"Books that shaped America"

This week check out our display of books that also appear in a new exhibition at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C.  entitled "Books that Shaped America". The exhibit will be up through Sept. 16 if you are lucky enough to be in Washington.  Some of their books exhibited are from their Rare Book Collection Division. Here's some info from their website and a partial list of books. It is an interesting mix of books - anything from "Goodnight Moon" by Margaret Wise Brown to "Joy of Cooking", "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller and "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac.  Here's a description of the exhibition on the Library of Congress website:

The Library of Congress, the world’s largest repository of knowledge and information, began a multiyear “Celebration of the Book” with an exhibition on “Books That Shaped America.” The initial books in the exhibition are displayed below.
“This list is a starting point,” said Librarian of Congress James H. Billington. “It is not a register of the ‘best’ American books – although many of them fit that description. Rather, the list is intended to spark a national conversation on books written by Americans that have influenced our lives, whether they appear on this initial list or not.”
We hope you will view the list, nominate other titles, and most importantly, choose to read and discuss some of the books on this list, reflecting America’s unique and extraordinary literary heritage, which the Library of Congress makes available to the world.

Here's a few of the titles in the exhibition. For the complete list go to:
http://www.loc.gov/bookfest/books-that-shaped-america/
And if you want, take the survey and nominate your own titles!!

Benjamin Franklin, "Poor Richard Improved" (1758) and "The Way to Wealth"
Meriwether Lewis, "History of the Expedition Under the Command of the Captains Lewis and Clark" (1814)
Nathaniel Hawthorne, "The Scarlet Letter" (1850)
Walt Whitman, "Leaves of Grass" (1855)
Jack London, "The Call of the Wild" (1903)
Zane Grey, "Riders of the Purple Sage" (1912)
F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The Great Gatsby" (1925)
Irma Rombauer, "Joy of Cooking" (1931)
Alcoholics Anonymous" (1939)
Ernest Hemingway, "For Whom the Bell Tolls" (1940)
Benjamin Spock, "The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care" (1946)
J.D. Salinger, "The Catcher in the Rye" (1951)