Whether it’s via their tone, topic, or tenor, certain works just say “America.” Here are three such titles, suggested by David Bruce Smith, founder of the Grateful American™ Foundation, in partnership with the Washington Independent Review of Books.

• Ordinary People by Judith Guest. In this emotionally raw novel, members of an everyday family ripped apart by tragedy try to find their way back to one another.
• The Drum of Destiny by Christopher Stevenson. It’s 1775, and orphaned Gabriel is living in New York with British loyalists. Will a discarded drum spur him to join the Colonists’ fight for freedom? (For middle-grade readers.)
• The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Generational secrets, a malevolent curse, and a legacy of ill-gotten gains form the core of this classic gothic tale set in 19th-century New England.

Whether it’s via their tone, topic, or tenor, certain works just say “America.” Here are three such titles, suggested by David Bruce Smith, founder of the Grateful American™ Foundation, in partnership with the Washington Independent Review of Books.

• I Never Promised You a Rose Garden by Joanne Greenberg. A 16-year-old girl enters a mental hospital to conquer her schizophrenia in a 1964 novel called “convincing and emotionally gripping” by the New York Times.
• The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton. Gilded-Age Manhattan serves as both a rarefied playground and an emotional prison for its moneyed, hollow inhabitants, chief among them Lily Bart.
• Like a River: A Civil War Novel by Kathy Cannon Wiechman. Two teens — one an underage boy, the other a girl in disguise — fight for the Union and their own futures in this visceral tale written for middle-grade readers.

Whether it’s via their tone, topic, or tenor, certain works just say “America.” Here are three such titles, suggested by David Bruce Smith, founder of the Grateful American™ Foundation, in partnership with the Washington Independent Review of Books.

• • Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterley. Shining a light on the brilliant but unsung “human computers” who worked to put a man on the moon.

• • Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser. A young girl sets out for Chicago in search of the American Dream, only to discover there’s more to life than “having it all.”

• • The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. After being expelled from prep school, 16-year-old Holden Caulfield journeys to New York City, where he ponders childhood, growing up, and the prevalence of phonies.

Whether it’s via their tone, topic, or tenor, certain works just say “America.” Here are three such titles, suggested by David Bruce Smith, founder of the Grateful American™ Foundation:

• O Pioneers! by Willa Cather. An immigrant family struggles on (and with) the Nebraska prairie in this first installment of the author’s “Great Plains” trilogy.
• Moby-Dick by Herman Melville. This classic tale of an obsessed Captain Ahab seeking vengeance on an elusive white whale is as American as, well, obsession and revenge.
• Animal Farm by George Orwell. A political allegory about tyranny, revolt, and the seductive — and often devastating — allure of power.

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