The idea of the Great American Novel is controversial, passé, hubristic, and . . . always fascinating to talk about. This week, inspired by a recent list of potential candidates for the Great American Novel published in The Atlantic, we dive in and talk about the concept, the history, the list, and our votes for other contenders. What book(s) would get your vote? Shownotes Books * The MANIAC, by Benjamin Labatut * Lesser Ruins, by Mark Haber * Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe, by Kapka Kassabova * Elixir: In the Valley at the End of Time, by Kapka Kassabova * To the River: A Balkan Journey of War and Peace, by Kapka Kassabova * Anima: A Wild Pastoral, by Kapka Kassabova * Dante: The Inferno, translated by Robert Hollander and Jean Hollander * Phineas Finn, by Anthony Trollope * The Eustace Diamonds, by Anthony Trollope * Phineas Reduce, by Anthony Trollope * Mortal Leap, by MacDonald Harris * Moby-Dick, by Herman Melville * Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe * James, by Percival Everett * The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain * Augustus, by John Williams * Butcher’s Crossing, by John Williams * Absalom, Absalom!, by William Faulkner * Passing, by Nella Larsen * The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald * So We Read On: How The Great Gatsby Came to Be and Why It Endures, by Maureen Corrigan * The Making of Americans, by Gertrude Stein * An American Tragedy, by Theodore Dreiser * Light in August, by William Faulkner * The Sound and the Fury, by William Faulkner * Nightwood, by Djuna Barnes * I Am Alien to Life: Selected Stories, by Djuna Barnes * Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston * The Big Sleep, by Raymond Chandler * Ask the Dust, by John Fante * Wait Until Spring, Bandini, by John Fante * U.S.A., by John Dos Passos * The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck * In a Lonely Place, by Dorothy B. Hughes * All the King’s Men, by Robert Penn Warren * The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, by Carson McCullers * The Street, by Ann Petry * The Mountain Lion, by Jean Stafford * A Time to Be Born, by Dawn Powell * The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger * Fahrenheit 451, by Raymond Bradbury * Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison * Charlotte’s Web, by E.B. White * The Adventures of Augie March, by Saul Bellow * Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov * The Bookshop, by Penelope Fitzgerald * Giovanni’s Room, by James Baldwin * The Haunting of Hill House, by Shirley Jackson * No-No Boy, by John Okada * Peyton Place, by Grace Metalious * Pale Fire, by Vladimir Nabokov * Another Country, by James Baldwin * Catch-22, by Joseph Heller * One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey * A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L’Engle * The Zebra-Striped Hearse, by Ross MacDonald * The Group, by Mary McCarthy * The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath * The Crying of Lot 49, by Thomas Pynchon * A Sport and a Pastime, by James Salter * Couples, by John Updike * Portnoy’s Complaint, by Philip Roth * Sabbath’s Theater, by Philip Roth * American Pastoral, by Philip Roth * The Human Stain, by Philip Roth * The Great American Novel, by Philip Roth * Divorcing, by Susan Taubes * Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut * Play It As It Lays, by Joan Didion * Sula, by Toni Morrison * Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison * Beloved, by Toni Morrison * Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret, by Judy Blume * Desperate Characters, by Paula Fox * Log of the S.S. Mrs Unguentine, by Stanley Crawford * The Revolt of the Cockroach People, by Oscar Zeta Acosta * Oreo, by Fran Ross * The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. Le Guin * Winter in the Blood, by James Welch * Corregidora, by Gayl Jones * Speedboat, by Renata Adler * Dancer from the Dance, by Andrew Hollerman * The Stand, by Stephen King * Ceremony, by Leslie Marmon Silko * Housekeeping, by Marilynne Robinson * Machine Dreams, by Jayne Anne Phillips * Lark & Termite, by Jayne Anne Phillips * Shelter, by Jayne Anne Phillips * Little, Big: Or, the Fairies’ Parliament, by John Crowley * Blood Meridian, by