Where Is American Literature? is a thought-provoking approach to the creation of canons, where one might find American literature, and even if such a category can be so easily defined. There’s lots of juicy stuff, about book clubs and high versus middlebrow art (who doesn’t love to remember the Oprah/Franzen tussle), and the history of reading in the US military, and much else. Levander challenges any preconceived idea we might have of what American literature is, and she looks for it instead in unlikely and liminal spaces.

I’d quibble with the use of footnotes and chapter endnotes. If I am reading an academic book, I have a straight-backed chair and mindset, and a pencil, and all notes are welcome, but in a book intended for a broad readership, these are an unnecessary distraction.