Tag Index

american

Entries: Page 1 of 4

  1. — Edith Wharton

    Ethan Frome

    The story of a disillusioned farmer trapped in a loveless marriage whose desperate attempt to escape with his wife's young cousin ends badly.

  2. — Peter Orner

    Am I Alone Here?

    A personal collection of essays that blurs the line between literary criticism and personal memoir.

  3. — Edith Wharton

    The House of Mirth

    Set in the ruthless high society of Gilded Age New York, The House of Mirth traces the tragic downward spiral of Lily Bart, a beautiful but impoverished woman whose moral conscience repeatedly prevents her from securing a wealthy marriage for survival.

  4. — Ben Lerner

    Transcription

    A former student travels to interview his 90ish professor for a magazine article. His recording device (an iPhone) breaks just before…

  5. — Ruth Ozeki

    Feelings

    A short story about how to achieve empathy through compassion and imagination using the complexities of young children and adults as a prism.

  6. — George Saunders

    Vigil

    a woman who died tragically in her early twenties during the 1970s and now serves as an ethereal death doula.

  7. — John Williams

    Stoner

    William Stoner, a dedicated Missouri farm boy turned English professor whose modest career, unfulfilling marriage, and late-in-life love affair reveal the profound beauty, dignity, and quiet tragedy of an ordinary existence.

  8. — Gabrielle Zevin

    Tomorrow x3

    tomorrow-and-tomorrow-and-tomorrow.webp A friend’s daughter was assigned this book in class (high school) and she recommended it highly, so I figured, ok, I know she’s a bright young woman with a dad with good taste in friends, so I read the first free chapters and was hooked. First, it’s about the gaming industry, second it’s about young entrepreneurs, third it’s about friendship, fourth it has allegorical underpinnings from a certain Greek epic, fifth, it touches on many contemporary hot-button political issues...

  9. — Thomas Pynchon

    Shadow Ticket

    Pynchon’s Shadow Ticket arrives like a cipher slipped under the door of contemporary America.

  10. — John Cheever

    The Swimmer

    Ned Merrill is at a party and suddenly envisions himself as a great man about to embark on a swim across the county by way of backyard pools in a tony suburban NY community.

  11. — Elmore Leonard

    Cuba Libre

    Cuba Libre Leonard made extensive use of research and a researcher named Gregg Sutter for many of his novels, and Cubra Libre seems to be one of the more exhaustively researched and well-penned (he never used a computer or word processor, and rarely a typewriter) books in his oeuvre. Leonard, who began as a writer of westerns, then turned to city crime books, is back in semi-familiar territory in this book with a cowboy protagonist (Tyler) running horses to Cuba....

  12. — Elmore Leonard

    The Hunted

    An unfortunate bit of timing has our hero captured in a front page story

  13. — Renata Adler

    Speedboat

    There is a vibrant quality running through the narrator's life that I would equate to a good noir detective novel that keeps the page-turning pace up, with the occasional weirdo wandering into the story (more than a few times)

  14. — Stephen Wright

    M31

    UFO nutjobs find themselves in an extremely well-written novel.

  15. — David Grann

    The Wager

    A tale of an unusual 18th century mutiny.

  16. — Hernan Diaz

    Trust

    A tale that revolves around a wealthy financier, Benjamin Rask, and his enigmatic wife, Helen.

  17. — Charles Portis

    The Dog of the South

    Ray Midge, a bean counter in Arkansas, is our leading man and narrator. One day, his wife leaves him for Guy Dupree, but what's worse is that she takes his car.

  18. — Andy Weir

    Hail Mary

    Hard sci-fi from the author of The Martian.

  19. — George Saunders

    Pastoralia

    My favorite collection of Saunders' short stories until Tenth of December

  20. — Cormac McCarthy

    Stella Maris

    Plenty of philosophical themes in this patient - psychologist dialogue

  21. — Cormac McCarthy

    The Passenger

    Really well done multiple personality disorder character. Also a side mystery

  22. — Nella Larsen

    Passing

    Two light-skinned Black women from the same neighborhood follow very different trajectories in life and one day reconnect.

  23. — Colson Whitehead

    The Nickel Boys

    A chilling novel based on a true story, which begins with hope and ends in tragedy.

  24. — William Faulkner

    The Bear

    The Bear follows a young boy named Isaac McCaslin, who goes on numerous hunting trips into the wilderness with his uncle and other men.

  25. — Ursula K. Le Guin

    The Dispossessed

    The Dispossessed is about a planet and its moon and the clashing cultures…

  26. — Elizabeth Strout

    Lucy By the Sea

    The novel begins with William Barton visiting his ex-wife in NYC as the COVID-19

  27. — George Saunders

    Liberation Day

    A collection of prismatic, resonant stories that encompass joy and despair,