h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It's a minor point, I know, but it's "interim" not "interum".
Generally amusing, though; a few concrete examples wouldn't go amiss, rather than vague allusion.

Having not read any of these books, I feel confident about nominating them for the Great American Novel:

Gone With The Wind
The Great Gatsby
For Whom The Bells Toll
The Grapes of Wrath

The Great American Novel usually also refers to a specific time and place that's connected to a great movement: the conditions that inspired the play "Tobacco Road", etc. And for some strange reason, the work is almost exclusively straight fiction. Some other novels that will deserve consideration:

Robert Heinlein's "Stranger In A Strange Land", the restored edition
Although sadly lacking in characterisation, Frank Herbert's "Dune" is a worthy mention
(The above two books I have read)

The rules for the Great American Novel can be applied to almost any country, given the right author. Sadly, the greatness of the work usually lies in hindsight.
While I've forgotten who said this, the quote comes to mind: "Every journalist has a novel inside them, and tht's exactly where it should stay."

Fruitbat
(for Virtual Mayor of London)

Another pedantic correction: it's For Whom the Bell Tolls.

Actually "The Great American Novel" is a book written by Phillip Roth.

Ugh..The Great Gatsby.. I don't care for Fitzgerald.he can write..if only he didn't always write about the same thing...

Very true. This is why you should read exactly one (1) Fitzgerald novel, (for my money, "The Great Gatsby"), and then speak with confidence about whatever others of his works an erudite acquaintance cares to name.

Personally, I would consider "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "Catcher in the Rye" to be the best cadidates for TGAN, with "Catcher" being the foremost of these two. Which is why I have never read, nor do I ever plan to read, either of them.