What is it about certain books that makes them bestsellers? Why do some of these books remain popular for centuries, and others fade gently into obscurity? And why is it that when scholars do turn their attention to bestsellers, they seem only to be interested in the same handful of blockbusters, when so many books that were once immensely popular remain under-examined?Addressing those and other equally pressing questions about popular literature, Must Read is the first scholarly collection to offer both a survey of the evolution of American bestsellers as well as critical readings of some of the key texts that have shaped the American imagination since the nation's founding.Focusing on a mix of enduring and forgotten bestsellers, the essays in this collection consider 18th and 19th century works, like Charlotte Temple or Ben-Hur, that were once considered epochal but are now virtually ignored; 20th century favorites such as The Sheik and Peyton Place; and 21st century blockbusters including the novels of Nicholas Sparks, The Kite Runner, and The Da Vinci Code.

1. Must Read: Rediscovering American BestsellersSarah Churchwell and Thomas Ruys Smith2. Missing Numbers: The Partial History of the BestsellerSarah Garland3. The History of Charlotte Temple (1791) as an American BestsellerGideon Mailer4. 'Like Beads Strung Together': E.D.E.N. Southworth and the Aesthetics of Popular Serial FictionRachel Ihara5. Ten Nights in a Bar-Room (1854) and the Visual Culture of TemperanceWilliam Gleason6. 'The Man Without a Country' (1863): Treason, Expansionism, and the History of a 'Bestselling' Short StoryHsuan Hsu7. Exhilaration and Enlightenment in the Biblical Bestseller: Lew Wallace's Ben-Hur, A Tale of the Christ (1880)James Russell 8. 'Absolutely Punk': Queer Economies of Desire in Tarzan of the Apes (1912)J. Michelle Coghlan9. Ornamentalism: Desire, Disavowal and Displacement in E.M. Hull's The Sheik (1919)Sarah Garland10. Small Change? Emily Post's Etiquette (1922-2011)Grace Lees-Maffei11. Blockbuster Feminism: Peyton Place (1956) and the Uses of ScandalArdis Cameron12. Crimes and Bestsellers: Mario Puzo Path to The Godfather (1969)Evan Brier12. Master of Sentiment: The Romances of Nicholas SparksSarah Churchwell13.The Kite Runner Transnational Allegory: Anatomy of an Afghan-American BestsellerGeorgiana Banita14. The Fiction of History: The Da Vinci Code (2003) and the Virtual Public SphereStephen Mexal Contributor BiographiesIndex