A one-stop shop for American reading, in all categories, is The Library of
America at www.loa.org. Everything from pulp to history, from drama to
comedy, from art to artsy-fartsy.

Dear L,

Thanks for the suggestion. Other reading recs appear below, and I’ve asterisked the ones I got more than once.

Louisa May Alcott, Little Women
Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game
Willa Cather, My Antonia
Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay *
Dave Eggers, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius *
Louise Erdrich
William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying *
…The Sound and the Fury
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby *
Dick Francis
Pat Frank, Alas, Babylon
Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections
Glen David Gold, Carter Beats the Devil
John Grisham, The Firm
Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance
…The Scarlet Letter *
Robert Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land
Mark Helprin, Winter’s Tale
Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises *
S.E. Hinton, The Outsiders *
John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany *
Jack Kerouac, On the Road
Stephen King *
Barbara Kingsolver *
John Knowles, A Separate Peace *
Erik Larsen, The Devil in the White City
Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird *
Jack London, The Call of the Wild
Lois Lowry, The Giver
Toni Morrison *
Gloria Naylor, Linden Hills
George Orwell, 1984 *
Edgar Allan Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Tales *
Ayn Rand
J.K. Rowling, the Harry Potter books
J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye *
…Franny and Zooey
Michael Schaara, The Killer Angels
Shakespeare
Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn *
John Steinbeck, Cannery Row *
…East of Eden *
…The Grapes of Wrath *
…Of Mice and Men *
…Tortilla Flat
John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces
Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn *
…Tom Sawyer *
John Updike, Rabbit Angstrom: The Four Novels *
Lauren Weisberger, The Devil Wears Prada
Tobias Wolff, This Boy’s Life
Richard Wright, Native Son

Newbery Medal winners
AP English Literature recommended reading list
short-story anthologies like the Best American series *
Norton Anthology of American Literature
Oprah’s book list

I loved your article, “Sincerely Your’s,” but you did not mention
the proper usage of the two words “good” and “well.” Would you clear that up
for me, please?

Dear KB,

“Good” is an adjective; “well” is an adverb. You can find more information here, or by Googling the phrase “good vs. well.”

Dear Sars,

Dear Con,

It’s generally a pronoun. Not terribly satisfying rhetorically, now that I”m looking at the proposed sentence, but: there you go.

Share!