--- description: Here are 12 great American books recommended by some of today's bestselling authors. title: 12 Great Authors Pick Their Essential American Book image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [Ideas](/section/ideas/) ## Ideas Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [Books](/tag/books/) ## Books Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # 12 Great Authors Pick Their Essential American Book by [TIME Staff](/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Jun 30, 2016 10:30 AM CUT by [TIME Staff](/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Jun 30, 2016 10:30 AM CUT As vacationers pack their bags with summer reading, we asked 12 writers to answer the question: “What book by an American author should everyone read?” The list they gave us spans classics and brand-new releases, poetry and fiction, canon writers and up-and-comers. [See more of TIME’s **Reasons to Celebrate America Right Now** here](http://time.com/topic/reasons-to-celebrate-america/ "undefined") ### Sherman Alexie  Love Medicine By Louise Erdrich Harpers Collins Publishing [_Love Medicine_](https://www.amazon.com/Love-Medicine-Newly-Revised-P-S/dp/0061787426/ref=sr%5F1%5F1?ie=UTF8&qid=1467209091/?tag=timecom-20 "undefined")By Louise Erdrich Because she writes so powerfully about indigenous and immigrant lives in the United States, and because she will eventually win the Nobel Prize in Literature. _Alexie’s most recent_ _book is_ [Thunder Boy Jr](https://www.amazon.com/Thunder-Boy-Jr-Sherman-Alexie/dp/0316013722/ref=sr%5F1%5F1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1467209160/?tag=timecom-20 "undefined")_._ ### Julian Barnes  Birds of America By Lorrie Moore Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group [_Birds of America_](https://www.amazon.com/Birds-America-Stories-Vintage-Contemporaries/dp/0307474968/?tag=timecom-20 "undefined")By Lorrie Moore The best book (so far) by your greatest living short-story writer. _Barnes’ most recent novel is_ [The Noise of Time](https://www.amazon.com/Noise-Time-novel-Julian-Barnes/dp/1101947241/?tag=timecom-20 "undefined")_._ ### Teju Cole  Geography III By Elizabeth Bishop Macmillan Publishers [_Geography III_](https://www.amazon.com/Geography-III-Poems-FSG-Classics/dp/0374530653/?tag=timecom-20 "undefined")By Elizabeth Bishop This slim, difficult book of poems, Bishop’s last, seems to me a compressed masterpiece of irony, patience and wisdom, all virtues that can either console or help us today. _Cole’s forthcoming book is_ [Known and Strange Things](https://www.amazon.com/Known-Strange-Things-Teju-Cole/dp/0812989783/?tag=timecom-20 "undefined")_._ ### Anne Korkeakivi  A Lesson Before Dying By Ernest J. Gaines Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group [_A Lesson Before Dying_](https://www.amazon.com/Lesson-Before-Dying-Oprahs-Book/dp/0375702709/?tag=timecom-20 "undefined")By Ernest J. Gaines This story of a young black man awaiting execution for a crime he didn’t commit bears a fundamental message: no one can take away the freedom to conduct oneself with love and dignity. _Korkeakivi’s forthcoming_ _novel is_ [Shining Sea](https://www.amazon.com/Shining-Sea-Anne-Korkeakivi/dp/031630784X/?tag=timecom-20 "undefined"). ### Amitava Kumar  Open City By Teju Cole Penguin Random House [_Open City_](https://www.amazon.com/Open-City-Novel-Teju-Cole/dp/0812980093/?tag=timecom-20 "undefined")By Teju Cole For its sense of the tragic, not least when he describes, at the novel’s end, the fate of the migrating birds as they fly past the Statue of Liberty at night. _Kumar’s most recent book is_ [Lunch With a Bigot](https://www.amazon.com/Lunch-Bigot-Writer-Amitava-Kumar/dp/0822359308/?tag=timecom-20 "undefined"). ### Karan Mahajan  Humboldt’s Gift By Saul Bellow Viking Press [_Humboldt’s Gift_](https://www.amazon.com/Humboldts-Gift-Penguin-Classics-Bellow/dp/0143105477/?tag=timecom-20 "undefined")By Saul Bellow Bellow’s comic megaphone of a novel amplifies the life and early death of a half-mad poet into a meditation on the “big operation” of American life. _Mahajan’s most recent_ _novel is_ [The Association of Small Bombs](https://www.amazon.com/Association-Small-Bombs-Novel/dp/0525429638/?tag=timecom-20 "undefined"). ### Jay McInerney  Penguin Random House [_The Day of the Locust_](https://www.amazon.com/Day-Locust-Nathanael-West/dp/8087830261/?tag=timecom-20 "undefined")By Nathanael West Every American should read this fierce, apocalyptic novel about Hollywood and the American Dream that seems newly relevant in this era of an angry and volatile electorate. _McInerney’s forthcoming novel is_ [Bright, Precious Days](https://www.amazon.com/Bright-Precious-Days-Jay-McInerney/dp/1101948000/?tag=timecom-20 "undefined"). ### Jon Meacham  Harcourt/Harvest [_All the King’s Men_](http://www.amazon.com/All-Kings-Robert-Penn-Warren/dp/0156012952/?tag=timecom-20 "undefined")By Robert Penn Warren This is the ultimate novel of power and its discontents in American life and politics—a sprawling, knowing journey into the human heart. _Meacham’s most recent_ _book is_ [Destiny and Power](https://www.amazon.com/Destiny-Power-American-Odyssey-Herbert/dp/1400067650/?tag=timecom-20 "undefined"). ### Ann Patchett  Mulholland Books [_Underground Airlines_](https://www.amazon.com/Underground-Airlines-Ben-Winters/dp/0316261246/?tag=timecom-20 "undefined")By Ben Winters As a bookseller, I like to promote books that are brand-new. This one kept me up at night and changed the way I saw the world once I was finished. _Patchett’s forthcoming_ _novel is_ [Commonwealth](https://www.amazon.com/Commonwealth-Ann-Patchett/dp/0062491792/?tag=timecom-20 "undefined"). ### Curtis Sittenfeld  St. Martin's Press [_Make Your Home_ ](https://www.amazon.com/Make-Your-Home-Among-Strangers/dp/1250094550/?tag=timecom-20 "undefined")[_Among Strangers_](https://www.amazon.com/Make-Your-Home-Among-Strangers/dp/1250094550 "undefined")By Jennine Capó Crucet A recent debut novel, it is funny and painful and wise, and vividly shows how the immigrant experience and the American experience are one and the same. _Sittenfeld’s most recent_ _novel is_ [Eligible](https://www.amazon.com/Eligible-modern-retelling-Pride-Prejudice/dp/1400068320/?tag=timecom-20 "undefined")_._ ### Jesmyn Ward  Grand Central Publishing [_Parable of the Sower_](https://www.amazon.com/Parable-Sower-Octavia-E-Butler/dp/0446675504/?tag=timecom-20 "undefined")By Octavia E. Butler Right now we seem dangerously close to Butler’s ruined, near future society, to residing in an America fractured along class, racial, ethnic and ideological lines. _Ward is the editor of_ _the forthcoming book_ [The Fire This Time.](https://www.amazon.com/Fire-This-Time-Generation-Speaks/dp/1501126342/?tag=timecom-20 "undefined") ### Joby Warrick  Viking [_The Grapes of Wrath_](https://www.amazon.com/Grapes-Wrath-John-Steinbeck/dp/0143039431/?tag=timecom-20 "undefined")By John Steinbeck Set against an environmental disaster and weaving together soulless banks, corporate con men and immigrant bashers, Steinbeck’s searing portrait of an American family in ruin feels remarkably relevant just now. _Warrick’s most recent book is_ [Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS](https://www.amazon.com/Black-Flags-Rise-Joby-Warrick/dp/0385538219/?tag=timecom-20 "undefined"). ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4386471/great-american-books/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4386471/great-american-books/"},"headline":"12 Great Authors Pick Their Essential American Book","datePublished":"2016-06-30T10:30:16.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:59:49.899Z","description":"Authors from Ann Patchett to Curtis Sittenfeld share classic favorites","url":"https://time.com/4386471/great-american-books/","keywords":["Books"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/books/","name":"Books"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4386471/great-american-books/","name":"12 Great Authors Pick Their Essential American Book"}}]}] ```