Shawn

Back in 1868, a writer named John William DeForest floated this big, ambitious idea: that America needed a novel that could somehow capture the nation’s soul, something he called the “Great American Novel,” even though he admitted it didn’t exist yet. Fast-forward to today and that idea is still alive, just messier and more interesting, because our sense of what counts as great literature is broader, stranger, and more inclusive, even as books themselves face real threats from censorship and anti-intellectualism. To figure out what the modern American canon actually looks like, The Atlantic focused on novels published in the U.S. over the last hundred years, gathered recommendations from scholars, critics, and writers, and argued their way toward a list of 136 books that felt truly distinctive, meaningful, and enduring—mixing classics with overlooked and recent works. The goal wasn’t just to name the “best,” but to recreate that feeling of being handed a book by someone you trust and being told, “You have to read this,” because at their best, these novels challenge us, pull us in, and send us back into the world a little sharper and more alive than before.

Next books in line to read from my TBR.