- The Old Man and the Sea (1953)
2. William Faulkner
- The Sound and the Fury (1929)
- As I Lay Dying (1930)
- Light in August (1932)
- Absalom, Absalom! (1936)
- The Unvanquished (1938)
- Go Down, Moses (1942)
- Intruder in the Dust (1948)
- A Fable (1954)
- The Reivers (1962)
3. Bob Woodward & Carl Bernstein
- All the President’s Men (1975)
4. Margaret Mitchell
- Gone with the Wind (1937)
5. Harper Lee
- To Kill a Mockingbird (1961)
6. John Steinbeck
- The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
7. J. R. R. Tolkien
- The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (1955)
8. Toni Morrison
- Beloved (1988)
9. Vladimir Nabokov
- Lolita (1958)
10. Cormac McCarthy
- The Road (2007)