20. A book by a local author

[Laura • lauralovestoread]

Love the flexibility of this prompt! I’m a NC girl so Nicholas Sparks comes to mind but I haven’t read any of his so my next choice was The Weekenders Mary Kay Andrews and Jude Devereaux

[Linda]

Rachel wrote: "One of my least favourite kinds of prompts! I was hoping not to have anything related to hometown/home "state"/etc. This one is a little more broad at least, so I'm hoping to find something. I live..."

Neil Peart has written a few books. I loved them, but then I am a Rush fan. He's from Hamilton, near Toronto.
Masked Rider
Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road
Traveling Music: The Soundtrack to My Life and Times

[Wendy]

I am from a suburb of Philadelphia and read my first Lisa Scottoline book this month so I am going to read another one of hers - Come Home.

[Kimberley - TardisBookishTales]

Any readers from around Brisbane, Queensland (Australia), there’s a couple of local authors you can check out - William McInnes (from Redcliffe), M K Hume is from around Albany Creek (north of Brisbane).

Thomas Kenneally is from Sydney, New South Wales.

Isobelle Carmody is from Victoria. Bryce Courtenay is from South Australia.

Ian Irvine is from Bathurst, New South Wales.

Trudi Canavan is from Melbourne, Victoria.

[Talia]

Lori wrote: "Massachusetts: Elin Hildebrand, Allice Hoffman, Anita Diamant, Geraldine Brooks, Anita Shreve or Jessica Shattick for current Authors. Historical could be Nathanial Hawthorn, Edgar Allen Poe, Louis..."

Great list! I would add Henry David Thoreau and Edith Wharton to that list if you're into classics. For fantasy fans, R.A. Salvatore is originally from MA.

[Megan]

poshpenny wrote: "I think I am going to read one or more Beverly Cleary books while sitting in the Beverly Cleary Sculpture Garden in Grant Park. I walked over there for the first time yesterday and it'..."

I love Beverly Cleary's books and haven't read any since I was a kid. I might go with that too. I think I might read something by Amber J. Keyser though, since she is local (or was) and a family friend.

We have a lot of amazing authors from Portland: Ursula K Le Guin, Cheryl Strayed, Abigail Scott, Dunaway, William Edgar Stafford, Bill Cameron...
Carrie Brownstein writes pretty entertaining things.
The Oregon Book Award winners are a good place to find some.

[Juliet]

I am in southern VA and I am having a hard time finding a good book but I know I might need to broaden my search. I am mainly focusing on YA as thats what I read most.
I grew up in NH and JD Salinger lived 20 minutes from where my mom lives so I might go that route.

[Teresa]

Gnomeling Goes Home Second in the series, and the author belongs to my writers' group. :)

[Christy]

This is a great resource https://hometownreads.com/

[Eujean2]

Christy wrote: "This is a great resource https://hometownreads.com/"

What an odd site. It must be for finding new authors. San Francisco (& the greater Bay Area) has quite a few well known authors & none of them are listed there. There is also an author listed from San Diego, which is the same state, but 500 miles away.

I work at a school and as I did my research for my 2018 challenges (PopSugar & others) I ended up selecting a book by a past parent, a book by a current parent, and a book by a current student -- all for prompts other than this one. (I'm also, finally, reading a comic written my my good friend's boyfriend.) I guess I am keeping some of my reading very, very local in 2018.

[Dayna]

This one is really hard for me! I'm going to try to find something in my small town first, then my county, etc. I don't want to have to go too far away! The only local authors I know of are self-published Christian self-help authors and I'm not interested.

[Alice]

I was thinking of going for Charles Dickens as while he wasn't born in Kent he did spend a lot of time here, but then I found out that HG Wells was born in Kent so perhaps I'll go for The War of the Worlds

[Cristina]

Shannon wrote: "I didn't realize Justin Cronin was from Houston. I'll probably actually try to finish The Passage."

Anyone have any other ideas for Houston? :D

edit: Oh man I wonder if we can count any Rice prof --- Eagleman David , Douglas Brinkley , etc

[Nancy]

I have to say that I don't have any problems with this one. I live in Westchester NY: home of James Patterson and Washington Irving to name two. I am going with a really local author. She lives in the same town I do.

[[deleted user]]

I'm going to use some creative licensing here and read a book by an author who was born is Seattle, but moved away. Only because there are not too many authors from Washington state I care about (already read Where'd You Go, Bernadette), but want to read Space Opera by Catherynne Valente. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Cendaquenta]

I'm going to take all Central Scotland as "local", so I have a fair bit of choice. For classics, there's Walter Scott, Arthur Conan Doyle (I've read Sherlock Holmes, but am quite interested in The White Company), and Muriel Spark (modern classics, in her case), while for recent works there's Debi Gliori, Laura Lam (though Ms. Lam is an American living in Scotland, but I would like to finish reading her Micah Grey trilogy), and Jack Whyte (not sure where in Scotland he is from, however).

[Michelle]

Chicagoans, I highly recommend “I’m Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter” by Erika L. Sanchez. She’s from the Chicagoland area and her nivel is amazing!

[Tanaquil]

Anna wrote: "Jess wrote: "I have the opposite problem because there are so many authors from London that it feels slightly like cheating. I might restrict myself to below the river because north of the river do..."

Similar problem here, I ended up looking up a "list of people from ___" on Wiki, some of which are listed as authors/writers.

Turns out George Orwell is local (and apparently he also lived in Islington for a while)!

e.g.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...

[Deborah]

I wasn't able to find anyone specific to the city I live or the one I grew up in, so next level is the county of Los Angeles which gives me almost too many options to look through:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categor...

[Amanda]

Courting Greta

I went to school with the author so that is pretty cool too!

[Ally]

For Georgia, this helped me find one from my county. http://www.georgiacenterforthebook.or...

[Sarah]

I'm going with Northwest Angle by William Kent Krueger, who lives in my city (St Paul), and this series is set in northern MN. I'm way behind on it, so this one is about 6 books behind where he currently is.

[Natalie]

I think I am going to do Room, Emma Donoghue has lived in London, Ontario since the 90s so that should count as local.

[Richelle]

I had Mister Pip for this book, but I got an email from a NZ publisher about their new books out in Jan and found another book by a Kiwi Author who I have read before. Such a good YA book. Catch Me When You Fall

[Raquel (Silver Valkyrie Reads)]

I just want to second the recommendations to check with your local bookstores and libraries for ideas for local authors. A google search turned up one famous author for my town that I had NO interest in reading, and a few others I might have have tolerated. The 'local author' shelf at my library had a lot more options, including a mystery story by a local book club, which is by far my top choice for the prompt!

[Carol]

Chelsea wrote: "Nadine wrote: "Arrgh!!! I'm from NY state, but not really the interesting part, so ... if I don't find anything close to home, there's always NYC! What's 200+ miles between friends??

Actually, I k..."

I highly recommend Laurie Halse Anderson's books.

[Lori]

Eujean2 wrote: "Christy wrote: "This is a great resource https://hometownreads.com/"

What an odd site. It must be for finding new authors. San Francisco (& the greater Bay Area) has quite a few well known authors..."

Thank you so much for recommending this site. Found it interesting to see all the LA authors.

[Sherma]

At first, I wasn't crazy about this prompt. I'm from Bermuda and if you know anything about us, it's that we're a very small island. But I'm feeling optimistic because we have some good local authors. Might be time to trot over to the bookstore and pick up a title by one of them. Catherine West comes to mind. . .

[Jim]

I plan to read a nonfiction work by a local historian, Bitter Waters, The Struggles of the Pecos River by Patrick Dearen. I Have read several of Dearen's books. He has written on a number of history topics, including ones on cowboys, as well as a number of western novels.

[Jordyn]

This one is tough, I'm from a small city called Lethbridge in Southern Alberta. I have two picks so far: Thomas King - Canadian author that taught at the university of Lethbridge for a few years. Or Pauline Gedge as she has lived in Alberta most of her life.

[Cindy]

Wally Lamb was a teacher at one of the local high schools and I Know this Much is True is set in Norwich, CT. It is one of my favorite books- I plan to re-read it.

[Cassandra]

Nadine wrote: "Arrgh!!! I'm from NY state, but not really the interesting part, so ... if I don't find anything close to home, there's always NYC! What's 200+ miles between friends??

Actually, I know we have a f..."

Not sure where in central NY your from but I just finished Immortal Coil he’s local author to me. I live near Utica. Just a suggesting it was a quick engaging read and I’m looking forward to reading the next in he series.

[Aryssa]

Since I'm in college I'm going to count this as a book by an alumni who still lives kinda nearby (NYC.) So I'll be reading The English Wife by Lauren Wilig and going to her reading/signing in February. She's in NYC but went to school in New Haven, CT, if that helps anyone.

[Torie]

I am choosing a book co-written by Martin Dugard: Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination that Changed America Forever. He is from Orange County, CA, and I that's where I currently live. :)

Not only does this read sound interesting, but it knocks off a few other prompts for me. Win!

[Julie]

I am so excited for this one. It's always a struggle if it has to do with New Mexico, but fortunately, George RR Martin lives in Santa Fe! It's just down the road from me, so I'm totally reading Game of Thrones for this prompt.

[Julie]

Claire wrote: "I'm from New Mexico so I'm going to try to tackle a big one:

A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin"

Me too!

[Janie]

I may be cheating with this one, but I don't care. I'm from Winston Salem NC, so I'm going with Maya Angelou, I mean sure she wasn't born here, but she moved here, taught here and died here, so I'm using it. :)

[SarahKat]

I live in northern Wyoming. My choices are basically Longmire or local historical stuff... bleh.

[Lyra]

My library has this one covered - the city wide read is “Locally Laid” by Minnesotan Lucie Amundsen.

[Leona]

Minnesota:
Kathleen Woodiwiss
Monica Ferris
Joanne Fluke

[Jeanille]

Shelly wrote: "Wasatch Front, Utah . . .Brandon Sanderson, Terry Tempest Williams, James Dashner, Ally Condie MatchedAlly Condie . . ."

Jennifer Nielsen also from Utah. She has a few good books. I am in the middle of one of her series.

[Fran]

I am reading Dillie the Deer: A True Story of Love, Healing, and Family. I was going to use it as a book with an animal in the title but the author, Melanie Butera is from Canal Fulton Oh only about a half hour drive from me! So I think I'll use it for a book by a local author. I can always find another animal title book

[Stacy]

This is kind of fun..

I've come up with two options. I'm from Michigan, the Grand Rapids area. So I could go with Chris Van Allsburg (The Polar Express, Jumanji, etc). That would be easy, I could sit and read his books to my kids for hours! I grew up reading them, I've known his name about as long as I can remember!

The other is a bit farther afield, Katherine Applegate is from Ann Arbor; she's my ten-year-old's favorite author (besides JK Rowling!!) and she just published a new book, wishtree. He keeps telling me I need to read something by her; maybe this is my chance.

[Johanne]

@Stacey, I really enjoyed Katherine Appelgates Crenshaw. Your child has good booktaste ;)

[Stacy]

Johanne wrote: "@Stacey, I really enjoyed Katherine Appelgates Crenshaw. Your child has good booktaste ;)"

He loves that one!

His favorite is The One and Only Ivan. I *just* bought him his own copy...finally...after he checked it out from the library five or six times. ;)

[Shelly]

Jeanille wrote: "Shelly wrote: "Wasatch Front, Utah . . .Brandon Sanderson, Terry Tempest Williams, James Dashner, Ally Condie Matched[author:Ally Condi..."

Thank you. I will check her out.

[Kim]

Jenny wrote: "this link may help! https://www.mappit.net/bookmap/countr..."

Holy Cow! Over 7,400 books for California! I'm trying to narrow it down to my town (too small, unless I find a book that takes place at LAX), the town two towns over (Venice), or maybe re-read Watchers, by Dean Koonz, because it starts out at the top of the canyon where our family had a cabin (Holy Jim Canyon), in Orange County.

[Kim]

Jennifer wrote: "I'm from Sarasota county, Florida. Do you think since Stephen King lives here half the year he would count?"

I was just curious, because so many of my favorite authors are from FLA, only I think, the southeastern part... so I Googled and got this list, which has a really great illustration of the state with it's authors, AND a city-by-city breakdown! Stephen King is there!

http://www.tampabay.com/features/book...

[Kim]

Jess wrote: "Wendy wrote: "For Colorado authors I'm considering either Connie Willis or Paolo Bacigalupi."

I really like Connie Willis. I like to support female Sci Fi authors. ..."

Oh, Wow! You got me with that title! To Say Nothing of the Dog. I'm a HUGE fan of Three Men in a Boat:, and I'm going to HAVE to read that for my Time Travel prompt. It actually sounds great!

[Christina]

San Diego has proved to be a tough one so far! This may change once I go to the library and check out the local authors section, but for a fun, cozy mystery to balance out the heavier stuff, I'm going with Death Is Like a Box of Chocolates.