3.83 avg rating — 1,344,955 ratings

"big river, big conflict, big story"

3.99 avg rating — 392,573 ratings

"epic. woman as human being. what a concept!"

3.93 avg rating — 6,005,853 ratings

"this was MY great american novel as a kid. The books on my list are in no particular order (my choice changes as I read new books)"

4.26 avg rating — 6,979,224 ratings

"the best and the worst of us in one book"

really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 1,057,221 ratings

"who we WILL be. Oh and THE STYLE. duh"

3.99 avg rating — 893,738 ratings

"the essential portrait of the incongruous nature of being a democracy and a capitalist nation all at once. also, war is bad"

3.61 avg rating — 453,001 ratings

"it is our impulse, our spark that Kerouac captured"

3.90 avg rating — 2,880,317 ratings

"it's Steinbeck. He loves us"

3.86 avg rating — 128,957 ratings

"20th c american sin"

3.72 avg rating — 189,726 ratings

"because he used genius to capture genius. intoxicating, difficult, funny"

4.09 avg rating — 67,114 ratings

"cause it is perfect"

3.98 avg rating — 499,465 ratings

"masterpiece, the core of our permanent weakness"

4.04 avg rating — 105,642 ratings

"again, the essential contradiction in being American= sinner and sinned against (see Beloved)"

3.82 avg rating — 38,440 ratings

"nobody says it better. Ouch, I think her words just cut me."

3.85 avg rating — 149,319 ratings

"for the joy of the land, the immigrant, the settler"

4.26 avg rating — 24,118 ratings

"epic. because it is romantic at heart. and yes I like it better than One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"

3.61 avg rating — 12,582 ratings

"best baseball book ever written. why we invented it, why we play it, and therefore who we are"