In landlessness alone resides highest truth, shoreless, indefinite as God, says wandering sailor Ishmael, as he sets sail with vengeful Quaker Captain Ahab on the hunt for the monstrous white whale that maimed him. Fathoms deep in allusion and nautical nomenclature. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain 1. The Princess And The Magic Mirror Free Download. Set in the geographic centre of the antebellum US, the sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is the colourful tale of an abused and motherless boys coming of age along the Mississippi River which wittily challenged Americas perception of itself as the sivilized land of the free. The House of Mirth Edith Wharton 1. Caught between her entitled taste for luxury and her yearning for true love, Lily Bart, the beautiful and intelligent heroine of this acutely observed novel slowly slithers down the rungs of superficial New York society to a tragic end. The Call of the Wild Jack London 1. When men groping in the Arctic darkness strike gold, a proud St Bernard Scotch Collie called Buck is sold into sledgehauling slavery. Its survival of the fittest in what E L Doctorow described as this most fervently American club and fang adventure. The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck 1. Ive done my damndest to rip a readers nerves to rags, Steinbeck said of his novel about a poor family of Okies driven from their land in the Great Depression. It was the main reason he was awarded the 1. Nobel Prize for Literature. Independence Day Richard Ford 1. The second book in Fords trilogy about Frank Bascombe sportswriter turned realtor. Coiner of such quirky phrases as happy as goats and solitary as Siberia Bascombes been described as Americas most convincing everyman. Ford says hes asleep at the switch. The Colossus of Maroussi Henry Miller 1. This impressionistic travelogue, whose rolling, incantatory style predicted the Beat Generation, was inspired by the time Miller spent in Greece with Lawrence Durrell before the Second. World. War. He felt like a cockroach but came home to the world at Mycenae. The Catcher in the Rye J D Salinger 1. Salingers sort of autobiographical account of the misfit Holden Caulfields flight from his phony prep school is a controversial classic of adolescent angst that has inspired readers as diverse as President George HW Bush and John Lennons assassin Mark Chapman. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Hunter S Thompson 1. Described by Tom Wolfe as a scorching epochal sensation, this reckless, drugfuelled gross, physical salute to the fantastic possibilities of life in this country is a funny, furious and disorienting attack on the American Dream by the original gonzo journalist. Beloved Toni Morrison 1. With an epigraph of 6. Million and more dedicated to victims of the Atlantic slave trade, this psychologically complex, Pulitzer Prize winning novel is about a former slave who kills her infant daughter rather than allow her to be recaptured. All the Pretty Horses Cormac Mc. Carthy 1. 99. 2 The reclusive author best known for bringing a biblical sense of evil into his portrayal of the unforgiving American landscape achieved mainstream success with this tale of a talented 1. Texan ranch in 1. First in the Border Trilogy. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter Carson Mc. Cullers 1. 94. 0 The debut of a 2. Depression era South tells of a teenage girl, an African American doctor, an alcoholic socialist, and a taciturn diner owner who all think the local deaf mute gets them. He doesnt. Fugitive Pieces Anne Michaels 1. In this haunting narrative of a Jewish boy who hides while the Nazis take his family, the Canadian poet wrote that death first becomes believable when You recognise the one whose loss, even contemplated, youll carry forever, like a sleeping child. We Need to Talk About Kevin Lionel Shriver 2. Even to his mother, Kevin Katchadourian has been a creature of opaque predilections since birth. But she spends this novel trying to work out why her son committed a school massacre. Was her snobbery about her fellow Americans a cause THE OTHER CONTENDERSUncle Toms Cabin Harriet Beecher Stowe 1. The Great Gatsby F Scott Fitzgerald 1. For Whom the Bell Tolls Ernest Hemingway 1. Rabbit, Run John Updike 1. The Color Purple Alice Walker 1. The Human Stain Philip Roth 2. White Noise Don De. Lillo 1. 98. 5 The Bonfire of the Vanities Tom Wolfe 1. The Shipping News Annie Proulx 1. Infinite Jest David Foster Wallace 1. Buy Infinite Jest from the Telegraph Bookshop. GALLERY Are these the 1.