The Books Briefing: Choosing America’s Greatest Novels

The idea of a settled canon, one that towers Mount Rushmore–like above us, is boring. I’ll admit that some books and authors, after enough centuries have passed and their influence seems without question, should have their names etched in stone (although even The Iliad and Shakespeare can occasionally stir up a fight). But our sense of which novels matter most is otherwise always fluid—what was once tasteful is now tedious; a colorful character now just seems offensive. The process of thinking through what speaks to us today, and what will likely speak to readers a century from today, is much more exciting than staring up at those established greats: You’re making a wager. My colleagues and I felt this way over the past few months as we undertook the challenging, thrilling task of assembling a list of the great American novels—136 works of fiction that we consider to be the most significant of the past 100 years.

First, here are four new stories from The Atlantic’s Books section:

We wanted to capture a canon in flux, so we chose to focus on only the past century, a period that begins when modernism opened up new possibilities for the novel, and one that would also give us a chance to make some surprising contemporary choices. American literature, besides being our literature, also provided a particularly good source for this sort of exercise, because America, by nature, is also always in flux—our culture is constantly renegotiating what it means to be American, and as each new generation has turned to novels to express itself, it has remade the form in turn.

Surely, this list will provoke arguments and hand-wringing. Bring it on! We’re looking to open a door, not close one. Our objective was to provoke a conversation and give readers a chance to look back at a century of phenomenal novels (and maybe discover some new ones). Don’t miss the contributions from the novelists, critics, and academics who helped us, such as Rumaan Alam on Paul Beatty’s The Sellout, Merve Emre on Saul Bellow’s The Adventures of Augie March, Ed Park on Charles Portis’s The Dog of the South, George Packer on Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God … I could go on and on. Enjoy, debate, and, most important, read!

The Great American Novels

By The Atlantic Culture Desk

136 books that made America think

Read the full article.

What to Read

Born Standing Up, by Steve Martin

In this memoir, the writer and actor Steve Martin traces the rapid rise and decisive end of his career as a stand-up comic. His famously oddball act—which drew on props such as balloon hats and bananas—bore fruit faster, and on a bigger scale, than he could have imagined. It culminated in grueling arena tours that were so far from the sense of play and surprise that had brought him to the form in the first place that he decided to quit. Martin’s decision is bittersweet—he finds tremendous relief in escaping the exhaustion of the road and the isolation of fame, though he writes of the “war years” with a grudging affection. Because we see how much he wants comedic eminence and how deeply it shaped his childhood aspirations, we also understand the size of his sacrifice. But he was able to parlay his fame into a film career, which has been even more successful than his career in stand-up was. By quitting at what seemed like his peak, Martin prompts his readers to consider whether material reward alone is reason to continue chasing a goal. What harmful patterns might it be keeping you bound to—and could there be freedom, or even greater heights, in letting it go?  — Tajja Isen

From our list: What to read when you’re feeling ambitious

Out Next Week

📚 The Black Box: Writing the Race, by Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Your Weekend Read

Why Does Romance Now Feel Like Work?

By Hannah Giorgis

Complaints about the current state of dating tend to revolve around the impersonal, gamelike behavior that apps such as Tinder, Hinge, and Bumble encourage. In theory, sifting through hundreds of profiles within minutes is supposed to be a convenient means of finding the perfect partner you may never have bumped into offline—or a lively, empowering way to occasionally dip into the dating pool without making any serious commitment. But in reality, the process of searching for your best-possible, most optimized match is often fundamentally at odds with the curiosity and consideration that meaningful romantic connections require.

Read the full article.