Whether it’s via their tone, topic, or tenor, certain works just say “America.” Here are three such titles, suggested by David Bruce Smith, founder of the Grateful American™ Foundation:

• O Pioneers! by Willa Cather. An immigrant family struggles on (and with) the Nebraska prairie in this first installment of the author’s “Great Plains” trilogy.
• Moby-Dick by Herman Melville. This classic tale of an obsessed Captain Ahab seeking vengeance on an elusive white whale is as American as, well, obsession and revenge.
• Animal Farm by George Orwell. A political allegory about tyranny, revolt, and the seductive — and often devastating — allure of power.