One State/One Book (USA) (in progress...)

Submitted by burneyfan on Mon, 09/03/2007 - 07:34
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  1. United States of America

  5. Alabama: To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
  6. Alaska: A Cold Day for Murder, Dana Stabenow
  7. Arizona: The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint, Brady Udall
  8. Arkansas:
  9. California: East of Eden, John Steinbeck
  10. Colorado: Booked to Die, John Dunning
  11. Connecticut: The Shipping News, Edna Annie Proulx
  12. Delaware:
  13. Florida: The Deep Blue Good-By, John D. MacDonald
  14. Georgia: Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
  15. Hawaii:
  16. Idaho: Housekeeping, Marilynne Robinson
  17. Illinois: Crocodile on the Sandbank, Elizabeth Peters
  18. Indiana: Something Rising (Light and Swift), Haven Kimmel
  19. Iowa: Moo, Jane Smiley
  20. Kansas: Summer Brave, William Inge
  21. Kentucky: Sue Grafton, A is for Alibi
  22. Louisiana: The Vampire Lestat, Anne Rice
  23. Maine: The Country of the Pointed Firs, Sarah Orne Jewett
  24. Maryland: Lords of the Middle Dark, Jack L. Chalker
  25. Massachusetts: Hobomok: A Tale of Early Times, Lydia Maria Child
  26. Michigan: Dude, Where's My Country?, Michael Moore
  27. Minnesota: First Light, Charles Baxter
  28. Mississippi: North Toward Home, Willie Morris
  29. Missouri: William Least-Heat Moon, Blue Highways
  30. Montana:
  31. Nebraska: The Professor's House, Willa Cather
  32. Nevada: Life Among the Piutes: Their Wrongs and Claims, Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins
  33. New Hampshire: Affliction, Russell Banks
  34. New Jersey: The Plot Against America, Philip Roth
  35. New Mexico: Dance Hall of the Dead, Tony Hillerman
  36. New York: The Custom of the Country, Edith Wharton
  37. North Carolina: Raney, Clyde Edgerton
  38. North Dakota: Love Medicine, Louise Erdrich
  39. Ohio: The Rise of Silas Lapham, William Dean Howells
  40. Oklahoma: Design for Murder, Carolyn Hart
  41. Oregon: Having Everything Right: Essays of Place by Kim Stafford
  42. Pennsylvania: Seven Guitars, August Wilson
  43. Rhode Island: "The Dunwich Horror," other selected stories, H.P. Lovecraft
  44. South Carolina:
  45. South Dakota:
  46. Tennessee: Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden
  47. Texas: Roadkill, Kinky Friedman
  48. Utah:
  49. Vermont: Where the Rivers Flow North, Howard Frank Mosher
  50. Virginia: The Bonfire of the Vanities, Tom Wolfe
  51. Washington: Ten Little Indians, Sherman Alexie
  52. West Virginia:
  53. Wisconsin: The Westing Game, Ellen Raskin (heh)
  54. Wyoming:
Author Comments: 

I'm following Nance's lead with this list; I'm thinking I should have quite a few of them by now, but the challenge will be figuring out which authors go with which states. My rule of thumb will be where they live or have spent much of their lives, rather than where they are born, unless it seems like their birth-states are at the heart of their writings. (Imaginary) bonus points for me if they live there *and* write about the state.

I love a lot of "genre fiction" (mystery and sci-fi/fantasy novels especially), but they're filling quite a few gaps in this list. I may eventually try to find substitutes for some of them, as well as other authors/books who seem very disconnected from their states. (I'll keep any genre fiction that seems connected to the state---for example, Dana Stabenow's very good mystery A Cold Day for Murder is set in Alaska, and deals explicitly with some Alaskan issues---but my ultimate goal is to have a list of books that reflect at least the general region of the author, if not the state itself. Carolyn Hart may be an Oklahoma native and resident, but the mystery series of hers that I've read is set in South Carolina...I'm counting it for Oklahoma, but if I read a book by an Oklahoma author that openly reflects on Oklahoma in some way, it would be a bonus.

As I put this together, I find that it's hard for me to decide which state a lot of my favorite authors belong to; they move around so much!

Cloned From: 
One State/One Reading (USA)