I feel unAmerican to admit that I wasn’t a HUGE fan of classic American literature. It’s almost painful for me to read Steinbeck, and Hemingway with some of his titles underwhelmed, and don’t get me started on Nathaniel Hawthorne. Unfortunately, during my high school experience, those were the titles that my teachers loved to force feed during American Lit classes. Sophomore year almost killed me by reading nothing but Steinbeck and Hawthorne, almost to the point of that I wanted to put all classic American lit in a box and hide it away, never to venture that way again. That is until my grandmother handed me Red Badge of Courage and the complete works of Walt Whitman. And I learned not to stereotype… here are my favorite classic American works, and the ones I think you should read.