De beste Amerikaanse romans sinds 1900
Een goed startpunt om Amerikaanse romans te gaan lezen (de keuze is immers overweldigend!) is lijstjes van 'The best of' te raadplegen. Een van de grootste Engelstalige uitgevers, Random House, publiceerde in de New York Times van 20 juli 1998 een lijst met de beste 100 Engelstalige romans sinds 1900. Daarin waren volgende Amerikaanse romans opgenomen:
- The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov (Russisch/Amerikaans auteur)
- The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner
- Catch-22, Joseph Heller
- The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
- An American Tragedy, Theodore Dreiser
- The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers
- Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut
- Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
- Native Son, Richard Wright
- Henderson the Rain King, Saul Bellow (Canadees)
- Appointment in Samarra, John O'Hara
- U.S.A.-trilogie, John Dos Passos
- Winesburg, Ohio, Sherwood Anderson
- The Wings of the Dove, Henry James
- The Ambassadors, Henry James
- Tender Is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Studs Lonigan (trilogie), James T. Farrell
- The Golden Bowl, Henry James
- Sister Carrie, Theodore Dreiser
- As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner
- All the King's Men, Robert Penn Warren
- The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Thornton Wilder
- Go Tell It on the Mountain, James Baldwin
- Deliverance, James Dickey
- The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
- The Naked and the Dead, Norman Mailer
- Portnoy's Complaint, Philip Roth
- Pale Fire, Vladimir Nabokov
- Light in August, William Faulkner
- On the Road, Jack Kerouac
- The Maltese Falcon, Dashiell Hammett
- The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton
- The Moviegoer, Walker Percy
- Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather
- From Here to Eternity, James Jones
- The Wapshot Chronicle, John Cheever
- The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
- Main Street, Sinclair Lewis
- The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton
- The Day of the Locust, Nathanael West
- A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway
- The Adventures of Augie March, Saul Bellow
- Angle of repose, Wallace Stegner
- Ragtime, E.L. Doctorow
- The Call of the Wild, Jack London
- Tobacco Road, Erskine Caldwell
- Ironweed, William Kennedy
- Sophie's Choice, William Styron
- The Sheltering Sky, Paul Bowles
- The Postman Always Rings Twice, James M. Cain
- The Ginger Man, J.P. Donleavy (Iers/Amerikaans)
- The Magnificent Ambersons, Booth Tarkington