Whether it’s via their tone, topic, or tenor, certain works just say “America.” Here is one such title, suggested by author and publisher David Bruce Smith, founder of the Grateful American™ Foundation and the Grateful American™ Book Prize:

“Gone with the Wind” by Margaret Mitchell. Few books so vividly capture the death of the Old South — and the wrenching chaos of the Civil War and Reconstruction — like this Pulitzer Prize winner often hailed as the Great American Novel.

Patriotic Picks is a monthly feature in partnership with the Washington Independent Review of Books.

Patriotic Picks is a monthly feature in partnership with the Washington Independent Review of Books.