Re: The best American author of the 20th century is....
 

Erskine Caldwell.

(Tobacco Road and God's Little Acre)

Re: The best American author of the 20th century is....
 

Neal Stephenson

Re: The best American author of the 20th century is....
 

One of the first names that came to my head - And I've read all the classics by those old white guys.

BTW, if you like his stuff you should read "When Genius Failed", "Den of Thieves" and "Conspiracy of Fools" in that order - All phenomenal business non fiction.

Re: The best American author of the 20th century is....
 

Hemingway, Ernest

Re: The best American author of the 20th century is....
 

[ QUOTE ]
Faulkner, William.

[/ QUOTE ]

Re: The best American author of the 20th century is....
 

Ernest Hemingway
Joseph Heller
Robert Ruark
John Steinbeck

Can't really go wrong with any of them.

Re: The best American author of the 20th century is....
 

[ QUOTE ]

Hey, is Ayn Rand American? [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

Kind of.

Re: The best American author of the 20th century is....
 

I'll put Catch 22 extremely high, but as for its author -- did anyone read anything else he wrote?

Re: The best American author of the 20th century is....
 

you are right on about this. the reason this 'best of' thread is worse than most is because people are going to list a lot of authors that they don't know real well and don't like that much, but that they heard in literature class were pretty good.

Re: The best American author of the 20th century is....
 

[ QUOTE ]
you are right on about this. the reason this 'best of' thread is worse than most is because people are going to list a lot of authors that they don't know real well and don't like that much, but that they heard in literature class were pretty good.

[/ QUOTE ]


Exactly.

I can't imagine a 20 something year old can more easily identify with things from a Hemingway book than a Thompson book, unless they haven't read one.