway - epic struggle between an old fisherman and a huge fish.
61. The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith - about a sociopath who insinuates himself into his friend's life and slowly takes it over.
62. Wicked - The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory MacGuire - nice commentary on the tropes established by The Wizard of Oz.
63. Demolished Man by Alfred Bester - about a government program that rehabilitates criminals by erasing the thing in their personality that made them a criminal. It remove free will -- asking the question whether doing so is ethical. (Similar to a Clockwork Orange but not as violent.)
64. The Beet Queen by Louise Erdritch (native american novelist) -- On a spring morning in 1932, young Karl and Mary Adare arrive by boxcar in Argus, North Dakota. After being orphaned in a most peculiar way, Mary seeks refuge in the butcher shop of their aunt and her husband, while Karl gets back on the train. So begins an exhilarating forty-year saga brimming with colorful, unforgettable characters: ordinary Mary, who will cause a miracle; seductive Karl, who lacks his sister’s gift for survival; Sita, their lovely but disturbed cousin; and the half-Native American Celestine James, who will become Mary’s best friend. Theirs is a story grounded in the tenacity of relationships, the extraordinary magic of natural events, and the unending mystery of the human condition.
65. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan -It focuses on four Chinese American immigrant families in San Francisco who start a club known as The Joy Luck Club, playing the Chinese game of mahjong for money while feasting on a variety of foods.
66. The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilmore about a housewife driven slowly insane.
67. Yellow Raft in Blue Water by Michael Dorris - Michael Dorris has crafted a fierce saga of three generations of Indian women, beset by hardships and torn by angry secrets, yet inextricably joined by the bonds of kinship. Starting in the present day and moving backward, the novel is told in the voices of the three women: fifteen-year-old part-black Rayona; her American Indian mother, Christine, consumed by tenderness and resentment toward those she loves; and the fierce and mysterious Ida, mother and grandmother whose haunting secrets, betrayals, and dreams echo through the years, braiding together the strands of the shared past.
68. The Kite Runner by Kahled Hosseni (American Citizen) -- about a boy returning to Afghanistan, and living in Afghanistan and the US.
69. Sunshine by Robin McKinley -- a weird ass dark fantasy novel about vampires and a heroine who has the gift of sunshine.
70. Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Waterson - a syndicated comic strip that also ended up in various book collections. Dealt with philosophy and satirized life on earth in general, as seen through the eyes of a precocious child and his stuffed tiger. Sort of the American version of Winnie the Pooh, but far more twisted and satirical.
I did 70. I couldn't think of any more. I'm sure I've read more, but my mind blanked. If you wish to add to the list above, do so in the comments.