Patriotic Books Perfect to Read for the Fourth of July!

The Fourth of July weekend is fast approaching. If you are staying near and dear to Glenview over the long holiday weekend, then I would suggest checking out one of the following patriotic books and why:

On the Road, Jack Kerouac
This is the bible for hard travelers hitchhiking and driving back and forth across America with spirited friends. It's a poetic and hellbent road trip. In the novel, Kerouac asks and answers, "Whither goest thou, America, in thy shiny car in the night?"

1776, David McCullough
This is McCullough's massive super literal account of the events leading up to the signing of the
Declaration of Independence. You'll learn a ton about the Revolutionary War and key military battles. George Washington is profiled as he led the ragtag American troops to an unlikely victory over the British.

Abraham Lincoln: the War Years, Carl Sandburg
This lengthy two-part biography of Abraham Lincoln is considered to be the most influential book about the man who ended slavery and kept the United States together in the face of the Civil War.
Lincoln: The Prairie Years (1926) and Lincoln: The War Years (1939) are the defining books on Lincoln's life and still the go-to biography of Lincoln and major source of many of the idealistic myths that surround him.

The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner
This novel is frequently cited as one of the great American novels and chronicles how the puritanical morals of the South, racism, greed, and violence ruin an entire Southern family.

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
This is one of the most important American novels. It is fixated on the brutal fable that is the American dream. It is a portrait of the post-World War I era in which America lost its innocence and became decadent. It is a great read or re-read for the 4th of July occasion allowing us to think about how achieving the American dream still couldn't bring Gatsby happiness.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
This book is the first major American work to be written completely in vernacular English, capturing Americans as they actually spoke. It is a scathing look at racism and other backward attitudes held in the South on the Mississippi River where it is set. At the same time it is a celebration of unlikely friendship and fierce independence bordering on rebelliousness, both characteristics of our national character.