Twenty-five Books That Shaped America

Thomas C. Foster’s Twenty-Five Books That Shaped America is a highly entertaining and informative new book on the twenty-five works of literature that have most shaped American identity.Starting with Ben Franklin’s autobiography, he moves on to James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans, Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, and Willa Cather’s My Antonia. Chief among later selections are The Maltese Falcon, U.S.A., The Grapes of Wrath, and Song of Solomon.

Foster illuminates how these works captured an American moment, how they influenced our perception of nationhood and citizenship, and what about them endures in the American character. Foster quite literally fosters your students’ sense of discovery throughout the book, peeling back layers from familiar favorites, and arguing for books that aren’t so obvious. He concludes with a list of twenty-five more contenders and outlines what exactly is the “Great American Novel.”

“Many readers will wish they had a high-school English teacher as cheery and engaged as Foster.”-Kirkus Reviews