Library of Congress Lists Books That Shaped America

They are the books that shaped America, everything from “The Cat in the Hat” to “Alcoholics Anonymous” — with stops along the way for “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,” “Catcher in the Rye,” and “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

 

The Library of Congress named 88 books that, it says, made the United States what it is today, and they span a period of two-and-a-half centuries from Ben Franklin’s 1751 “Experiments and Observations on Electricity,” through to “The Words of Cesar Chavez,” printed in 2002.

 

Some are obvious — “The Grapes of Wrath,” “Huckleberry Finn,” and “Gone with the Wind,” for instance. Some are less so, such as 1788’s “A Curious Hieroglyphick Bible,” and “Idaho: A Guide in Words and Pictures.”

 

Franklin is the only author with three books represented on the list as “Poor Richard Improved,” and his posthumously published autobiography, “The Private Life of the Late Benjamin Franklin, LL.D,” also make it. Harriet Beecher Stowe has two, "The American Woman's Home" and "Uncle Tom's Cabin." No-one else has more than one.

 

There are two cookbooks, Amelia Simmons’ “American Cookery,” and Irma Rombauer’s “Joy of Cooking," as well as the ground-breaking Kinsey Report, “Sexual Behavior in the Human Male,” and Dr. Benjamin Spock’s “Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care.”

 

For conservatives, there’s Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” — for liberals, “The Autobiography of Malcolm X.”

 

Children’s books are well represented. “Where the Wild Things Are,” “Charlotte’s Web,” and “Goodnight Moon,” all make the grade.

 

But the organizers of the list insist it is not exhaustive. “We hope people will view the list and then nominate other titles,” said Librarian of Congress James Billington.

 

“We hope people will choose to read and discuss some of the books on this list, reflecting our nation’s unique and extraordinary literary heritage, which the Library of Congress makes available to the world," he said.

 

The full list, in alphabetical order, is: