Existing comment:
Thousands of readers responded with their choices. The Top 40 vote-getters for "other books that shaped America" are on display, along with the public's top choices from our original eighty-eight selections. This new list does not necessarily represent the best in American letters, nor does it speak to the diversity of our nation and the books it produces, but it shows what people still read.
Number one on the Top 40 list of America Reads is Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead, a book that has as many fans as it does detractors. Roots, Alex Haley's novel that sparked legions to delve into their own genealogy, was the sixth choice. John Steinbeck, Arthur Miller, Ernest Hemingway, Milton Friedman, and Rand occupy ten of the forty titles, with each author having two books on the list.
In other words, the list is anything but definitive or all-encompassing. But as with the original exhibition, America Reads is meant to jump-start new conversations about the most influential books written and read in America and their impact on our lives. |