Good Minds Suggest: Annie Barrows's Favorite Books About Small Towns
Posted by Goodreads on June 1, 2015
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
"It almost goes without saying: This is THE great book about small-town America, in that the town of Maycomb is a central character in the story. Just like all the most interesting characters, Maycomb is history-haunted, conflicted, and deluded by love and hate. The book is such an icon that it seems to have always existed, whole and perfect, just the way it is. But of course it was made, and the town of Maycomb, as constructed by Harper Lee, embodies the wonderful way these places are both prisons and palaces for the people who live in them."
Middlemarch by George Eliot
"OK, so it's not America—it's still a small town where everyone knows your grandfather cheated his next-door neighbor on the sale of a cow and predicts that you'll display the same underhanded traits if you're not carefully watched. The parts about poor Dr. Lydgate are especially moving. He arrives in town an independent, proud, forward-thinking representative of science, but Middlemarch has the last laugh. It's tragic, really, but brilliant. George knows whereof she speaks, for sure."
Staggerford by Jon Hassler
"This unfairly neglected novel covers a week in the life of a high school teacher in the small town of Staggerford, Minnesota, in the 1970s. For six of the days not much happens, except that our hero lives in the town where he's lived all his life, among people he grasps so thoroughly, he can predict their every move. He teaches, his teeth hurt, he goes to a party and gets drunk, but running through the week like a vein is a story about betrayal, loss, love, cowardice, and
bravery—the full gamut of virtue and sin."
Chronicle in Stone by Ismail Kadare
"This is sort of a weird one, since the author himself says it's about a city. But this city—on an unnamed mountain in Albania during the Second World War—is really the semimagical, semifarcical, semitragical small town of childhood, populated by the familiar and the utterly alien. In the course of this gorgeous, unsettling book, both the narrator and the place are inexorably dragged from illusion to reality. Plus, it's Albanian. How often do you read a great Albanian book?"
A Long Way from Chicago by Richard Peck
"Let's lighten up a little bit here with a great kids' book. A Long Way from Chicago tells the story of a Depression-era teenager who's been sent from his home in Chicago to a small Illinois town to live with his irascible grandmother Dowdell, who knows everyone in town and doesn't think much of them. If gossip weren't entertaining, people wouldn't do it so much, and the author displays a keen understanding of how much fun it is to get the dirt on your neighbors."
Vote for your own favorites on Listopia: Books About Small Towns
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Jun 02, 2015 09:38PM
Cold Sassy Tree -- one of my favorites of all time:)
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Persian Pickle ClubGuernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Friday Night Knitting Club
Gail Fraser--- Lumby books
Cold Sassy Tree came to mind immediately when it saw this list. It certainly deserves to be on any small town book list. One of my absolute all time favorites. If you haven't read it run right out and get a copy and get reading!
Milagros Beanfield War by Nichols. Great small town comedy
Sara wrote: "Cold Sassy Tree -- one of my favorites of all time:)"100% agree. Thought of it as soon as I saw the category. It will always be a favorite.
We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates. Loved it!
Kevin wrote: "Milagros Beanfield War by Nichols. Great small town comedy"Loved it! Movie was charming as well.
Steinbeck's The Winter of Our Discontent. (and surely Mockingbird and Chicago from the list above.)
I would recommend Heading Out to Wonderful by Robert Goolrick. He describes a small town and the inhabitants' relationships so well.
"Fried Green Tomatoes" and anything else by Fanny Flagg. Also, Clyde Edgerton's novels, "Raney" and "Walking Across Egypt". Wonderful, warm and funny tales of small town people who aren't so ordinary when you get to know them.
How often do you read a great Albanian book? Every time you pick up a Kadare. He's been shortlisted for the Nobel Prize for Literature, for goodness sake!
Nancy wrote: "I would recommend Heading Out to Wonderful by Robert Goolrick. He describes a small town and the inhabitants' relationships so well."Thanks for mentioning "Heading Out to Wonderful." I had forgotten about that one, and have always wanted to read it.
sounds very good as well as
. They're both on my to-read list now.
And Ladies Of The Club by Santmyer. One of my favorites of all time.
I love Louise Penny's Gamache series around the village of Three Pines.
Don't forget Alice Munro's "Lives of Girls and Women"
Kent Haruf's Plainsong Trilogyalso J.K. Rowling's A Casual Vacancy
Yes, definitely Louise Penny's Three Pines village descriptions and Kent Haruf's CO plains trilogy of small town life are excellent reads!
Laura wrote: "Persian Pickle ClubGuernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Friday Night Knitting Club"
Sara wrote: "Cold Sassy Tree -- one of my favorites of all time:)"
Patwrites. Super books
Sherwood Anderson's WINESBURG, OHIO, imaginary, but oh so real.
Cold Sassy Tree, The Ladies of Missalonghi (sp?), Minding Frankie, Big Stone Gap.
So many wonderful books! The "Biggie" mystery series by Nancy Bell is great fun in a small town.
The Midwife of Hope River is a wonderful read of a small mining town in W. Virginia.
Plainsong Kent HarufBig Stone Gap Adriana Trigiani
Anything by Fannie Flagg
Home and Gilead by Marilynne Robinson also Abide With Me by Elizabeth Strout. I realized a lot of my favorite books are set in small towns
"Population 451" by Michael Perry, great read.
Our Town (play) by Thornton WilderMain Street by Sinclair Lewis
Knockemstiff by Donald Ray Pollack, sordid scenes that are all too reminiscent of small town life.
The Miss Julia series, by Ann B. Ross Story of a Southern, Senior lady who was married to a jerk for most of her life until he is found dead in his Buick, in their garage. His death left Miss Julia a very wealthy woman. One morning shortly after her husbands death, a young boy appears on her front porch, it's her husbands son by a mistress! The book series is funny and spiritual and will keep you begging for more.
I believe Cold Sassy Tree is now on my list, thanks!
Linda wrote: "I believe Cold Sassy Tree is now on my list, thanks!"You will love it. It was on my son's school summer reading list, and I picked up all the books. This one, I could not put down.
Anything by Ivan Doig -- The Bartender's Tale, Worksong, Sweet Thunder, etc.
William Kent Krueger's Ordinary Grace is another small town favorite with a twist of mystery for who done it? fans
Yes, I enjoyed Ordinary Grace as well. My small town Minnesota upbringing made me a fan.
Anything by Jon Hassler--especially Staggerford, A Green Journey, Dear James and Simon's Night.
I think I've read all of Jon Hassler's books but it may be time to read them again. Thanks!
Sarahlhunt wrote: ""Population 451" by Michael Perry, great read."As noted by another, the population of that small town is 485 -- & it is wonderful. I recently got a free trial to Audible & decided to try listening to his next one,"Truck." Michael Perry reads it & it also is wonderful, as is the the sequel, "Coop." I recommend all of them & am looking forward to his other work.
