The Grandissimes by George Washington CableCastle Nowhere by Constance Fenimore WoolsonA Fool’s Errand by Albion W. TourgéeThe Hoosier Schoolmaster by Edward Eggleston
Best Books of the Decade: 1870s
258 books — 346 voters
Main-Travelled Roads by Hamlin GarlandA Hazard of New Fortunes by William Dean HowellsThe Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne JewettThe Awakening by Kate ChopinMcTeague by Frank Norris
Best Books of the Decade: 1890s
466 books — 499 voters

A Hazard of New Fortunes by William Dean HowellsThe Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains by Mary Noailles MurfreeA Modern Instance by William Dean HowellsThe Rise of Silas Lapham by William Dean Howells
Best Books of the Decade: 1880s
378 books — 411 voters
Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas PynchonCat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Postmodern Genius
519 books — 583 voters

Gilead by Marilynne RobinsonMain Street by Sinclair LewisWinesburg, Ohio by Sherwood AndersonSister Carrie by Theodore DreiserO Pioneers! by Willa Cather
Best books about the Mid West
150 books — 89 voters
Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood AndersonMain Street by Sinclair LewisSister Carrie by Theodore DreiserO Pioneers! by Willa CatherThe Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
Novels of the American Midwest
340 books — 157 voters