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A Reading Roadtrip Across the U.S.A.
Book lovers know that one of the greatest joys of reading is the ability to go anywhere, anytime, through the magic of the written word. For this summer, we're offering up a literary roadtrip through the U.S.A. with this list of 51 books to represent every state in the union, plus D.C. The action in each book is set in the affiliated state, so you can read your way through America, from Alabama to Wyoming. That’s if you want to travel alphabetically, which we don’t recommend. It’s fun, but not very fuel efficient.
Our curated collection covers a wide range of genres: “serious” literary fiction, but also outstanding thrillers, comic novels, science fiction, mystery, romance, historical fiction, and even a splash of horror. And we’ve noted several titles that won or were nominated for Goodreads Choice Awards.
All of these books are relatively recent, and some are on the new fiction shelves right now. While many states have older books that are more readily identified with them individually, this list represents a kind of 21st-century survey of American reading.
Scroll over the covers below to learn more about each book, and add any interesting destinations to your Want to Read shelf! Happy reading, America (and everyone else)!
Our curated collection covers a wide range of genres: “serious” literary fiction, but also outstanding thrillers, comic novels, science fiction, mystery, romance, historical fiction, and even a splash of horror. And we’ve noted several titles that won or were nominated for Goodreads Choice Awards.
All of these books are relatively recent, and some are on the new fiction shelves right now. While many states have older books that are more readily identified with them individually, this list represents a kind of 21st-century survey of American reading.
Scroll over the covers below to learn more about each book, and add any interesting destinations to your Want to Read shelf! Happy reading, America (and everyone else)!
Alabama
A 2022 Goodreads Choice Award nominee for Best Historical Fiction, Take My Hand is set in the environs of 1973 Montgomery, Alabama. Young Black nurse Civil Townsend turns whistleblower when she discovers an appalling situation involving state medical care, reproductive politics, and two young girls from a dirt-poor family. The bleakest part: Author Dolen Perkins-Valdez’s acclaimed novel is based on real events.
Alaska
From the author of The Nightingale, Kristin Hannah’s The Great Alone peers deeply into the wild and enduring appeal of Alaska, America’s last real frontier. When Vietnam veteran Ernt Allbright moves his family to a remote corner of the state, they find themselves in a land of transcendent beauty, enduring communities, and persistent danger.
Arizona
Particularly resonant in these anxious days, Lydia Millet’s literary novel spins a kind of meditative modern fable. After walking(!) from New York to Arizona, a wealthy philanthropist starts his new life by contemplating some old-fashioned notions. The ultimate question: Can bedrock virtues like kindness and hope make a difference when confronting the existential dilemma that is climate change?
Arkansas
Millie Cousins, senior-year residential assistant at the University of Arkansas, finds a complex kind of trouble when she crosses paths with an ambitious visiting professor and some cruel undergraduate pranksters. Just beneath the narrative, author Kiley Reid (Such a Fun Age) digs into themes of privilege, race, queer politics, and campus power dynamics.
California
Longlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize (and nominated for a 2022 Best Debut Novel GCA) Leila Mottley’s Nightcrawling introduces the unforgettable teenage heroine Kiara, who must endure some awful times to survive her circumstances in Oakland, California. Goodreads reviewers praise Mottley’s book for its empathetic characterizations and ultimate celebration of the enduring power of love.
Colorado
Beginning in 1930s Denver, this Western saga from Kali Fajardo-Anstine (Sabrina & Corina) chronicles five generations of an Indigenous Chicano family in the place they call the Lost Territory. When tea leaf reader Luz "Little Light" Lopez receives intense visions of her ancestral origins, she realizes that she’s been called upon to keep the family stories alive.
Connecticut
One of the most enthusiastically acclaimed literary debuts in recent years, Ocean Vuong’s epistolary novel takes the form of a long letter from a queer Vietnamese American son to his mother in the city of Hartford. Nominated for a 2019 Best Fiction GCA, Vuong’s book wrestles with issues of trauma and forgiveness while moving like a fever-dream fusion of memoir and epic poem.
Delaware
Mapping new territory in the long tradition of American immigrant stories, Cristina Henriquez’s heartrending novel starts in a cinder-block complex off a highway in Delaware, where the Rivera family is desperately hoping for a new future in the United States. Teenage daughter Maribel, recovering from a near-fatal accident in Mexico, finds that the help she desperately needs is blocked by language and cultural barriers.
Florida
Author Kristen Arnett (Mostly Dead Things) is known for writing about contemporary LGBTQ+ life with warmth, wit, and hard-won wisdom. Her 2022 sophomore novel introduces desperate mom Sammie Lucas, whose quest for a picture-perfect queer family is challenged by increasingly severe troubles with her troubled teen and absent wife. Bonus trivia: In 2018, Arnett had a very Florida moment that is slightly internet famous.
Georgia
Nominated for a Best Debut Novel GCA last year, Terah Shelton Harris’ book tells a unique kind of love story. Eight years after a traumatic sexual assault, young mother Sara Lancaster returns to Savannah to run her father’s bookstore and build a new life with her genius-level daughter. That’s when she meets Jacob, an astrophysicist with his own remarkable story.
Hawaii
This rowdy short story collection paints a picture of America’s complicated island paradise through a series of character portraits colored with magical realism. Stitched into the narratives—sometimes scary, sometimes sexy—you’ll find fascinating details on Hawaiian history and mythology: haunted highways, Elvis impersonators, and one highly unsettling corpse flower.
Idaho
Pulitzer Prize winner Anthony Doerr (All the Light We Cannot See) delivers a genre-defying epic in three separate timelines—15th-century Constantinople, present-day Idaho, and a starship several decades into the future. Doerr is interested here in stewardship—of Earth, of stories—and his book could be accurately shelved under historical fiction, literary fiction, science fiction, or fantasy.
Illinois
Starting out in the 1990s Chicago art scene, author Nathan Hill (The Nix) chronicles a complex modern marriage that ends up mired in depressing 21st-century weirdness. Jack and Elizabeth try to preserve their bond through dubious wellness regimens, cultlike mindfulness groups, and some ill-advised polyamorous adventures. Wellness earned a 2023 GCA nomination for Best Fiction.
Indiana
Having aged out of the foster care system, a young woman moves to an “affordable housing complex” in fictitious Vacca Vale, Indiana. Over the course of one blistering July week, Blandine Watkins tries to navigate life in a dead city filled with “empty factories, empty neighborhoods, empty promises, empty faces.” Grim and funny, Tess Gunty’s acclaimed debut offers a sustained gaze into some dark corners of modern America.
Iowa
In the surprisingly kinetic environs of Iowa City, three young adults pilot their way through a most extraordinary year. Ivan, Fatima, and Noah form the core of a shifting group of students, friends, and lovers, each trying to find a proper trajectory into the future. Author Brandon Taylor’s campus novel explores themes of class, race, and Life Itself with clarity and empathy.
Kansas
It’s a crazy plan, but it just might work. The small town of Big Burr, Kansas, has been labeled "the most homophobic town in the U.S." So a national nonprofit decides to send a kind of queer task force into town. Its two-year mission: to build bridges and sort things out. Things, as you might imagine, get weird. Author Celia Laskey brings humor and humanity to a very American story.
Kentucky
Based on a true story, Horse is an utterly unique historical epic that unspools in three timelines, each proceeding from events in Kentucky circa 1850. When an enslaved groom forges a deep bond with an extraordinary horse, the consequences echo through the years—to New York in 1954 and to D.C. in 2019. Bonus trivia: Author Geraldine Brooks won the Pulitzer Prize for her 2005 novel, March.
Louisiana
Author Eric Nguyen’s debut novel follows the fate of a Vietnamese immigrant family who arrive in New Orleans in 1979. Desperate mother Huong does her best to keep the family together as one son drifts into a local Vietnamese gang, while the other struggles to accept his blossoming sexuality. Twenty-four years later, Hurricane Katrina changes everything.
Maine
Maine, 1962: An Indigenous Mi’kmaq family travels down from Nova Scotia to pick berries for the summer. When their four-year-old child disappears, the incident causes terrible harm and a mystery that will haunt multiple families for decades. Author Amanda Peters’ debut novel is recommended for readers of The Vanishing Half and Woman of Light.
Maryland
Author Susan Muaddi Darraj brings readers into the heart of a Palestinian American community in Baltimore, where three different families make their way in a fast-evolving America. Darraj’s debut novel shifts perspective through a diverse cast of characters as they experience heartbreak, loss, triumph, and the revelation of a few dark secrets.
Massachusetts
Nantucket romance specialist Elin Hilderbrand (28 Summers) returns to her stomping grounds once again with this story of a rather treacherous vacation proposition. Recently widowed Hollis Shaw has arranged for a holiday weekend with four former besties from different times in her life—her teenage years, twenties, thirties, and midlife. Could be a genius idea! Could be an epic fiasco! Let’s find out!
Michigan
It’s cherry-picking season in northern Michigan, and Lara is finally telling her grown daughters about that One Magical Summer when she was an aspiring actress with a rowdy and randy theater group. Lara has taught the girls everything they know. But not everything she knows. Ann Patchett (The Dutch House) delivers a tale of mothers, daughters, youth, romance, and the enduring power of a theatrical classic.
Minnesota
Author William Kent Krueger has earned a loyal readership with his Cork O’Conner series of Minnesota mystery-thrillers. His highly acclaimed 2019 historical fiction novel switches gears entirely, telling an epic on-the-road story of four orphaned kids who escape a brutal residential school for Native American children. If you sense echoes of Huckleberry Finn and The Odyssey while reading this one, that’s on purpose.
Mississippi
Author Jesmyn Ward is the only woman—and the only Black American writer—to win the National Book Award for fiction twice. One of those prestigious awards went to Sing, Unburied, Sing, her engaging and resonant 2017 novel about the Mississippi Gulf Coast, the plight of 21st-century rural families, and the still-unfolding saga of America herself.
Missouri
One of 2024’s most talked about (and raved about) books, Percival Everett’s bold novel takes the concept of literary retellings to entirely new places. James is Everett’s version of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, only told from the perspective of Huck’s stalwart companion, James, the enslaved runaway who, it turns out, has his own stories to tell.
Montana
Author Victor LaValle brings his subversive style of genre-straddling adventure to the American West, circa 1914, with the story of a single woman trying to make her way as a homesteader in Montana. Adelaide Henry is courageous and resourceful. She also carries a steamer trunk that must be kept locked, lest people start to disappear. Is it horror? Mystery? Historical fiction? The answer is yes.
Nebraska
A 2021 GCA nominee, The Lincoln Highway is a road-trip story circa 1954, in which four young men make their way from Nebraska to New York City. Author Amor Towles (A Gentleman in Moscow) works his usual narrative magic by juggling multiple points of view across several fascinating characters, 10 days of adventure, and a weirdly slippery 1948 Studebaker.
Nevada
Crooked senators! Mafia murders! Cryptocurrency scams! Gloriously feathered hair! The new thriller from author Chris Bohjalian (Midwives) follows the curious case of a Princess Diana impersonator who finds herself tangled up with lethal bad guys in the Las Vegas underworld. Also on display: Buckingham Palace Casino, the most depressing entertainment venue in the history of the cosmos.
New Hampshire
The psychological suspense thriller Mad Honey tells a story of tragic murder and unlikely romance in small-town New Hampshire. Single mom Olivia McPhee has returned to her hometown with her troubled teenage son. It doesn’t go well. Coauthors Jodi Picoult (My Sister’s Keeper) and Jennifer Finney Boylan (She’s Not There) explore one of the genre’s most reliable themes: the secrets we keep.
New Jersey
Just a few hundred miles south-southwest, author Ann Napolitano (Hello Beautiful) details the awful fate of one particular flight out of Newark. Twelve-year-old Edward Adler is the sole survivor of a stunning tragedy. Suddenly and forever without his family, young Edward must make his way in the world. Goodreads members really fell in love with this one.
New Mexico
Forensic photographer Rita Todacheene sees dead people. More specifically, she sees the ghosts of murder victims who point her toward clues in the aftermath of a crime scene. Set in New Mexico’s Navajo Nation community, Ramona Emerson’s inventive story combines elements of supernatural horror, murder mystery, crime thriller, and character study.
New York
Winner of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for fiction (along with Barbara Kingsolver's Demon Copperhead), Hernan Diaz’s epic novel begins with a flashy New York City couple living large in America’s Roaring Twenties. But just where did Benjamin and Helen Rask get their seemingly endless wealth? Trust is a layered novel concerning foundational inequalities and how power and money dictate what we come to think of as history.
North Carolina
This rather delicious suspense thriller invites readers to the estate known as Ashby House, high in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. When the richest woman in the state leaves her nine-figure fortune to her adopted child, all manner of weirdness ensues. Author Rachel Hawkins (The Wife Upstairs) delivers another twisty confection concerning shady relations, deadly secrets, and lovely views from the terrace.
North Dakota
An enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, author Louise Erdrich has been called one of the most significant writers in the literary movement known as the Native American Renaissance. Her 2020 novel The Night Watchman weaves together multiple story lines concerning family, public policy, and Native American dispossession in 1950s North Dakota. Bonus trivia: The Pulitzer Prize–winning novel is based in part on the life of Erdrich’s grandfather.
Ohio
Twin sisters Arcade and Daffodil grew up under difficult circumstances in small-town Ohio. When a local woman is found drowned in the river, the sisters wake up to a nightmare that’s just beginning to unfold. Poet and novelist Tiffany McDaniel draws from actual history with this intense mystery thriller, documenting a specific tragedy to explore larger questions about poverty and justice.
Oklahoma
Oscar Hokeah’s well-regarded debut novel profiles a young Native American man through the voices of multiple characters in a struggling Oklahoma community. Ever Geimausaddle has only ever known instability and constant, churning change. But he’s committed to stopping the cycle of chaos for the next generation. Author Hokeah is a registered member of Cherokee Nation and the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma.
Oregon
An agoraphobic rock star mom. A hard-guy drug money enforcer. Extremely crooked federal agents. And a sorcerous severed hand that induces homicidal madness. Such are the ingredients in Keith Rosson’s gonzo horror-story-slash-crime-thriller. Emphasis on the slash. Oh, and the good citizens of Portland get morphed into crazed and bloodthirsty killers. That, too.
Pennsylvania
The best pleasant-surprise success story in recent years, The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store introduces readers to Chicken Hill, the historical neighborhood in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, where Black and Jewish families once lived in harmony under the shadow of their wealthy and dangerous neighbors. A huge critical and commercial hit in 2023, James McBride’s novel struck a welcome chord with its celebration of the power of community.
Rhode Island
Following up her hit 2012 debut, The Miseducation of Cameron Post, author Emily M. Danforth brings us a story of young love and gothic vibes at Rhode Island’s Brookhants School for Girls, circa 1902. One hundred years later, the past and present collide when Hollywood decides to film a movie at the haunted ruins of the school. Danforth’s dizzying mix of grim comedy, ghost story, and queer romance features some nice period illustrations, too.
South Carolina
Set in the lovely city of Charleston, this unique horror/mystery story follows the strange fate of Louise and Mark Joyner, estranged siblings who are forced to sell the family home when their parents die. But why did mom cover all the mirrors? And why is the attic door nailed shut? Author Grady Hendrix (The Final Girl Support Group) has a wavelength all his own, broadcasting on a very specific frequency between scary and funny.
South Dakota
A different kind of crime thriller—with about a dozen clever twists—Winter Counts introduces the character of Virgil Wounded Horse, freelance enforcer on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. When bad guys slip through the cracks of the legal system, whether federal or tribal, Virgil is the last line of defense and/or retribution. Weiden’s debut was nominated for two GCAs in 2020.
Tennessee
Inspired by the author’s own family history, the acclaimed debut novel from Tara M. Stringfellow unfolds over the course of 70 years and three generations in a historic Memphis neighborhood. Stringfellow has described Memphis as the Black fairy tale she always wanted to read—a parable with multiple voices that ponders the values we pass to future generations.
Texas
A riff on the Old West story template, The Bullet Swallower introduces the legendary Mexican bandido El Tragabalas, fleeing through Texas to escape a magical curse. What starts in 1895 winds up in 1964 when Mexican singer Jaime Sonoro discovers he has inherited his ancestor’s otherworldly problems. The go-to description on this one is Cormac McCarthy meets Gabriel García Márquez, and that’s about right.
Utah
Crime fiction meets outdoor adventure in this lively novel from Todd Robert Petersen, which takes place in and around the beautiful badlands of Utah. When an innocent anthropologist gets mixed up with a pair of inept criminals, a bigger-picture problem is revealed, concerning public land, national monuments, energy exploration, and crooked lobbyists. Plus the poor sheriff who has to deal with it all…
Vermont
Deep in the woods of Vermont, restoration expert Maggie Holt moves into a derelict Victorian estate named, rather excellently, Baneberry Hall. It seems that 25 years earlier, Maggie’s parents fled the same house in dread and panic, then wrote a book about it. Think Amityville Horror. So what’s really happening in Baneberry Hall? Author Riley Sager (Final Girls) has the strange and surprising details.
Virginia
Set in the Appalachian region of Virginia, Barbara Kingsolver's Demon Copperhead introduces a protagonist and narrator like no other. Well, maybe like one other: The book is inspired by Charles Dickens’ 1850 classic David Copperfield, and Kingsolver is ultimately interested in similar ideas concerning resourceful young people and devastating poverty. Kingsolver’s novel won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, along with Hernan Diaz’s Trust.
Washington
While mopping floors on the midnight shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, lonely widow Tova Sullivan makes a new friend: Marcellus, the giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. A kind of gentle mystery in the key of magical realism, Shelby Van Pelt’s lovely debut earned her astonishing sales numbers, a fiercely loyal readership, and two GCA nominations in 2022.
Washington, D.C.
Young bride Eleanor Quarles has just arrived in the nation’s capital, having married into one of the city’s wealthy Black families. Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, teenage Ruby Pearsall hopes to escape crushing poverty and be the first in her family to attend college. Historical fiction ace Sadeqa Johnson (Yellow Wife) alternates between the two stories until they gradually knit together into a redemptive tale of 1950s America.
West Virginia
Based on the real-life West Virginia coal wars, Taylor Brown’s Rednecks furthers the proud tradition of big-picture historical fiction with undeniable contemporary resonance. In 1920s coal country, a multicultural community of miners and their allies take on crooked feds, vicious gun thugs, and the powerful coal companies. Brown’s book features characters both fictional and historical, including the author’s own great-grandfather.
Wisconsin
Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Powers delivers an imaginative novel of literary speculative fiction with this story of an astrobiologist studying life on the personal, cellular, and cosmic scale. Theo Byrne has developed an experimental treatment for his troubled nine-year-old, who is obsessed with drawing pictures of endangered species. It’s a timely story: Powers says his novel is, in part, about the anxiety of family life on a damaged planet.
Wyoming
A grand historical love story set in the high plains of Wyoming, this latest novel from author Sandra Dallas (The Persian Pickle Club) brings readers to the tiny outpost of Wallace, circa 1916. When schoolteacher Ellen Webster meets rancher Charlie Bacon, the young couple must rely on each other to survive the cruel seasons of life on the prairie.
Now it's your turn! Which books do you think best represent your state? Tell us in the comments below!
Comments Showing 101-150 of 230 (230 new)
message 101:
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Corey
(new)
Jun 06, 2024 12:32PM
Would like to see this but each province and territory in Canada
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Corey Zinger, someone further up def did at least one list. There were several recommendations. No shade to Taylor Brown -- I haven't read the book -- but I'd prefer to see WV native Ann Pancake's _Strange As This Weather Has Been_ for West Virginia instead. If anyone outside of WV wants to understand why WV and Appalachia generally -- so disadvantaged, so impoverished, blah blah blah -- have turned so bitterly against their own best interests on the political front, this is the book that will give you very real insight.
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... I'm wondering if anyone else thought about _Swamplandia!_ for Florida?
Can I advocate for books or stories centered in Tribal Lands & reservations? And maybe if there aren't enough for each, we can start elevating writers & voices from these communities? Next: Central American countries!
Stephanie wrote: "I wish there was a printable check list of all of the books"It's probably pretty easy to make in Google Docs, if you want to make one for yourself!
New Mexico? Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya is a must-read.
Lindsay wrote: "As a native Hoosier himself, I’d also include John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars for Indiana."Good one! I'd include All the Bright Places myself.
Cindy Jiménez-Vera wrote: "Of course that Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands should be included in a read across America summer reading list. I would love to read books set in the Caribbean this summer. 🏝️"Right you are!
Amanda wrote: "So many social justice themes present in a majority of these recommendations"Should rename this site "wokereads" and be done with it.
Daniela wrote: "Now make a world tour and put a few books from every continent 🙏✨"There's already an article on that.
I read The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store. It was disappointing. Can you recommend me an alternative book?
With a Hammer for my heart by George Ella Lyons for Kentucky. Or Clear Springs by Bobbie Ann Mason.
Jodi Picoult Small Great Things for CT. When I read this book, it was hard for me to conceive that the racism and white supremacy described could happen in my state. I thought I must have loved under a rock all my life.
I love this idea. Goodreads should compile a ‘Read your way around Europe’ too. Canada, Australia and South America would be interesting also.
I think it’s pretty easy to read you way around the USA or UK though, as so many books are set there. Less of a challenge.
I really appreciate ppl's recommendations of books that better represent their state. Also, I know that they were focusing on US states but Puerto Rico, Guam, and American Samoa could have gotten an honorable mention.
Any books about the prairie or Native Americans
I'm underwhelmed at the selection for Illinois... "cultlike mindfulness groups, and some ill-advised polyamorous adventures" is not the best this state could have offered.
Pick Sarsh Paretsky's V.I. Warshawski series. Every one is set in Chicago and surrounding suburbs.
Pick "Where the Forest Meets the Stars" by Glendy Vanderah
Pick "Hello Beautiful" by Ann Napolitano.
So many better choices to have made...
the idea is nice ....English is my second language I will try to listen to the book if it is difficult to read .....
Patricia wrote: "Any books about the prairie or Native Americans"Bad Cree by Jessica Johns
Firekeeper's Daughter by Angelline Boulley
Debbie wrote: "This is a great list! I do think that John Kennedy Toole's "A Confederacy of Dunces" be a great choice for Louisiana."WHAT A MASTERPIECE. Agreed!
I did this a few years ago. I did the same Delaware book and it was very good.
Chrissi G wrote: "I'm underwhelmed at the selection for Illinois... "cultlike mindfulness groups, and some ill-advised polyamorous adventures" is not the best this state could have offered.
Pick Sarsh Paretsky's ..."
What's wrong with Wellness?
For Florida, for everywhere, Cross Creek, by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. Her memoir of life in central Florida in the early 20th C, Old Florida, the Scrub. I grew up in Florida, and spent many happy days, weeks, years in a tiny vacation cottage on a beautiful pristine crystal-clear river less than an hour drive from MKR's farmstead/orange grove/Eden.
Marjorie Rawlings is best known for The Yearling, but her best writings are her memoir and her short stories. Her farmstead in central FL, 20 miles south of Gainesville, is well preserved and an American treasure, now a state historical site.
Rawlings was a great reader, writer, cook, and bon vivant. Chain smoker of Lucky Strikes and lover of bourbon. In the 30's and 40's she was in elite company, in the stable of editor Max Perkins of Scribner's (Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Thomas Wolfe). She knew them all, and entertained them all, in her Spanish-moss-draped hamlet of Cross Creek, in the middle of nowhere. She was a great friend of Robert Frost, who spent much time at Cross Creek and in Gainesville as a lecturer and reader of poetry. She hosted Zora Neale Hurston, a good friend. Even Dylan Thomas called on her (they had a mutual love of whiskey, good food and literature).
There's no better literary road trip than to Cross Creek FL, little changed since her death. Acquaint yourself with some some of her best stuff including the memoir and short stories but also her delightful cookbook Cross Creek Cookery. She was a wonderful self-trained chef, but much of the pleasure of her cookbook is her fabulous writing.
During WW2, the American military issued pocket edition paperbacks of many favorite books to GIs and sailors, including The Yearling. MKR received thousands of letters from Army and Navy, thanking her for bringing thoughts of home and comfort and inspiration to them. She sent hand written replies to every letter. That's awesome.
The Water is Wide (Pat Conroy) for South Carolina🧡
Not sure why Bewilderment was picked for Wisconsin! There are so many significant stories about our state, like the lives of John Muir, Frank Lloyd Wright, Vince Lombardi, ship-building in Manitowoc, beer-brewing in Milwaukee, farming and dairy-production, the beauty of the Driftless Region and the Kettle Morraine area…I could go on, but hopefully you see there are many great stories and REAL cultural richness in this beautiful state. Come, visit!
I can't wait to start the States, most likely I'll read Connecticut's novel first. I'm old enough to remember the Vietnam War, with the sadness of friends who signed up and never returned. On Earth, We're Briefly Gorgeous
Ocean Vuong
Cybil wrote: "Mar wrote: "Now make a world tour and put a few books from every continent 🙏✨"This could get you started!
https://www.goodreads.com/blog/show/2......"
Thanks for the link!
I love how the stereotype about New Jersey is that people only know the airport and the Turnpike and never actually visit the state. And then the book suggestion is about a flight that just happened to leave from Newark Airport
Here we go again would be good for this list. Not just because it represents the green beauty of Washington, it also covers Colorado, Texas, New Orleans, Mississippi and Maine.
😼jiriguru Love the initiative but I’m more on the non-fiction side. Anything for us the non-fiction lovers? History, social science, politics, biography, memoir… Try Jimmy Carter's autobiography: An Hour Before Daylight. It covers Georgia historically as well as his life as a young boy.
Mar wrote: "Now make a world tour and put a few books from every continent 🙏✨"Hey check out @thelibrary21 - instagram page. They have an amazing curation of recommendations on their feed and have a special series dedicated to your request. Unfortunately, goodreads does not let me add the link to other websites but you can check them out.
This would be so cool if it was done for other countries around the world as well! What a cool way to explore other places
Could we get a Europe tour, and an Australian tour. Or basically anywhere that's not the US?
Wish the criteria had been "books that take place in actual cities, not fictional creations." Otherwise... the list is kind of toothless. But fun!
How about a list of non-fiction books related to each state?
Do people have thoughts on also books that have great representation, stories, and portrayal of native american reservations?
I'm going to recommend "The Leavers" by Lisa Ko for New York. It covers both upstate New York and New York City. It's also the only become I remember reading that gives a description and feel of a location that could be in upstate New York as opposed to just using upstate New York as a generic backdrop to the story.
Chels wrote: "Do Canada next!"Yess!! I'd read all of them!! :)
Alison wrote: "Elin Hilderbrand is such a cop out for Massachusetts"Same thing for William Kent Krueger in Minnesota.
I've read ten, have a few on my tbr shelf and started but dnf a couple, so a thumbs up list for me.
The pick for NJ is for a flight out of Newark? I hope the remainder of the book is actually set in NJ. Newark airport and the surrounding area is a very poor representation of NJ. Why not Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver?
