Premiering tonight on PBS is a new show that promises to “[celebrate] the power, passion and joy of reading through the lens of America’s 100 best-loved books as chosen by the public.”

The Great American Read piqued my interest not only as an avid fiction reader (the series focuses specifically on novels), but as an increasingly curious student of the American experience.

It is hard to tell the tone that this series will take — though, knowing PBS, I am assuming it will feel a bit like a pep rally for the TRL Top 40 equivalent of fiction. Promotional material for the show encourages viewers to read along, checking off the books they have already read, and asks, “Is your favorite on the list?” There is also apparently a voting component to the series: The winner of “America’s Most Beloved Book” will be revealedon Oct. 23.

Any content geared towards bookworms that spouts buzzwords like “the power of reading” generally already has me rolling my eyes. It’s the reason I was barely able to get through novels like The Book Thief, Reading Lolita in Tehran, and even the die-hard readers’ favorite Farenheit 451. I’ve just always been unable to shake the preaching-to-the-choir feeling. (Not far off from this is my frustrating with novels featuring a bookworm or writer hero/ine.)

But beyond the English-major porn of that central thesis, what intrigues me more about this show is its claim to represent the “best-loved books” of the nation. The full list of the Top 100 books that it seems the show will go through in an I Love the ’90s-style series of interviews with celebs and notables includes all the heavy-hitters: 1984, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, To Kill a Mockingbird. But it also includes more recent pop lit such as Gone Girl, Outlander, and The Martian. Wait. I just caught one more… Yes. Fifty Shades of Grey made the cut. Right underneath Frank Herbert’s Dune. Interesting.

These might be the “best-loved books” of our 50 states, but are they truly “The Great American Read”?

I took a closer look at the books on the list and learned:

• Many of the novels are not written by American (that is, citizen or resident of the United States) authors.
• The vast majority are written by men. White men.
• As it frequently follows, very few are women-, POC-, or queer-led stories.
• A solid handful, while I would never write off completely, I just cannot take seriously as contenders for The Great American Read. (Apologies, Fifty Shades, Twilight, The Notebook, The Hunger Games, and — dare I say it — Game of Thrones.)

Now, no one novel can ever be THE Great American Read. No one novel can possibly encompass the vast diversity of the American experience, can represent the ever-changing condition of the American individual, can speak to the endless and universal challenges that this country and its people have faced and will face. But allow me to submit a shortlist of my own, in no particular order:

1. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. One of my all-time favorites, I wouldn’t dare leave this off the list. A bildungsroman that is kicked off by terrorism and features an immigrant, queer, and mentally unhealthy cast — truly a sweeping tale (if not sometimes leaning more towards fairytale) of an atypical yet universal American youth.
2. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The other day, The Wolf of Wall Street came on TV and I could not turn it off (side note: it loses a lot of its grit when shown on cable). The film came under a lot of scrutiny for its displays and at times seeming celebration of bigotry, materialism, and the general toxic masculinity plaguing the nation. All true. And all quintessentially American. In the same way, there is perhaps no finer example of that America than The Great Gatsby. But Gatsby goes a step further: not only is there the morally ambiguous extravagance and greed, but there is the hope and the dream for exactly that. American narcissism is not only a tool of success, but it is also the mark of success. How much more American can we get?
3. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I was thrilled

 

 

 

Featured image courtesy of @penguininthepost

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