Book Around the States

State settings of books

2011-10-22T11:48:00.001-04:00

The Avid Reader has a mini-challenge called State Settings, during the fourth hour of today's 24-Hour Read-a-Thon, about books relating to states. It's a good place to find books to fit our blog's challenge. Here were my answers, all linked to this blog:

1) Beachcombing for a Shipwrecked God, by Joe Coomer ~ New Hampshire
2) Forever, by Pete Hamill ~ New York
3) A Thousand Acres, by Jane Smiley ~ Iowa

I'm back

2011-10-08T05:42:00.002-04:00

I'll resume posting in the next few days.

Georgia

2009-09-02T14:26:00.002-04:00

Bonnie said, "Here's another one for the state of Georgia. I've written a review of Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen by Susan Gregg Gilmore on my blog."

The narrator is Catherine Grace Cline, a teenager who wants more than anything in this world to get out of the little town of Ringgold, Georgia. Her daddy is the preacher at Cedar Grove Baptist Church, which was founded by Catherine Grace's great-granddaddy William Floyd Cline, who had been "one of the most prolific bootleggers the state of Georgia has ever known" (p. 12). "William Floyd found the Lord somewhere in the congregation's third singing of the fourth verse of 'Just As I Am" (p. 13), and within days he was "sermonizing from his own makeshift pulpit next to a grove of cedar trees" (p. 14). When he died, his son took over the pulpit, and now Catherine Grace's daddy was the current Reverend Cline. A humorous look at one girl's desire to reach the big city of Atlanta.
_______
Maybe this will explain my long absence from this blog. Please re-submit any book suggestions you've made that I failed to get posted.
Thanks,
~~~ Bonnie

California

2009-01-06T14:41:00.003-05:00

Judy said, "Here is the link to my first state book: 1st to Die by James Patterson." The book is set in California.

First to Die is the first in the Women's Murder Club series of books by James Patterson. Four women -- four friends -- share a determination to stop a killer who has been stalking newlyweds in San Francisco. Each one holds a piece of the puzzle: Lindsay Boxer is a homicide inspector in the San Francisco Police Department, Claire Washburn is a medical examiner, Jill Bernhardt is an assistant D.A., and Cindy Thomas just started working the crime desk of the San Francisco Chronicle. But the usual procedures aren't bringing them any closer to stopping the killings. So these women form a Women's Murder Club to collaborate outside the box and pursue the case by sidestepping their bosses and giving each other a hand. The four women develop intense bonds as they pursue a killer whose crimes have stunned an entire city. Working together, they track down the most terrifying and unexpected killer they have ever encountered -- before a shocking conclusion in which everything they knew turns out to be devastatingly wrong.

Wisconsin

2008-09-12T01:18:00.002-04:00

Jill said, "And another Christina Schwartz book for Wisconsin. I just finished So Long At The Fair, and it was an excellent story set in modern Wisconsin." Here's Jill's review.

In the summer of 1963 a plot for revenge destroys a career, a friendship, and a family. The consequences of the scandalous event continue to reverberate, touching the next generation. Thirty years later, over the course of one day, Jon struggles to decide whether to end his affair or his marriage. His wife, Ginny, moving closer to discovering his adultery, begins working for an older man who is mysteriously connected to their families’ pasts. And Jon’s mistress is being courted by a suitor who may be more menacing than he initially seems. As relationships among the characters ebb and flow on that July day, Christina Schwarz illuminates the ties that bind people together — and the surprising risks they take in the name of love.

New York

2008-09-06T18:59:00.001-04:00

Laurie suggests: "NY: The Honey Thief by Elizabeth Graver. See my review here."

The summer that eleven-year-old Eva is caught shoplifting (for the fourth time), her mother, Miriam, decides the only solution is to move out of the city to a quiet town in upstate New York. There, she hopes, they can have the normal life she longs for. But Miriam is bound by a past she is trying to forget, and tensions escalate. It is only when Eva meets a reclusive beekeeper that she-and her mother-can find their way back to each other, and can begin life with renewed promise. A haunting novel of memory and desire, The Honey Thief reveals the healing power of friendship and the ineradicable bonds of mother and child.

California

2008-09-06T18:57:00.002-04:00

Laurie suggests: "CA: Self-Portrait with Ghosts by Kelly Dwyer. See my review here."

Self-Portrait with Ghosts is about the pain that leads to suicide, as well as the pain that suicide leaves behind. It is about the many ways we betray the people closest to us, sometimes without even knowing it, and about the healing powers of grief, forgiveness, and love. Kate Flannigan has done pretty well for herself. After a disaster of a first marriage, she's going with a great guy who is crazy about her, she has raised a loving, if slightly rebellious, teenage daughter, and has made a name for herself as a ceramist, an accomplished sculptor of portraits. She has worked hard to meet the demands of single motherhood and, at the same time, to put her sister Colleen's betrayal behind her. Kate's brother, Luke, hasn't done so well. Haunted by the early death of his father, he has struggled with depression for most of his life, and kept it a secret from his family. Only Audrey, Kate's daughter, is able to crack through her uncle's solitude. To her, Luke isn't just a substitute for the father who left years ago -- he is the only person she believes will always tell her the truth. When Luke commits suicide, the family is forced to reexamine the deceptions that have torn it apart, and to face and forgive the past and present, the real and imagined ghosts. The story is told through three compelling voices -- Kate's, Audrey's, and Luke's.

Connecticut

2008-08-31T15:36:00.001-04:00

Bonnie said, "Nobody has suggested a book for Connecticut, so I started looking around for one and found Sacred Cows by Karen E. Olson. I know absolutely nothing about it except what I found online. It was the winner of the first Sara Ann Freed Memorial Award and it features Annie Seymour, a police reporter for a New Haven daily who is covering the murder of a young woman who was a student at Yale. Has anyone read this book?"

"After a late night on the town, New Haven police reporter Annie Seymour is yanked from her bed by an early morning phone call from her editor. Soon she's shivering on a wet, dark city street, staring down at the once beautiful, now broken body of a Yale University coed." "Paid to observe and get just the facts before writing up her stories for the New Haven Herald, Annie finds herself drawn to the story of an Ivy League sophomore whose secret moonlighting led to her violent murder. But after Annie links the girl's death to a network of vice and fraud buried deep in the city's shadows, the cynical reporter is shocked to discover her own mother is involved." "With help from a sexy private investigator, Annie investigates but stumbles upon one obstacle after another. Her cop lover stonewalls her, her editor pulls her off the assignment to cover a surreal parade of fiberglass cows grazing throughout the city, and an overeager cub reporter nips at her heels to get the scoop for himself." Caught in the center of a treacherous scheme, Annie must take the biggest gamble of her career - outwit a dangerous con man to uncover the truth that could win her that elusive Pulitzer ... or a mention in the next day's obituary.

Utah

2008-08-31T14:05:00.001-04:00

3M suggested: "Utah * The Executioner’s Song by Norman Mailer (Pulitzer)."

The Executioner's Song is a 1980 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Norman Mailer that depicts the events surrounding the execution of Gary Gilmore by the state of Utah for murder. This story of the crimes and punishment of a 20th-century murderer and thief is what the author calls a "true-life novel." It is a horrifying, sad, scrupulously detailed look at the events leading up to the moment Gary Gilmore was killed by a firing squad in Utah State Prison on January 17, 1977. Based on interviews, records of court proceedings, newspaper stories, and various other documents, it covers the nine months between Gilmore's parole from prison, his final crime, and his execution.

The blurring of the distinction between fiction and nonfiction was one of the central developments of postwar American literature, and Mailer's imaginative use of the facts is an extension of his earlier forays into the "new journalism." He re-creates Gillmore's tormented psyche, recounts his crimes, takes in the story of Mormonism and the history of Utah, introduces Uncle Vern, Aunt Ida, victims, cops, cons, guards, lovers, and lawyers. The "Western Voices" of small-town America and the "Eastern Voices" of the journalists and show-biz types who descend on the Gilmore story are fused into a remarkable chorus, amplifying the presence of Gilmore himself, a smart, funny, doomed man -- one of the most complex characters in modern letters.

Pennsylvania

2008-08-30T21:41:00.001-04:00

3M suggested (a year ago): "There are some Pulitzers that are set in these states, but I have no idea if the setting is integral to the book." One she named was Rabbit at Rest by John Updike.

In John Updike's fourth and final novel about ex-basketball player Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, the hero has acquired heart trouble, a Florida condo, and a second grandchild. His son, Nelson, is behaving erratically; his daughter-in-law, Pru, is sending out mixed signals; and his wife, Janice, decides in mid-life to become a working girl. As Reagan's debt-ridden, AIDS-plagued America yields to that of George Bush, Rabbit explores the bleak terrain of late middle age, looking for reasons to live.

Bonnie added: "Some may prefer to read a series of books in the order published, but I think I'd be more interested in the older Rabbit than the young Rabbit playing basketball or the young married Rabbit cheating on his wife. I think I could relate better to an older man. And this may be the best in the series because, after all, it was Rabbit at Rest that won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1991."

Virginia

2008-08-29T09:14:00.000-04:00

Teddy Rose suggested (way back in February): "VA: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver, Camille Kingsolver and Steven L. Hopp." Teddy's review.

Hang on for the ride: with characteristic poetry and pluck, Barbara Kingsolver and her family sweep readers along on their journey away from the industrial-food pipeline to a rural life in which they vow to buy only food raised in their own neighborhood, grow it themselves, or learn to live without it. Their good-humored search yields surprising discoveries about turkey sex life and overly zealous zucchini plants, en route to a food culture that's better for the neighborhood and also better on the table.

Part memoir, part journalistic investigation, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle makes a passionate case for putting the kitchen back at the center of family life, and diversified farms at the center of the American diet.

Wisconsin

2008-08-25T00:30:00.003-04:00

Laurie suggests: "WI: Drowning Ruth by Christina Schwarz. My review is here."

Winter, 1919. Amanda Starkey spends her days nursing soldiers wounded in the Great War. Finding herself suddenly overwhelmed, she flees Milwaukee and retreats to her family's farm on Nagawaukee Lake, seeking comfort with her younger sister, Mathilda, and three-year-old niece, Ruth. But very soon, Amanda comes to see that her old home is no refuge--she has carried her troubles with her. On one terrible night almost a year later, Amanda loses nearly everything that is dearest to her when her sister mysteriously disappears and is later found drowned beneath the ice that covers the lake. When Mathilda's husband comes home from the war, wounded and troubled himself, he finds that Amanda has taken charge of Ruth and the farm, assuming her responsibility with a frightening intensity. Wry and guarded, Amanda tells the story of her family in careful doses, as anxious to hide from herself as from us the secrets of her own past and of that night.

Ruth, haunted by her own memory of that fateful night, grows up under the watchful eye of her prickly and possessive aunt and gradually becomes aware of the odd events of her childhood. As she tells her own story with increasing clarity, she reveals the mounting toll that her aunt's secrets exact from her family and everyone around her, until the heartrending truth is uncovered. Guiding us through the lives of the Starkey women, Christina Schwarz's first novel shows her compassion and a unique understanding of the American landscape and the people who live on it.

Stately Knowledge

2008-08-15T20:27:00.003-04:00

Tricia, a teacher educator at the University of Richmond, has a blog post that may interest you. Stately Knowledge lists a number of books about ALL the states, including one about a 50-car train followed by a caboose representing Washington, D.C. In her post Tricia links to another blog:

Mrs. McGowan's 50 States Book List has children's books for the states, but be aware the list includes authors FROM the states as well as books ABOUT the states. Mrs. McGowan links to another blog:

Carol Hurst's The State We're In lists state books for older children. She lists only one book per state, but because I've read some of these books and other books by some of the authors, this looks like an excellent list. I see no reason not to include books from this list in your reading around the states, since basically the protagonists of the books are simply a bit younger than in books for adults. The decision, of course, is all yours.

Texas

2008-08-04T19:28:00.003-04:00

R-Lo said, "Actually, one suggestion I have for Texas that I think is really great is John Phillip Santos' National Book Award finalist, Places Left Unfinished at the Time of Creation. A review of this can be found on my blog."

Part treasury of the elders, part elegy, part personal odyssey, part Book of the Dead, Places Left Unfinished at the Time of Creation is an immigration tale and a haunting family story. John Phillip Santos brings to life a pageant of unforgettable family figures: from Madrina -- touched with epilepsy and prophecy ever since, as a girl, she saw a dying soul leave its body -- to Teofilo, who was kidnapped as an infant and raised by the Kikapu Indians of northern Mexico. And he searches for answers to the mystery surrounding his grandfather's suicide in San Antonio in 1939. Combining lyrical prose, magic realism, and haunting confession into an unforgettable voice, Santos weaves together Mexican mythology and the history of Texas to create the story of how the soul of one Mexican family was passed down, and sometimes nearly lost, across borders and decades, into the present.

Wyoming

2008-06-16T22:24:00.003-04:00

Sharon said, "I just finished Open Season by C.J. box. It was set in Wyoming. Here's my review."

"When a high-powered bullet hits living flesh, it makes a distinctive -pow-WHOP- sound that is unmistakable even at tremendous distance." And so it begins for Joe Pickett, a Wyoming game warden who, with the shot of a rifle, is thrust into a race to save not only an endangered species, but also the life and family he loves. C. J. Box knows the wilderness and he knows how to create a wonderfully authentic, vividly alive sense of place. He has created a memorable new hero: a man who is full of failings, but strong and honorable.

Kentucky

2008-06-10T00:34:00.004-04:00

Sharon said, "I just finished reading a book set in Kentucky, Icy Sparks by Gwyn Hyman Rubio. I put a review here.

Rural Kentucky in the 1950s is not an easy place to grow up in, and it's especially hard for 10-year-old Icy Sparks, a bright, curious child who is orphaned and living with her grandparents. Life becomes even more difficult for Icy when the violent tics and uncontrollable cursing begin. Try as she might, her secrets -- those croaks, jerks, and spasms -- keep slipping out. Her teachers think she's willful, her friends call her the "Frog Child." Exiled from the schoolroom, she spends time in a children's asylum where she learns about being different and teaches her doctors even more. Eventually, Icy finds solace in the company of an obese woman who knows what it's like to be an outcast in this tightly knit Appalachian community.

Louisiana

2008-06-08T21:14:00.004-04:00

Jill said, "Here's another Louisiana book -- a fantastic look at antebellum slave-holding and marriage and its effect on the people living in this immoral system. (But I bet you already know about this book!)" No, this is new to me, but it looks good. Here's Jill's review of Property by Valerie Martin."

Set in the surreal heat of the antebellum South during a slave rebellion, Property, which won the Orange Prize, takes the form of a dramatic monologue, bringing to the page a voice rarely heard in American fiction: the voice of a woman slaveholder. Manon Gaudet is pretty and petulant, self-absorbed and bored. She has come to a sugar plantation north of New Orleans as a bride, bringing with her a prized piece of property, the young slave Sarah, only to see Sarah become her husband's mistress and bear his child. As the whispers of a slave rebellion grow louder and more threatening, Manon speaks to us of her past and her present, her longings and dreams -- an uncensored, pitch-perfect voice from the heart of moral darkness.

Missouri

2008-06-01T13:07:00.003-04:00

Jill said, "I just finished another Tom Sawyer companion novel -- this one about Becky Thatcher. It's called Becky : The Life and Loves of Becky Thatcher by Lenore Hart (my review)."

Becky Thatcher wants to set the record straight. She was never the weeping ninny Mark Twain made her out to be in his famous novel. She knew Samuel Clemens before he was “Mark Twain,” when he was a wide-eyed dreamer who never could get his facts straight. Yes, she was Tom’s childhood sweetheart, but the true story of their love, and the dark secret that tore it apart, never made it into Twain’s novel.

Now married to Tom’s cousin Sid Hopkins, Becky has children of her own to protect while the men of Missouri are off fighting their “un-Civil” War. But when tragedy strikes at home, Becky embarks on a phenomenal quest to find her husband and save her family -- a life journey that takes her from the Mississippi River’s steamboats to Ozark rebel camps, from Nevada’s silver mines to the gilded streets of San Francisco.

Time and again, stubborn but levelheaded Becky must reconcile her independent spirit and thirst for adventure with the era’s narrow notions of marriage and motherhood. As she seeks to find a compromise between fulfillment and security, she also grapples with ghosts of her past. Can she forgive herself, or be forgiven, for the lies she’s told to the men she’s loved? Will she ever forget the maddening, sweet-talking, irresponsible Tom Sawyer, the boy who stole her heart as a little girl? And when she is old, and Huck and Tom and Twain only memories, whose shadow will still lie beside her?

Texas

2008-04-21T18:42:00.003-04:00

Jill said, "My Texas book is The Story of Forgetting by Stefan Merrill Block (review). This was a GREAT book - highly recommended."

In Stefan Merrill Block’s The Story of Forgetting, three narratives intertwine to create a story that is by turns funny, smart, introspective, and revelatory. Abel Haggard is an elderly hunchback who haunts the remnants of his family’s farm in the encroaching shadow of the Dallas suburbs, adrift in recollections of those he loved and lost long ago. As a young man, he believed himself to be “the one person too many”; now he is all that remains. Hundreds of miles to the south, in Austin, Seth Waller is a teenage “Master of Nothingness” –- a prime specimen of that gangly, pimple-rashed, too-smart breed of adolescent that vanishes in a puff of sarcasm at the slightest threat of human contact. When his mother is diagnosed with a rare form of early-onset Alzheimer’s, Seth sets out on a quest to find her lost relatives and to conduct an “empirical investigation” that will uncover the truth of her genetic history. Though neither knows of the other’s existence, Abel and Seth are linked by a dual legacy: the disease that destroys the memories of those they love, and the story of a mythical place called Isidora, a fantasy world free from the sorrows of remembrance, a land without memory where nothing is ever possessed, so nothing can be lost.

South Carolina

2008-03-21T17:38:00.002-04:00

Jill said, "I would like to add the soon-to-be-released Dorothea Benton Frank book to the SC list. It's called Bulls Island and will be in book stores in May 2008. While not my style of fiction, I did enjoy Frank's depictions of South Carolina. Here is my review."

(Since Jill doesn't really care much for this book, I think we have a problem. Are we trying to find all the books we can about a state? Or do we want to find only the BEST books about each state? More on this problem coming up.)

"Will romance triumph over the feud between the aristocratic Langleys and the slightly lower-in-social-pecking-order McGees in Frank's latest Southern charm-filled romp?" asked PW. After twenty years Betts, a top investment bank executive, must leave her comfortable life in New York City to return to the home she thought she'd left behind forever. But spearheading the most important project of her career puts her back in contact with everything she's tried so hard to forget: her estranged sister, her father, her former fiancee J. D. Langley, and her past. Once she's home, can Betts keep the secret that threatens all she holds dear? Or will her fear of the past wreck her future happiness?

Michigan

2008-03-19T01:30:00.003-04:00

Sharon said, "For Michigan I would like to suggest A Superior Death by Nevada Barr, one of my favorite authors."

Park ranger Anna Pigeon returns, in a mystery that unfolds in and around Lake Superior, in whose chilling depths sunken treasure comes with a deadly price. In her latest mystery, Nevada Barr sends Ranger Pigeon to a new post amid the cold, deserted, and isolated beauty of Isle Royale National Park, a remote island off the coast of Michigan known for fantastic deep-water dives of wrecked sailing vessels. Leaving behind memories of the Texas high desert and the environmental scam she helped uncover, Anna is adjusting to the cool damp of Lake Superior and the spirits and lore of the northern Midwest. But when a routine application for a diving permit reveals a grisly underwater murder, Anna finds herself 260 feet below the forbidding surface of the lake, searching for the connection between a drowned man and an age-old cargo ship. Written with a naturalist's feel for the wilderness and a keen understanding of characters who thrive in extreme conditions, A Superior Death is a passionate, atmospheric page-turner.

Hawaii

2008-03-19T01:28:00.003-04:00

Sharon said, "Hello, I have a couple of suggestions for Hawaii. The first one, Moloka'i by Alan Brennert, is on my list to be read. The second one is Mr. Monk Goes to Hawaii by Lee Goldberg. Hope this is helpful."

Young Rachel Kalama, growing up in idyllic Honolulu in the 1890s, is part of a big, loving Hawaiian family, and dreams of seeing the far-off lands that her father, a merchant seaman, often visits. But at the age of seven, Rachel and her dreams are shattered by the discovery that she has leprosy. Forcibly removed from her family, she is sent to Kalaupapa, the isolated leper colony on the island of Moloka'i. In her exile she finds a family of friends to replace the family she's lost: a native healer, Haleola, who becomes her adopted "auntie" and makes Rachel aware of the rich culture and mythology of her people; Sister Mary Catherine Voorhies, one of the Franciscan sisters who care for young girls at Kalaupapa; and the beautiful, worldly Leilani, who harbors a surprising secret. At Kalaupapa she also meets the man she will one day marry. True to historical accounts, Moloka'i is the story of an extraordinary human drama, the full scope and pathos of which has never been told before in fiction. But Rachel's life, though shadowed by disease, isolation, and tragedy, is also one of joy, courage, and dignity. This is a story about life, not death; hope, not despair. It is not about the failings of flesh, but the strength of the human spirit.

UPDATE: Jill said, "I just finished Moloka'i and it was an excellent historical account of Hawaii. While I found some historical issues with the book, I walked away with a greater sense of Hawaiian history. My review."
__________

Some people think Hawaii is paradise, but Monk knows that danger, like dirt, lurks everywhere. Look at Helen Gruber, the rich tourist who took a fatal blow from a coconut. The police say it fell from a tree, but Monk suspects otherwise. His assistant Natalie isn't exactly thrilled about Monk's latest investigation. It was bad enough Monk followed her on vacation, and now it looks like the vacation is over. Smooth-talking TV psychic Dylan Swift is on the island and claims to have a message from beyond-from Helen Gruber. Monk has his doubts about Swift's credibility. But finding the killer and proving Swift a fraud-all while coping with geckos and the horror of unsynchronized ceiling fans-may prove a tough coconut to crack.

Ohio

2008-02-13T16:22:00.001-05:00

Teddy Rose chose Sula by Toni Morrison for her Ohio read.

At its center Sula is about a friendship between two women, a friendship whose intensity first sustains, then injures. Sula and Nel — both black, both smart, both poor, raised in a small Ohio town — meet when they are twelve, wishbone thin, and dreaming of princes. Through their girlhood years they share everything — perceptions, judgments, yearnings, secrets, even crime — until Sula gets out, out of the Bottom, the hilltop neighborhood where beneath the sporting life of the men hanging around the place in headrags and soft felt hats there hides a fierce resentment at failed crops, lost jobs, thieving insurance men, bug-ridden flour.

Sula leaps an invisible line and roams the cities of America for ten years. Then she returns to the town, to her friend. But Nel is a wife now, settled with her man and her three children. She belongs. She accommodates to the Bottom, where you avoid the hand of God by getting in it, by staying upright, helping out at church suppers, asking after folks — where you deal with evil by surviving it. Not Sula. As willing to feel pain as to give pain, she can never accommodate. Nel can't understand her any more, and the others never did. Sula scares them. Mention her now, and they recall that she put her grandma in an old folks' home (the old lady who let a train take her leg for the insurance. Toni Morrison evokes not only a bond between two lives, but the harsh, loveless, ultimately mad world in which that bond is destroyed, the world of the Bottom and its people, through forty years, up to the time of their bewildered realization that even more than they feared Sula, their pariah, they needed her.

Mississippi

2008-02-12T17:42:00.001-05:00

Jill said, "Hi, Bonnie! I just finished The Year of Jubilo by Howard Bahr, which was set in Mississippi in 1865. A wonderful peek into post-Civil War Mississippi. Here is my review." Now my apology ... Jill told me about this book in November, and I just discovered it, lost as a draft among these posts. Mea culpa!

On a spring day in 1865 Gawain Harper trudges toward his home in Cumberland, Mississippi, where three years earlier he had boarded a train carrying the latest enlistees in the Mississippi Infantry. Unmoved by the cause that motivated so many others, he had joined up only when Morgan Rhea's father told Gawain that he would never wed his beloved Morgan unless he did his part in the war effort. Upon his return, he discovers post-war life is far from what he expected. Morgan has indeed waited for him, but before they can marry there are scores to be settled.

North Dakota

2008-02-12T04:36:00.000-05:00

GretchenA said, "I don't see a recommendation for North Dakota yet. ... Not sure this is really a recommendation, but certainly it counts from location standpoint: The Endless Sky, by Kathryn Davis. Here's the link to my review."

Gretchen mentions three surprises:
(1) Endless Sky by Kathryn Lynn Davis is a romance novel, set in the Badlands of North Dakota. It's a western in that there's a subplot involving a half-breed Indian and there are plenty of scenes involving gunslingers, fires, and roping cattle, but it is also definitely a romance.

(2) It's based on truth, as there actually is a town of Medora, North Dakota. Here's a link to the historic city of Medora.

(3) It's a Banned Book. Gretchen said, "Truthfully, I fell off my chair at this one. Apparently when these two books were published [this book follows another], the town of Medora was celebrating its centennial. The publisher reached out and suggested that they factor the books into the celebration. That suited the town fathers fine until they realized that the books didn't make the Marquis into a saint. He was French, rich, and an explorer (all true) and yet the people of Medora were shocked that the Marquis could have been unfaithful to his wife. So they cancelled the celebration and banned the book from their library, thus ensuring that this little romance novel would automatically become a best seller."
__________

Bonnie's NOTE: If any of you read this, let me know and we'll post your review on my Banned Books blog. Gretchen, would you be willing to cross-post your review to the Banned Books site? It's an excellent review.

New York

2008-02-10T07:58:00.000-05:00

Teddy Rose said, "Here are two books I came up with to cover two states and my reviews of them: NY = NEW YORK: The Crazyladies of Pearl Street by Trevanian."

The place is Albany, New York. The year is 1936. Six-year-old Jean-Luc LaPointe, his little sister, and their spirited but vulnerable young mother have been abandoned — again — by his father, a charmer and a con artist. With no money and no family willing to take them in, the LaPointes manage to create a fragile nest at 238 North Pearl Street. For the next eight years, through the Great Depression and Second World War, they live in the heart of the Irish slum, with its ward heelers, unemployment, and grinding poverty. As Jean-Luc discovers, it's a neighborhood of "crazyladies": Miss Cox, the feared and ridiculed teacher who ignites his imagination; Mrs. Kane, who runs a beauty parlor/fortune-telling salon in the back of her husband's grocery store; Mrs. Meehan, the desperate, harried matriarch of a thuggish family across the street; lonely Mrs. McGivney, who spends every day tending to her catatonic husband, a veteran of the Great War; and Jean-Luc's own unconventional, vivacious mother.

Jean-Luc is a voracious reader who never stops dreaming of a way out of the slum. He gradually takes on responsibility for the family's survival with a mix of bravery and resentment while his mom turns from spells of illness and depression to eager planning for the day when "our ship will come in." It's a heartfelt and unforgettable look back at one child's life in the 1930s and '40s, a story that will be remembered long after the last page is turned.

Iowa

2008-02-10T07:46:00.000-05:00

Teddy Rose said, "Here are two books I came up with to cover two states and my reviews of them: IA = IOWA: The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir by Bill Bryson."

Bill Bryson was born in the middle of the American century — 1951 — in the middle of the United States — Des Moines, Iowa — in the middle of the largest generation in American history — the baby boomers. As one of the best and funniest writers alive, he is perfectly positioned to mine his memories of a totally all-American childhood for 24-carat memoir gold. Like millions of his generational peers, Bill Bryson grew up with a rich fantasy life as a superhero. In his case, he ran around his house and neighborhood with an old football jersey with a thunderbolt on it and a towel about his neck that served as his cape, leaping tall buildings in a single bound and vanquishing awful evildoers (and morons) — in his head — as "The Thunderbolt Kid."

Using this persona as a springboard, Bill Bryson re-creates the life of his family and his native city in the 1950s in all its transcendent normality — a life at once completely familiar to us all and as far away and unreachable as another galaxy. It was, he reminds us, a happy time, when automobiles and televisions and appliances (not to mention nuclear weapons) grew larger and more numerous with each passing year, and DDT, cigarettes, and the fallout from atmospheric testing were considered harmless or even good for you. He brings us into the life of his loving but eccentric family, including affectionate portraits of his father, a gifted sportswriter for the local paper and dedicated practitioner of isometric exercises, and OF his mother,whose job as the home furnishing editor for the same paper left her little time for practicing the domestic arts at home.

Maryland

2008-01-29T18:35:00.000-05:00

Jill said, "I finished my Maryland read. It was a book called Two Brothers - One North, One South by David H. Jones. This book detailed Maryland's contribution, both Union and Confederate, to the American Civil War. Here is my review."

Walt Whitman feared that the real war would never get in the books: the true stories that depicted the courage and humanity of soldiers who fought, bled, and died in the American Civil War. Exceptionally researched and keenly accurate to actual events, along with the personages that forged them, David H. Jones's novel spans four years in the midst of America s costliest and most commemorated war. The journey is navigated by the poet, Walt Whitman, whose documented compassion for the wounded and dying soldiers of the war takes him to Armory Square Hospital in Washington, D.C., and finds him at the bedside of William Prentiss, a Rebel soldier, just after fighting has ended. As fate has it, William's brother, Clifton, a Union officer, is being treated in another ward of the same hospital, and Whitman becomes the sole link not just between the two, but with the rest of their family as well.

The reader is taken seamlessly from Medfield Academy in Baltimore, where the Prentiss family makes its home, to the many battlefields where North and South collide, and even through the drawing rooms of wartime Richmond, where Hetty, Jenny, and Constance Cary are the reigning belles.

David H. Jones, author of this book, was born and raised in West Virginia. He has been a lifelong student of the Civil War. His research took him into the swamps of Dinwiddie County, Virginia, to rediscover the lost location where a pivotal event in the book took place.

Bonnie adds: "Two Brothers: One North, One South by David H. Jones won't be published until February, so you must have an advance reading copy, Jill, right? This synopsis has me interested already ... because my grandmother was born in Dinwiddie County, Virginia."

Alaska

2008-01-26T23:23:00.000-05:00

Sharon said, "Alaska ... I'd like to suggest books by the author Sue Henry for a read from Alaska. They are mysteries about the musher Jessie Arnold." Bonnie added, "Sharon has chosen to read Deadfall by Sue Henry, so let's take a look at that one."

Iditarod musher Jessie Arnold is being stalked and terrorized by an anonymous enemy. First, one of her sled dogs is badly injured in a steel trap and an ominous note leaves no doubt that the trap was set with malicious intent. Threatening phone calls and unsigned messages follow -- pressing Alaska State Trooper Alex Jensen to urge Jessie to go into hiding while he tries to track down the source of the threats. Finally, a near fatal car crash convinces Jessie to let Alex fly her to an isolated island more than two hundred miles away.

There on desolate, windswept Kachemak Bay, Jessie hikes the island trails with her lead dog Tank, marveling at the splendor of her solitude. But in a wilderness filled with hazards and hiding places, she soon discovers she is not alone. With Alex searching for a madman hundreds of miles away, Jessie is on her own ... playing a deadly game of hide and seek with a killer.

North Carolina

2008-01-20T12:47:00.001-05:00

Jill said, "I just finished my official NC book for this challenge: On Agate Hill by Lee Smith (review). It was a wonderful look into North Carolina's history from the plantation life after the Civil War and mountain life around the turn of the century.

A dusty box discovered in the wreckage of a once prosperous plantation on Agate Hill in Nnorth Carolina contains the remnants of an extraordinary life: diaries, letters, poems, songs, newspaper clippings, court records, marbles, rocks, dolls, and bones. It's through these treasured mementos that we meet Molly Petree. Raised in those ruins and orphaned by the Civil War, Molly is a refugee who has no interest in self-pity. When a mysterious benefactor appears out her father's past to rescue her, she never looks back. Spanning half a century, On Agate Hill follows Molly’s passionate, picaresque journey through love, betrayal, motherhood, a murder trial—and back home to Agate Hill under circumstances she never could have imagined.

To read an excerpt, click here.

Vermont

2007-11-03T13:05:00.000-04:00

Jill said, "Hi, Bonnie! I finished my Vermont read: The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian, and here is my review."

When college sophomore Laurel Estabrook is attacked while riding her bicycle through Vermont’s back roads, her life is forever changed. Formerly outgoing, Laurel withdraws into her photography and begins to work at a homeless shelter. There she meets Bobbie Crocker, a man with a history of mental illness and a box of photographs that he won’t let anyone see. When Bobbie dies suddenly, Laurel discovers that he was telling the truth: before he was homeless, Bobbie Crocker was a successful photographer who had indeed worked with such legends as Chuck Berry, Robert Frost, and Eartha Kitt. As Laurel’s fascination with Bobbie’s former life begins to merge into obsession, she becomes convinced that some of his photographs reveal a deeply hidden, dark family secret. Her search for the truth will lead her further from her old life — and into a cat-and-mouse game with pursuers who claim they want to save her.

Illinois

2007-10-20T00:20:00.000-04:00

Lisalit said, "What about Illinois? I know lots of books that are set in Chicago, my hometown! The Time Traveler's Wife is set both in Chicago and Michigan. Crossing California by Adam Langer is an excellent Chicago read. There are plenty of others: The House on Mango Street. Devil in a White City. The Jungle."

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger is the remarkable story of Henry DeTamble, a dashing, adventuresome librarian who travels involuntarily through time, and Clare Abshire, an artist whose life takes a natural sequential course. Henry and Clare's passionate love affair endures across a sea of time and captures the two lovers in an impossibly romantic trap, and it is Audrey Niffenegger's cinematic storytelling that makes the novel's unconventional chronology so vibrantly triumphant. And how does this fit Illinois? Henry De Tamble is librarian at the famous Newberry Library in Chicago.

Set in Chicago's Jewish neighborhood of West Rogers Park, Crossing California by Adam Langer is the story of three families — adults and children alike — coming of age during the tumultuous, turbulent days of the Iran hostage crisis. At the close of the 1970s, the Rovners, the Wasserstroms, and the Wills-Silvermans will have to shed their pasts to cross into that new, shining decade of hope: the 80s.

Told in a series of vignettes stunning for their eloquence, The House on Mango Street is Sandra Cisneros's greatly admired novel of a young girl growing up in the Latino section of Chicago. Acclaimed by critics, beloved by children, their parents and grandparents, taught everywhere from inner-city grade schools to universities across the country, and translated all over the world, it has entered the canon of coming-of-age classics. Sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes deeply joyous, The House on Mango Street tells the story of Esperanza Cordero, whose neighborhood is one of harsh realities and harsh beauty. Esperanza doesn't want to belong -- not to her rundown neighborhood, and not to the low expectations the world has for her. Esperanza's story is that of a young girl coming into her power, and inventing for herself what she will become.

The Devil in the White City draws the reader into a time of magic and majesty, made all the more appealing by a supporting cast of real-life characters, including Buffalo Bill, Theodore Dreiser, Susan B. Anthony, Thomas Edison, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, and others. In this book the smoke, romance, and mystery of the Gilded Age come alive as never before. Two men, each handsome and unusually adept at his chosen work, embodied an element of the great dynamic that characterized America’s rush toward the twentieth century. The architect was Daniel Hudson Burnham, the fair’s brilliant director of works and the builder of many of the country’s most important structures, including the Flatiron Building in New York and Union Station in Washington, D.C. The murderer was Henry H. Holmes, a young doctor who, in a malign parody of the White City, built his “World’s Fair Hotel” just west of the fairgrounds—a torture palace complete with dissection table, gas chamber, and 3,000-degree crematorium. Burnham overcame tremendous obstacles and tragedies as he organized the talents of Frederick Law Olmsted, Charles McKim, Louis Sullivan, and others to transform swampy Jackson Park into the White City, while Holmes used the attraction of the great fair and his own satanic charms to lure scores of young women to their deaths. What makes the story all the more chilling is that Holmes really lived, walking the grounds of that dream city by the lake. Erik Larson’s gifts as a storyteller are magnificently displayed in this rich narrative of the master builder, the killer, and the great fair that obsessed them both. To find outmore about this book, go to http://www.DevilInTheWhiteCity.com.

Upton Sinclair’s muckraking masterpiece The Jungle centers on Jurgis Rudkus, a Lithuanian immigrant working in Chicago’s infamous Packingtown. Instead of finding the American Dream, Rudkus and his family inhabit a brutal, soul-crushing urban jungle dominated by greedy bosses, pitiless con-men, and corrupt politicians. While Sinclair’s main target was the industry’s appalling labor conditions, the reading public was most outraged by the disgusting filth and contamination in American food that his novel exposed. As a result, President Theodore Roosevelt demanded an official investigation, which quickly led to the passage of the Pure Food and Drug laws. For a work of fiction to have such an impact outside its literary context is extremely rare. (At the time of The Jungle’s publication in 1906, the only novel to have led to social change on a similar scale in America was Uncle Tom’s Cabin.) Today, The Jungle remains a relevant portrait of capitalism at its worst and an impassioned account of the human spirit facing nearly insurmountable challenges.

New Mexico

2007-10-20T00:07:00.001-04:00

Bonnie said, "The Night Journal by Elizabeth Crook was recommended to me by a friend. I read about the book online and think it could fit here, so let's add it as a possibility for New Mexico."

Meg Mabry has spent her life with her back turned to her legendary family legacy. In the 1890s her great-grandmother Hannah Bass composed starkly revealing diaries of her life on the southwestern frontier, first as a Harvey Girl at the glamorous Montezuma Resort in New Mexico and later as the wife of brilliant, and often-absent, railway engineer Eliott Bass. A generation later, Hannah's daughter, Claudia Bass, renowned historian known to all as Bassie, staked her academic career and reputation on these vibrant accounts, editing and publishing them to great acclaim. Thanks to the journals and to the industry Bassie created around them, Hannah would forever be one of the most romantic and famous figures of southwestern history.

Meg, however-Bassie's granddaughter-finds the family lore oppressive. When an excavation on the old Bass family property beckons a now-elderly and viper-tongued Bassie back to the fabled land of her childhood, Meg only grudgingly consents to accompany her. Determined not to live under the shadow of her ancestry, Meg has never even read the journals. But when an unexpected discovery casts doubt on the history recorded in their pages and harbored in Bassie's memories, Meg finally succumbs to the allure of her great grandmother's story and ventures even deeper into Hannah's life to unlock the mystery at the journal's core.

Massachusetts

2007-10-10T15:17:00.000-04:00

Kristina said, "Bonnie, I finished Blackbird House a few days ago and wanted to send you the link to my post for the States Challenge website. I don't think this book has been mentioned for Massachusetts yet."

Blackbird House is an evocative novel that traces the lives of the various occupants of an old Massachusetts house over a span of two hundred years. Alice Hoffman weaves a web of tales, all set in Blackbird House. This small farm on the outer reaches of Cape Cod is a place that is as bewitching and alive as the characters we meet: Violet, a brilliant girl who is in love with books and with a man destined to betray her; Lysander Wynn, attacked by a halibut as big as a horse, certain that his life is ruined until a boarder wearing red boots arrives to change everything; Maya Cooper, who does not understand the true meaning of the love between her mother and father until it is nearly too late. From the time of the British occupation of Massachusetts to our own modern world, family after family’s lives are inexorably changed, not only by the people they love but by the lives they lead inside Blackbird House.

Michigan

2007-09-29T08:57:00.000-04:00

Jill said, "Hi, Bonnie: I finished Middlesex for this challenge, which was set in Detroit, Michigan. While I was disappointed with the book, I did learn a lot about Detroit throughout the 20th century, and that part was interesting. Here's my review."

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides was the winner of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, was nominated for the 2002 National Book Critics Circle Award in Fiction, and was a 2002 Lambda Literary Award Finalist, Transgender. Just threw that in to counter Jill's disappointment with the book.

In the spring of 1974, Calliope Stephanides, a student at a girls' school in Grosse Pointe, finds herself drawn to a chain-smoking, strawberry blond classmate with a gift for acting. The passion that furtively develops between them, along with Callie's failure to develop, leads Callie to suspect that she is not like other girls. In fact, she is not really a girl at all.

The explanation for this shocking state of affairs takes us out of suburbia, back before the Detroit race riots of 1967, before the rise of the Motor City and Prohibition, to 1922, when the Turks sacked Smyrna and Callie's grandparents fled for their lives. Back to a tiny village in Asia Minor where two lovers, and one rare genetic mutation, set in motion the metamorphosis that will turn Callie into a being both mythical and perfectly real: a hermaphrodite.

Spanning eight decades and one unusually awkward adolescence, this novel is a grand, utterly original fable of crossed bloodlines, the intricacies of gender, and the deep, untidy promptings of desire.
__________

Teddy Rose has also reviewed Middlesex.

How to join this challenge

2007-09-18T12:51:00.000-04:00

All you have to do to join the challenge is make yourself a list of what you want to read. You may change the list at any time, add to it, take away yucky choices, or add books one at a time as you read them. Post your questions on the blog, so the answers will help other bloggers. When you finish a good book, tell us about it. If you provide a link to your actual post about a book, I'll add the link so others may see what you thought about the book. Suggest titles of books you run across, especially ones that you think are good. Share your thoughts with us by clicking on COMMENTS below any of the posts you happen to be reading, and I'll be notified that I have a comment.

I'll probably never know how many people around the world are doing this challenge, but that's okay. I think we should help each other, but many are afraid to post their names online. It's okay to use an alias or screen name. It's okay to be anonymous. But it's also okay to say, "This is what I think about the book." Then tell us. Was it wonderful? awful? so-so? a keeper? What did you like about it? I have a set of book review questions on my other blog ... Bonnie's Books ... which I should probably post on ALL my bookish blogs. You'll find it in the links below my icon: Book review outline.

New Hampshire

2007-09-15T22:12:00.000-04:00

Jill said, "I finished Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult, which is set in NH. Here's my review."

In nineteen minutes, you can mow the front lawn, color your hair, watch a third of a hockey game. In nineteen minutes, you can bake scones or get a tooth filled by a dentist; you can fold laundry for a family of five. ... In nineteen minutes, you can stop the world, or you can just jump off it. In nineteen minutes, you can get revenge.

Sterling is a small, ordinary New Hampshire town where nothing ever happens — until the day its complacency is shattered by a shocking act of violence. In the aftermath, the town's residents must not only seek justice in order to begin healing, but also come to terms with the role they played in the tragedy. For them, the lines between truth and fiction, right and wrong, insider and outsider have been obscured forever. Josie Cormier, the teenage daughter of the judge sitting on the case, could be the state's best witness, but she can't remember what happened in front of her own eyes. And as the trial progresses, fault lines between the high school and the adult community begin to show, destroying the closest of friendships and families.

Nineteen Minutes is New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult's most raw, honest, and important novel yet. Told with the straightforward style for which she has become known, it asks simple questions that have no easy answers: Can your own child become a mystery to you? What does it mean to be different in our society? Is it ever okay for a victim to strike back? And who — if anyone — has the right to judge someone else?

Kentucky

2007-09-03T23:21:00.000-04:00

Framed said, "Josh Akers wrote this review on Amazon about River of Earth by James Still: 'James Still has exquisitely and intricately chronicled what it is like to be born, live, and die in the hills of eastern Kentucky. Natives of the region will read the book and feel attached to the book if by nothing else but the geography. Others will be drawn into the book by the sincerity and realism of the characters. Still, the poet laureate of Kentucky, beautifully relates the attachment of eastern Kentuckians to the mountain soil in spite of the poverty and hard living that they must endure. More than that, however, it is a story of inspiration and coming of age. I highly recommend it to anyone.'"

River of Earth by James Still chronicles the poverty of early 20th century Appalachian coal miners and their struggle to care for their families, make ends meet, and maintain their humanity in an industry that provides only obstacles. The story is seen through the eyes of a small boy and covers three years in the life of his family and their kin.

Montana

2007-09-03T23:01:00.000-04:00

Framed said, "I just read English Creek by Ivan Doig, which is set in late-Depression era Montana. Like your other Montana suggestion, it involves the U S Forest Service and a host of other memorable characters. The narrator, a fourteen-year-old boy named Jick is particularly well-written."

In this prizewinning portrait of a time and place — Montana in the 1930s — that at once inspires and fulfills a longing for an explicable past, Ivan Doig has created one of the most captivating families in American fiction, the McCaskills. The witty and haunting narration, a masterpiece of vernacular in the tradition of Twain, follows the events of the Two Medicine country's summer: the tide of sheep moving into the high country, the capering Fourth of July rodeo and community dance, and an end-of-August forest fire high in the Rockies that brings the book, as well as the McCaskill family's struggle within itself, to a stunning climax. It is a season of escapade as well as drama, during which fourteen-year-old Jick comes of age. Through his eyes we see those nearest and dearest to him at a turning point — "where all four of our lives made their bend" — and discover along with him his own connection to the land, to history, and to the deep-fathomed mysteries of one's kin and one's self.

Ohio

2007-09-03T22:52:00.000-04:00

Framed said, "Lynne also suggested The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio by Terry Ryan for Ohio. It's about a woman who supports her ten children in the fifties and sixties by entering contests. The comments on Amazon were very positive. I've added it to my list and even bookmooched it."

The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio: How My Mother Raised 10 Kids on 25 Words or Less by Terry Ryan introduces Evelyn Ryan, an enterprising woman who kept poverty at bay with wit, poetry, and perfect prose during the "contest era" of the 1950s and 1960s. Evelyn's winning ways defied the church, her alcoholic husband, and antiquated views of housewives. To her, flouting convention was a small price to pay when it came to raising her six sons and four daughters. Graced with a rare appreciation for life's inherent hilarity, Evelyn turned every financial challenge into an opportunity for fun and profit. The story of this irrepressible woman, whose clever entries are worthy of Erma Bombeck, Dorothy Parker, and Ogden Nash, is told by her daughter Terry with an infectious joy that shows how a winning spirit will always triumph over poverty.

Indiana

2007-09-03T22:31:00.000-04:00

Framed said, "I found In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash by Jean Shepherd for Indiana. It's a humorous novel and I need some laughter right now. I may have to do this challenge twice."

Jean Shepherd was a master writer who spun the materials of his all-American childhood into immensely resonant —and utterly hilarious — works of comic art. In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash represents one of the peaks of his achievement, a compound of irony, affection, and perfect detail that speaks across generations. Shepherd's wildly witty reunion with his Indiana hometown disproves the adage "You can never go back." Bending the ear of Flick, his childhood-buddy-turned-bartender, Shepherd recalls passionately his genuine Red Ryder BB gun, confesses adolescent failure in the arms of Junie Jo Prewitt, and relives a story of man against fish that not even Hemingway could rival. From pop art to the World's Fair, Shepherd's subjects speak with a universal irony and are deeply and unabashedly grounded in American Midwestern life, together rendering a wonderfully nostalgic impression of a more innocent era when life was good, fun was clean, and station wagons roamed the earth. Shepherd may have accomplished for Holden, Indiana, what Mark Twain did for Hannibal, Missouri. And by the way, the movie "A Christmas Story" is based on a single chapter of this book.
__________

Jill said, "I read this book too! Here is my review. Quite funny and great look at Indiana during the depression."

Massachusetts

2007-09-03T22:22:00.000-04:00

Framed said, "I listed Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick for my Massachusetts book. Probably because I own it, but I've heard good things about it also."

Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick tracks the Pilgrims from their perilous 1620 transatlantic crossing to the bloody battles of King Philip's War (1675-76). With compelling detail, he describes the delicate social ecology achieved by the Pilgrims and Native Americans before it was broken by a deadly war of attrition. His carefully modulated story blends acts of settler courage and kindness with those of savagery and cowardice. The Mayflower Compact degenerated into a divisive debate of war and peace. Captain Miles Standish, military advisor for the Pilgrims, argued for a ruthless bellicosity, while Edward Winslow, a deputy governor of Plymouth Colony, sought a negotiated settlement with the Indians. A major nonfiction work. Nathaniel Philbrick is the author of the New York Times bestseller In the Heart of the Sea, which won the National Book Award, and Sea of Glory, winner of the Theodore and Franklin D. Roosevelt Naval History Prize.

New Jersey

2007-08-30T08:45:00.000-04:00

3M said, "There are some Pulitzers that are set in these states, but I have no idea if the setting is integral to the book: New Jersey - American Pastoral by Philip Roth (I don't like Roth, but it’s a Pulitzer) ... Independence Day by Richard Ford (Pulitzer)."

In American Pastoral by Philip Roth, Seymour "Swede" Levov — a legendary high school athlete, a devoted family man, a hard worker, the prosperous inheritor of his father's Newark glove factory — comes of age in thriving, triumphant postwar America. But everything he loves is lost when the country begins to run amok in the turbulent 1960s. Not even the most private, well-intentioned citizens, it seems, get to sidestep the sweep of history. American Pastoral is the story of a fortunate American's rise and fall — of a strong, confident master of social equilibrium overwhelmed by the forces of social disorder. For the Swede is not allowed to stay forever blissful inside the beloved hundred-and-seventy-year-old stone farmhouse, in rural Old Rimrock, where he lives with his pretty wife — the college sweetheart who was Miss New Jersey of 1949 — and the lively, precocious daughter who is the apple of his eye. The apple of his eye, that is, until she grows up to be a revolutionary terrorist bent on destroying her father's paradise. American Pastoral presents a vivid portrait of how the innocence of Swede Levov is swept away by the times — of how everything industriously created by his family in America over three generations is left in a shambles by the explosion of a bomb in his own bucolic backyard.

Independence Day is essentially an internal monologue, set on the long July 4th weekend of 1988. In this sequel to The Sportswriter, the protagonist is Frank Bascombe, a divorced, well-educated former sportswriter who now makes his living selling real estate in the affluent New Jersey town of Haddam, while supplementing his earnings with a couple of rental properties he owns in the town's African American neighborhood. While Frank is trying to give his disinterested son a civics lesson on the meaning of Independence Day, Paul feigns confusion and asks a question or two, which Frank knows were really meant to mock him. Paul delights at ridiculing the hall of fame.

Massachusetts

2007-08-30T08:33:00.000-04:00

3M said, "There are some Pulitzers that are set in these states, but I have no idea if the setting is integral to the book: Massachusetts - The Late George Apley by John Phillips Marquand (Pulitzer)."

John P. Marquand (1893-1960) wrote several widely admired and bestselling novels, among them the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Late George Apley (1937). Sweeping us into the inner sanctum of Boston society, into the Beacon Hill town houses and exclusive private clubs where only the city's wealthiest and most powerful congregate, this novel gives us — through the story of one family and its patriarch, the recently deceased George Apley — the portrait of an entire society in transition. Gently satirical and rich with drama, the novel moves from the Gilded Age to the Great Depression as it projects George Apley's world — and subtly reveals a life in which success and accomplishment mask disappointment and regret, a life of extreme and enviable privilege that is nonetheless an imperfect life.

Indiana

2007-08-30T08:25:00.001-04:00

3M said, "What about A Girl Named Zippy for Indiana?"

When Haven Kimmel was born in 1965, Mooreland, Indiana was a sleepy little hamlet of three hundred people. Nicknamed "Zippy" for the way she would run around like a circus monkey, this small girl was possessed of big eyes and even bigger ears. In this lovingly told memoir, Kimmel takes readers back in time to when small-town America was still trapped in the amber of the innocent post-war period: people help their neighbors, go to church, keep barnyard animals in their backyards.

To three-year-old Zippy, it makes perfect sense to strike a bargain with her father to keep her baby bottle — never mind that when she does, it's the first time she's ever spoken. The words never stop once Zippy finds her voice, and it is a voice that Kimmel captures perfectly page after page. In her nonplussed family, Zippy has the ideal supporting cast: her beautiful yet dour brother, Danny, a seeker of the true faith; her sweetly sensible sister, Lindy, who wins the local beauty pageant; her mother, Delonda, who dispenses wisdom from the corner of the couch; and her father, Bob Jarvis, who never met a bet he didn't take. The world seen through Zippy's eyes is vivid and occasionally mind-boggling, especially when Zippy grapples with the meaning of time and has to go lie in a "worm hole" to recover.

Whether describing a serious case of chicken love, another episode with the evil old woman across the street, or the night Zippy's dad borrows thirty-six coon dogs and a raccoon to prove to the complaining neighbors just how quiet his two dogs are, Kimmel treats readers to a heroine as appealing, naive, and knowing as Scout Finch as she navigates the quirky adult world surrounding Zippy.

Update, still need 13 states

2007-08-30T00:54:00.000-04:00

We have at least one book for 37 states, but we are missing any mention (so far) of 13 states:

Connecticut
Delaware
Illinois
Indiana
Massachusetts
New Jersey
North Dakota
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Dakota
Utah
Virginia
Wisconsin

Even states we have mentioned may need more suggestions. Many have only one book mentioned so far, which means we may not have found the BEST of the bunch.

Idaho

... is only part of one book, not really a whole book about the state. Do you know of any others? Please keep those suggestions coming in ... and thanks to everyone who has suggested a book or books.

Now, take a look at our UPDATED "visited states" map at the bottom of this page.

Kansas

2007-08-30T00:17:00.000-04:00

Framed said, "Lynne @ http://lynneslittlecorner.blogspot.com/ added The Wizard of Oz for Kansas."

Hailed as the first original American fairy tale, The Wizard of Oz inspired countless sequels and imitations, as well as the classic American musical film and the Broadway musical The Wiz. In L. Frank Baum's imaginative story, Dorothy Gale takes a magical journey from the American heartland into the wonderful land of Oz to meet the Tin Woodman, the Scarecrow, and the Cowardly Lion.

Ohio

2007-08-29T23:43:00.000-04:00

Framed said, "Lynne @ http://lynneslittlecorner.blogspot.com/ added "And the Ladies of the Club" by Helen Hooven Santmyer for Ohio. Ladies is a great book but big. It's an epic starting in the late 1800's, I think."

"...And Ladies of the Club" centers on the members of a book club and their struggles to understand themselves, each other, and the tumultuous world they live in.

Yikes! Yes, it IS long ... at 1184 pages! I think the author sounds interesting: "Helen Hooven Santmyer was born in 1895 and lived in Xenia, Ohio. In addition to her career as a writer, she worked as an English professor, a dean of women, and a librarian." But I wish the publisher had told me more about the book. A reviewer named Stan (a man, no less) had this to say: "The book is the story of a fictional medium-sized town in southern Ohio, from just after the Civil War to the beginning of the Depression. The story is told primarily through the eyes of a women's book club, and focuses particularly on two of the club's members and their families. All the important themes of life are explored: love, race, jealousy, religion, war, politics, business, literature, education, family relationships, and death. If you read this book, you will be both moved to tears and richly educated in American history. How much more can you ask of one book?"

Wyoming

2007-08-29T23:19:00.000-04:00

Framed said, "Candleman @ http://www.carpecrustulum.blogspot.com/ suggested An Unfinished Life for Wyoming. Don't know the author."

In an extraordinary tale of love and forgiveness, Mark Spragg brings us this novel of a complex, prodigal homecoming. After escaping the last of a long string of abusive boyfriends, Jean Gilkyson and her ten-year-old daughter Griff have nowhere left to go. Nowhere except Ishawooa, Wyoming, where Jean's estranged father-in-law, Einar, still blames her for the death of his son. Though Einar isn’t glad to see either of them, Griff falls in love with his sprawling ranch and quiet way of life, as she slowly gets to know his crippled old friend Mitch, the cats that lurk in the barn at milking time, and finally the grandfather she had lost for so many years. An emotionally charged story of hard-won friendship and reconciliation, An Unfinished Life shows a novelist of extraordinary talents in the fullness of his powers.

Framed continued, "That suggestion led me to Where Rivers Change Directions by Mark Spragg and Fencing the Sky by James Galvin also for Wyoming."

Where Rivers Change Direction: A Memoir by Mark Spragg is a collection of essays telling an unforgettable story of an adolescence spent on the oldest dude ranch in Wyoming, a remote spread on the Shoshone National Forest, the largest block of unfenced wilderness in the lower forty-eight states. On the occasion of buying his first horse, Spragg earns a rare day-off from work and spends it at a stock auction with his father, a man whose love, though earned, remains ineffable. A life-threatening accident on an elk hunt in a remote wilderness area becomes a reflection upon the depth and nature of the bond between a young man and his mentor. A boy's desire to fire a gun is cause for questioning rites of passage that wed manhood and violence. A mortally injured wild horse and a mysterious, reclusive neighbor haunt the winter Spragg spends as a caretaker at a snow-bound ranch where the dance between life and death, sanity and insanity, is inescapable. Where Rivers Change Direction illuminates the unexpected wisdom and irrevocable truth embedded in the small but profound dramas of one boy's journey toward manhood. From a wild and unforgiving setting emerges an individual of extraordinary fortitude, humility, and understanding.

Fencing the Sky by James Galvin reveals how passion can send circumstances spiraling out of control: the inevitable clash when people believe the land they love is threatened. Galloping through the lush, beaver-worked draw looking for stray cows, Mike Arans never imagined that he was about to kill a man by swinging a nylon lasso around his neck. Once the man was dead, Mike pulled a notepad and pencil stub from his pocket and wrote, "I did this." He signed the note and stuffed it into the dead man's breast pocket. Mike then returned home, stocked up on supplies, and within minutes was heading west. Thus begins what turns out to be a dramatic escape into the rugged wilderness of northern Colorado and Wyoming. The novel's deeper story, however, goes back many years and confronts the issues that divide contemporary westerners. At its center are Ad, Oscar, and Mike, whose lives turn with the seasons and the rigors of ranch life, mountain-hardened men who do not possess but are themselves possessed by the land.

Maine

2007-08-26T23:54:00.000-04:00

3M said, "I've also heard that A Country of Pointed Firs by Jewett is good for Maine." (Yikes! Michelle suggested this ten days ago! I never got it posted and just ran across it again. Please help me, everyone. If you notice I failed to post a suggested book, or forgot to put a title in the sidebar list, or whatever ... please let me know!)

Sarah Orne Jewett's The Country of the Pointed Firs was published in 1896, and it quickly garnered a reputation for its truthfulness and the quality of its writing. Rudyard Kipling described it as "immense -- it is the very life," and Henry James praised it for being "absolutely true -- not a word overdone -- such elegance and exactness." It's a classic of American fiction, memorializing the traditions, manners and dialect of Maine coast natives at the turn of the 20th century. In luminous evocations of their lives, Maine-born Jewett created startlingly real portraits of individual New Englanders, and a warm, humorous and compassionate vision of New England character.

Though nominally a novel, The Country of the Pointed Firs lacks the coherent, unifying plot of more traditional books. Instead, Jewett creates a mosaic of tales and character sketches, all set in the fictional Maine fishing hamlet of Dunnet Landing. The unnamed narrator, an unmarried female writer (like Jewett herself), has come to the town seeking a summer of solitude and work. But she’s drawn to the villagers she meets. Most of them are over sixty, alone, and covering a roiling inner ocean of feeling with a craggy exterior as rocky as the ragged coastline. Entranced by their stories, she allows them to enter her life.

New York

2007-08-21T17:44:00.000-04:00

Bonnie said, "Forever by Pete Hamill is a book about New York that will require a suspension of disbelief, but I really enjoyed the book."

Forever by Pete Hamill is the magical, epic tale of an extraordinary man who arrives in New York in 1740 and remains. . . forever. Through the eyes of young Cormac O'Connor—granted immortality as long as he never leaves the island of Manhattan—we watch New York grow from a tiny settlement on the tip of an untamed wilderness to the thriving metropolis of today. And through Cormac's remarkable adventures in both love and war, we come to know all the city's buried secrets—the way it has been shaped by greed, race, and waves of immigration, by the unleashing of enormous human energies, and, above all, by hope.

Kentucky

2007-08-15T19:57:00.000-04:00

3M said, "I noticed you don't have any books for Kentucky. I just moved from there and would like to suggest books by Wendell Berry and Silas House. Jayber Crow, Hannah Coulter, and Nathan Coulter are some from Berry. Silas House has these three books in chronological order (nor order of publication): Parchment of Leaves, The Coal Tattoo, and Clay's Quilt."

Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry. Returning once again to the Port William membership, Berry has written his best novel yet, a book certain to confirm his reputation as one of America's finest novelists. From the simple setting of his own barber shop, Jayber Crow, orphan, seminarian, and native of Port William, recalls his life and the life of his community as it spends itself in the middle of the twentieth century. Surrounded by his friends and neighbors, he is both participant and witness as the community attempts to transcend its own decline. And meanwhile Jayber learns the art of devotion and that a faithful love is its own reward.

Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry. "Ignorant boys, killing each other," is just about all Nathan Coulter would tell his wife about the Battle of Okinawa in November 1945. Life continued as some boys returned from the war while the lives of others were mourned. Nathan's wife, Hannah, has time now to tell of the years since the war. In her eighties, twice widowed and alone, Hannah shares her memories: of her childhood, of young love and loss, of raising children and the changing seasons. She turns her plain gaze to a community facing its own deterioration, where, she says, "We feel the old fabric torn, pulling apart, and we know how much we have loved each other." Hannah offers her summation: her stories and her gratitude for membership in Port William. We see her whole life as part of the great continuum of love and memory, grief and strength. Hannah Coulter is the latest installment in Wendell Berry's long story about the citizens of Port William, Kentucky. In his unforgettable prose, we learn of the Coulters' children, of the Feltners and Branches, and how survivors "live right on."

Nathan Coulter by Wendell Berry. "Young Nathan struggles to grow up and understand the value of land and family. With the death of his grandfather, Nathan sees that "his life couldn't be divided from the days he'd spent at work in his fields."

Parchment of Leaves by Silas House. "So it is that Vine, Cherokee-born and raised in the early 1900s, trains her eye on a young white man, forsaking her family and their homeland to settle in with Saul's people: his smart-as-a-whip, slow-to-love mother, Esme; his brother Aaron, a gifted banjo player, hot tempered and unpredictable; and Aaron's flightly and chattery Melungeon wife, Aidia." It's a delicate negotiation into this new family and culture, one that Vine's mother had predicted would not go smoothly. But it's worse than she could have imagined. Vine is viewed as an outsider by the townspeople. Aaron, she slowly realizes, is strangely fixated on her. But what is at first difficult becomes a test of her spirit. And in the violent turn of events that ensues, she learns what it means to forgive others and, most important, how to forgive herself.

The Coal Tattoo by Silas House tells the story of Easter and Anneth, tragically left parentles as children, who must raise themselves and each other in their small coal-mining town. Easter is deeply religious, keeps a good home, believes in tradition, and is intent on rearing her wild younger sister properly. Anneth is untamable, full of passion, determined to live hard and fast. The two sisters can't stand to live together, but can't bear to be apart.

Clay's Quilt by Silas House. On a bone-chilling New Year's Day, when all the mountain roads are slick with ice, Clay's mother, Anneth, insists on leaving her husband. She packs her things, and with three-year-old Clay in tow, they inch their way toward her hometown along the treacherous mountain roads. That journey ends in the death of Clay's mother. It's a day that comes to haunt her only son, who's left without a family and a history. This is the story of how Clay Sizemore, a coal miner in love with his town but unsure of his place within it, finds a family to call his own.

Oregon

2007-08-15T09:51:00.000-04:00

Bonnie said, "I found this one because it's listed on 3M's Pulitzer Project, to read all 81 books that have ever won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Although I never got it read, a friend recommended this book to me as a good one about Oregon."

Honey in the Horn is the first novel by Harold Lenoir Davis. It is set in turn-of-the-century Oregon ... and that would be the turn of the LAST century. The novel received the Harper's Prize for fiction the year it was published (1935) and the Pulitzer Prize in 1936. Here's how the book begins:

"There was a run-down old tollbridge station in the Shoestring Valley of Southern Oregon where Uncle Preston Shiveley had lived for fifty years, outlasting a wife, two sons, several plagues of grasshoppers, wheat-rust and caterpillars, a couple or three invasions of land-hunting settlers and real-estate speculators, and everybody else except the scattering of old pioneers who had cockleburred themselves onto the country at about the same time he did."

One reviewer called it "a rollicking good story."

Nebraska

2007-08-08T12:03:00.000-04:00

Bonnie said, "I heartily recommend One Thousand White Women by Jim Fergus. The setting is Nebraska Territory, on the Great Plains of the United States. I wrote my review of the book today and rated it 9.5 out of 10. I couldn't put it down."

One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd is historical fiction. Jim Fergus got the idea for this novel from an actual historical event; at a peace conference at Fort Laramie, a prominent Northern Cheyenne chief requested of the U.S. Army authorities the gift of 1,000 white women as brides for his young warriors. Because theirs is a matrilineal society in which all children born belong to their mother's tribe, this seemed to the Cheyennes to be the perfect means of assimilation into the white man's world, a world they already recognized held no place for them. Needless to say, this request was not well received by the white authorities, and nothing came of it. In the novel the women come west.

Committed to an insane asylum by her blueblood family for an affair with a man beneath her station, May Dodd finds that her only hope of freedom is to participate in a secret government program whereby women from the "civilized" world become the brides of Cheyenne warriors. Along the way she falls in love with John Bourke, a young army captain, even though she has promised to marry the great chief Little Wolf.

New Hampshire

2007-08-05T03:07:00.000-04:00

Bonnie said, "I recommend Beachcombing For A Shipwrecked God by Joe Coomer, which I thoroughly enjoyed reading. One character leaves Kentucky after being widowed and winds up in New Hampshire living on a boat with the elderly owner and a 17-year-old girl."

Nine weeks after losing her husband, Charlotte escapes to New Hampshire, where she takes up residence on a wooden motor yacht named after Don Quixote's horse. Her landlady is an aging blue-haired trompe l'oeil artist, and her cabin mate is an overweight adolescent with an abusive boyfriend. Together these three laugh, cry, and battle injustices.

Off the boat, Charlotte, an archaeologist, joins a local excavation to uncover an ancient graveyard. Here she can indulge her passion for reconstructing the past, even as she tries to bury her own recent history. She comes to realize, however, that the currents of time are as fluid and persistent as the water that drifts beneath her comforting new home. Together the shipmates share some unforgettable adventures, including a madcap trip on the sea in search of the house of Anne of Green Gables.

Arizona

2007-08-04T00:05:00.000-04:00

Jill said, "I just finished a collection of essays by Barbara Kingsolver called High Tide in Tucson, and this is my selection for the beautiful state of Arizona. Kingsolver chooses many settings from her essays, but her descriptions of Arizona are ecological, historical and practical. I think it gives the reader a wonderful snapshot about this state. You can read my review here."

In High Tide in Tucson Barbara Kingsolver explores the themes of family, community, and the natural world. With the eyes of a scientist and the vision of a poet, Kingsolver writes about notions as diverse as modern motherhood, the history of private property, and the suspended citizenship of humans in the animal kingdom. Her canny pursuit of meaning from an inscrutable world compels us to find instructions for life in surprising places: a museum of atomic bomb relics, a West African voodoo love charm, an iconographic family of paper dolls, the ethics of a wild pig who persistently invades a garden, a battle of wills with a two-year-old, or a troop of oysters who observe high tide in the middle of Illinois. In sharing her thoughts about the urgent business of being alive, Kingsolver the essayist employs the same keen eyes, persuasive tongue, and understanding heart that characterize her acclaimed fiction.

West Virginia

2007-07-30T12:09:00.000-04:00

NOLADawn said, "West Virginia- From West Virginia with Love by Andrew Chafin."

Chafin's hobby is writing about Appalachia and its people and places. From West Virginia with Love is the sequel to Noble's Decision, a novel about life, love, and politics in a small Appalachian town. Dawn, does this book work as a stand-alone novel? Or do we first need to read Noble's Decision? Umm, never mind, I can't find thr earlier novel online, anyway. Have you read From West Virginia with Love? If so, what did you think of it?

Nevada

2007-07-30T12:06:00.000-04:00

NOLADawn said, "Nevada- Bittersweet by Nevada Barr"

Award-winning author Nevada Barr reveals another side to her remarkable storytelling prowess with this heart-wrenching yet tender tale of two women whose boundless devotion to each other is continually challenged in nineteenth century America. One online reviewer said, "Reminds me of Fannie Flagg's [Fried Green Tomatoes at the] Whistle Stop Cafe except more intense and deeper material. I have had the book two days and read it twice because I read it too fast the first time."

Michigan

2007-07-30T11:43:00.000-04:00

NOLADawn said, "Michigan- Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon."

Awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1993, Morrison powerfully evokes in her fiction the legacies of displacement and slavery that have been bequeathed to the African-American community. Her most widely read novel is perhaps Beloved, which won the Pulitzer Prize. Song of Solomon, however, is perhaps the most lyrical of her novels, following Milkman Dead as he struggles to understand his family history and the ways in which that history has both been damaged by and transcended the horror of slavery.

Georgia

2007-07-29T23:12:00.000-04:00

Jill said, "Hi, Bonnie: I have finished my Georgia selection for this challenge - a delightful book called Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns. You can read my review here. I know, we need another Georgia book like a hole in the head - but this one does a good job portraying small-town Georgia life!"

The one thing you can depend on in Cold Sassy, Georgia, is that word gets around - fast. When Grandpa E. Rucker Blakeslee announces one July morning in 1906 that he's aiming to marry the young and freckledy milliner, Miss Love Simpson - a bare three weeks after Granny Blakeslee has gone to her reward - the news is served up all over town with that afternoon's dinner. And young Will Tweedy suddenly finds himself eyewitness to a major scandal. Boggled by the sheer audacity of it all, and not a little jealous of his grandpa's new wife, Will nevertheless approves of this May-December match and follows its progress with just a smidgen of youthful prurience. As the newlyweds' chaperone, conspirator, and confidant, Will is privy to his one-armed, renegade grandfather's second adolescence; meanwhile, he does some growing up of his own. He gets run over by a train and lives to tell about it; he kisses his first girl, and survives that too. Olive Ann Burns has given us a timeless, funny, resplendent novel - about a romance that rocks an entire town, about a boy's passage through the momentous but elusive year when childhood melts into adolescence, and about just how people lived and died in a small Southern town at the turn of the last century.

New York

2007-07-27T20:40:00.000-04:00

Neco recommends "The Falls, which is set on the American side of Niagara Falls. Not at all sure which state that is in. I googled the book couldn't find out readily. I'm hoping someone with a better sense of geography than me will know. LOL, this is actually the reason I didn't suggest it before. It's about a romance ended by a death on Niagara Falls back a few generations ago, which leads into the 1950s and a legal battle involving industry pollution of the area. I felt like I was learning about the history of the area, even though it's fiction."

A man climbs over the railings and plunges into Niagara Falls. A newlywed, he has left behind his wife, Ariah Erskine, in the honeymoon suite the morning after their wedding. "The Widow Bride of The Falls," as Ariah comes to be known, begins a relentless, seven-day vigil in the mist, waiting for his body to be found. At her side throughout, confirmed bachelor and pillar of the community Dirk Burnaby is unexpectedly transfixed by the strange, otherworldly gaze of this plain, strange woman, falling in love with her though they barely exchange a word. What follows is their passionate love affair, marriage, and children -- a seemingly perfect existence.

But the tragedy by which their life together began shadows them, damaging their idyll with distrust, greed, and even murder. Joyce Carol Oates explores the American family in crisis, but also America itself in the mid-twentieth century.

New Hampshire

2007-07-27T20:09:00.000-04:00

Neco said, "Anita Shreve (the novelist who wrote Fortune's Rock) lives in (or nearby) Boston and grew up in New England, I think. I have read the majority of her books, which are character driven stories that make one think about why people makes the choices they make and usually have lovely New England settings that feature into the story. I chose this particular book to recommend because not only does it have a complicated romance and complex characters, but the mill towns and factory girls of the early 1900s in New England play into the main story so I thought it shared something about the history of that area of New England. The majority of the book is set at the girl's family's summer home, which is in New Hampshire according to your post (I've read the book more than once but not recently enough to remember for sure), and also in Boston and a mill town in New England. So I'd go New Hampshire, if you use it."

In Fortune's Rocks, Shreve turns historical in venue and ultramodern in attitude. Set at the turn of the century — the 20th century, that is — the story concerns Olympia Biddleford, well-born daughter of an erudite, if rather cold father. The precocious Olympia is the kind of girl who might then have been called high-spirited: She has her own opinions about history and literature, for example, and isn't shy about expressing them — at least within the safety of her family. But Olympia is also high-spirited and provocative in other, more dangerous ways — most notably when she embarks on a sexual relationship with John Haskell, one of her father's friends (and 30 years her senior). Nothing good will come of this, Olympia and the reader both know from the outset; it doesn't take long — just about a third of the novel, in fact — for this foreboding to be proved right. The lovers are soon discovered, and their lives are torn asunder. Haskell's wife leaves him, the Biddlefords' reputation is seriously besmirched, and Olympia is sent by her omnipotent father to a school "out west."

But the story hardly ends there. Olivia, it turns out, is pregnant with Haskell's child, and though in a drugged postpartum state she allows her son to be taken from her, she soon returns to Fortune's Rocks intent on reclaiming him.

It's at this point that Shreve begins blending the novel's own particular topicality cocktail. Olympia discovers that her son is living with well-meaning but poor French immigrants, and she decides to use her not insignificant fortune and still powerful (if somewhat tarnished) reputation to prove that she, not the Telesphore Bolducs, should have custody of her boy. The problem is, even Olympia can't deny that the Bolducs are loving parents and that the child is happy and well in their care. What follows is a court case and a soul-searching that liberally borrows not only from the biblical tale of King Solomon (who is the better mother — the one who will allow her child to be figuratively cut in half or the one who allows him to live with the other?) but also from pop culture milestones such as the 1979 movie "Kramer vs. Kramer" and the Mary Beth Whitehead surrogate mother trial (remember that one?).

South Carolina

2007-07-26T14:52:00.000-04:00

A week or so ago Neco said, "Sue Monk Kidd wrote The Secret Life of Bees and The Mermaid's Chair. Dorothea Benton Frank has written Sullivan's Island, Plantation, Shem Creek, The Land of Mango Sunsets, Isle of Palms, Pawley's Island, and Full of Grace. Of all the above books, I would most recommend Sullivan's Island or Plantation for strong South Carolina culture/setting fiction while still being light and easy reads and following a personal journey of the protagonist."

I suggested (and posted) the first book on each author's list, but upon further reflection I realize I probably should have posted ALL of these books. (I apologize, Neco.) So I'm doing that here.

In The Mermaid's Chair, Sue Monk Kidd tells the story of Jessie Sullivan, which is a love story between a woman and a monk, a woman and her husband, and ultimately a woman and her own soul. On tiny Egret Island, off the coast of South Carolina, Jessie tries to care for her mother, Nelle, who is not particularly eager to be taken care of. Jessie gets help from Nelle's best friends: Kat, a feisty shopkeeper, and Hepzibah, a dignified chronicler of slave history. To complicate matters, Jessie finds herself strangely relieved to be free of a husband she loves ... and wildly attracted to Brother Thomas, a junior monk at the island's secluded Benedictine monastery.

In Plantation, a poignant mother-daughter story, Dorothea Benton Frank evokes a lush plantation in the heart of modern-day South Carolina, where family ties and hidden truths run as deep and dark as the mighty Edisto River.

In Shem Creek, single parent Linda Breland ditches a dead-end job and life in New Jersey to move back home to Mt. Pleasant and start a new life for herself and her teenage daughters. ("Look, if New Jersey had wanted us, it would have given us a reason to stay. It didn't.") The work she finds -- manager of a restaurant on Shem Creek -- introduces her to its owner, Brad Jackson, a man living out his own second chance.

In Land of Mango Sunsets, Frank gives us one woman's journey toward a hard-won truth, that life isn't always what it appears to be, and the sooner you realize that pride won't keep you warm at night, the happier you will be. When Miriam gets her head on straight, then in a whoosh she's off to the enchanted and mysterious land of Sullivan's Island, deep in the Lowcountry of South Carolina. Publishers Weekly says, "This isn't Frank's finest, but it'll sate her fans."

Isle of Palms is set off the coast of Charleston, South Carolina. Anna Lutz Abbot thinks she has her independence, and therefore her happiness, intact. She is a capable woman, a sensible woman, not someone given to risky living. This all seems true enough until her lovely daughter returns from college for the summer a very different person, her wild and wonderful ex-husband arrives, and her flamboyant new best friend takes up with her daddy, turning a hot summer into a steaming one. All the action unfolds under the watchful eyes of Miss Mavis and Miss Angel, her next-door neighbors of a certain age, who have plenty to say about Anna's past, present, and future.

In Pawley's Island Dorothea Benton Frank delivers a refreshingly honest and funny novel about an artist who suddenly enters the complacent lives of several Lowcountry locals ... and turns them upside down. It's a twist-filled tale of friendship, family, and finding happiness by becoming who you are meant to be.

In Full of Grace, Frank gives us Hilton Head, a South Carolina retirement heaven -- at least it's supposed to be. But for Big Al and Connie Russo, the move from New Jersey to this southern paradise has been fraught with just a few complications. Especially for their daughter, Grace. Well, that's what she likes to be called. Her family insists on Maria Graziella. That might have been okay in New Jersey, but now it's just plain silly, and Grace at thirty-two is, horror of horrors, still unmarried. No wonder her family drives her crazy. Well, that and the fact that she's living with the man she would marry if they both weren't so commitment phobic. Michael is a doctor and a scientist and Grace is pretty sure he's also an atheist. Over the years, Grace has become a bit ambivalent about her faith, but her family is as old-fashioned Italian as they come.

Maine

2007-07-26T00:47:00.000-04:00

Bonnie said, "More Than You Know by Beth Gutcheon, which is set in Maine, was recommended to me by a friend. I bought a copy of the book a few years ago and have never read it. My friend was impressed by the book, and we don't yet have one for the state of Maine, so here's one suggestion. Has anyone read it yet?"

More Than You Know is a haunting novel that bridges two centuries, two mother-daughter relationships, and two tragic love stories. In a small town called Dundee on the coast of Maine, an old woman named Hannah Gray begins her story by saying, "Somebody said 'true love is like ghosts, which everyone talks about, and few have seen.' I've seen both, and I don't know how to tell you which is worse." Hannah has a passionate and painful story of true love and loss: the story of a ghost that appeared in her life, and in the life of Conary Crocker, the wild and appealing boy who loved her.

Interwoven with their love story is a story of a marriage that took place in Dundee a hundred years earlier. As the parallels and differences between the two families are revealed, the reader comes to understand that someone in the nineteenth-century story has become the very unquiet soul haunting the twentieth. But not until the end do we learn (as Hannah never can) what force of mischance and personality has led to so much damage, and no one knows if such damage is ever at an end.
____________________
Update on August 26, 2007: Yes! Here's a review by Framed on her blog.
Update on September 15, 2007: Here's a review by Bonnie on her book blog.

California

2007-07-25T03:08:00.000-04:00

Bonnie said, "Place Last Seen by Charlotte McGuinn Freeman is a novel set in the Sierra Nevada range in California. I wrote a book review about it this morning which you may want to read."

During an idyllic autumn-day hike in the Desolation Wilderness of the Sierra Nevadas, the Baker family is hurled into a nightmare when six-year-old Maggie, a child with Down Syndrome, runs away while playing hide-and-seek with her brother. As the Search and Rescue team combs the place where Maggie was last seen, all the family can do is wait and hope that a clue will lead them to her. Much of the story is seen through the eyes of the search and rescue team members, mapping quadrants, sending out tracker dogs, trying to imagine what a little girl might do when she doesn't think like most children in the first place.

Book around the World?

2007-07-23T00:30:00.000-04:00

This idea to Book around the States is working so well, I thought I'd like to add another aspect to it and Book around the World. I've started a companion blog to this one, where we'll look for books that take place in countries around the world. Only the best, of course, as we are looking for here. Go check it out and see the first book suggestion, a book I recommend. Click on the title of the blog: Book around the World

Nebraska

2007-07-22T11:14:00.000-04:00

Stephanie (Confessions of a Book-a-holic) has just posted a book review of Willa Cather's O Pioneers!, which is about Nebraska. She titled the review "Beautifully Written Tale That will Live On," which I'll take as a recommendation. From her description, it sounds like a wonderful book and one that is especially appropriate for us, according to this annotation at B&N: "A rich evocation of 19th-century American life on the prairie, Cather's novel of immigrant homesteaders in Nebraska celebrates the landscape."

O Pioneers!, Willa Cather's first great novel, is the classic American story of pioneer life as embodied by one remarkable woman and her singular devotion to the land. Having immigrated from Sweden, Alexandra Bergson arrives on the wind-blasted prairie of Nebraska as a young girl and, when her father dies, is given responsibility for the land. Stephanie's review is much better than anything I found elsewhere online, so go read it.

Vermont

2007-07-21T22:48:00.000-04:00

Bonnie said, "Jodi Picoult's Second Glance includes the Vermont eugenics project of the 1930s, which I had never heard of before reading this novel."

Do we love across time? Or in spite of it? A developer has slated an ancient Abenaki Indian burial ground for a strip mall, and now strange happenings have tiny Comtosook, Vermont, talking of supernatural forces at work. Ross Wakeman is a ghost hunter who's never seen a ghost -- all he's searching for is something to end the pain of losing his fiance Aimee in a car accident. He tried suicide, any number of times. Now Ross lives only for a way to connect with Aimee from beyond. Searching the site for signs of the paranormal, Ross meets the mysterious Lia, who sparks him to life for the first time in years. But the discoveries that await Ross are beyond anything he could dream of in this world -- or the next. Expertly entwining a powerful drama of the heart's redemption and the disturbing real-life history of the VT eugenics project of the 1930s, Second Glance asks if truth is always something that can be measured ... and if what can be measured is indeed always true.

Missouri

2007-07-21T21:58:00.000-04:00

Jill said, "I enjoyed a new companion novel to Huckleberry Finn called Finn: a novel by Jon Clinch. It's the story of Huck's dad - a racist, sexist drunk who is one of the most interesting characters I have read this year. Here's my book review if you're interested. Oh, it's set in Missouri (for the most part) too!"

Jon Clinch takes us on a journey into the history and heart of one of American literature’s most brutal and mysterious figures: Huckleberry Finn’s father. This is a novel about race; about paternity in its many guises; about the shame of a nation recapitulated by the shame of one absolutely unforgettable family.

Minnesota

2007-07-21T21:08:00.000-04:00

Jill said, "Hi, Bonnie: I just finished my second book for this challenge: Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons by Lorna Landvik. This book is set in Minnesota where these lively women meet monthly to talk about books, love and life. Minnesota is featured prominently throughout the book, from snowball fights to big-breasted snow women, which was a welcome delight to this Florida girl sweltering in the oppressive heat! You can check out my blog for my book review if you're interested."

The women of Freesia Court have come together at life’s table, fully convinced that there is nothing good coffee, delectable desserts, and a strong shoulder can’t fix. Laughter is the glue that holds them together, the foundation of a book group they call AWEB —- Angry Wives Eating Bon Bons —- an unofficial “club” that becomes much more. It becomes a lifeline.

The five women each have a story of their own to tell. There’s Faith, the newcomer, a lonely housewife and mother of twins, a woman who harbors a terrible secret that has condemned her to living a lie; big, beautiful Audrey, the resident sex queen who knows that good posture and an attitude can let you get away with anything; Merit, the shy, quiet doctor’s wife with the face of an angel and the private hell of an abusive husband; Kari, a thoughtful, wise woman with a wonderful laugh as “deep as Santa Claus’s with a cold” who knows the greatest gifts appear after life’s fiercest storms; and finally, Slip, activist, adventurer, social changer, a tiny, spitfire of a woman who looks trouble straight in the eye and challenges it to arm wrestle.

Holding on through forty eventful years -- through the swinging Sixties, the turbulent Seventies, the anything-goes Eighties, the nothing’s-impossible Nineties -—the women take the plunge into the chaos that inevitably comes to those with the temerity to be alive and kicking.

Thanks, Jill. I'll add this book to our list for everyone. Here is Jill's review of Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons of Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons, and here's her review of Billy Bathgate, representing New York. (I went back to the NY post to put the link with there, too.) Click on the links to read her reviews.

West Virginia

2007-07-21T17:08:00.000-04:00

Bonnie said, "Rocket Boys, a memoir by NASA engineer Homer Hickam, is a good one for West Virginia. He paints a vivid portrait of the harsh West Virginia mining town of his youth, evoking a time of innocence and promise, when anything was possible, even in a company town that swallowed its men alive."

From the publisher: "The #1 New York Times bestselling memoir that inspired the film October Sky, Rocket Boys is a uniquely American memoir, a powerful, luminous story of coming of age at the dawn of the 1960s, of a mother's love and a father's fears, of a group of young men who dreamed of launching rockets into outer space."

Homer Hickam looks back after a distinguished NASA career to tell his own true story of growing up in a dying coal town and of how, against the odds, he made his dreams of launching rockets into outer space come true.

Missouri

2007-07-21T16:52:00.000-04:00

NOLADawn said. "Well, for Missouri there's Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn..."

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is perhaps the best-loved nineteenth-century American novel. Mark Twain’s tale of boyhood adventure brings to life an array of irresistible characters: self-confident Tom, his best buddy Huck Finn, indulgent Aunt Polly, and the beguiling Becky, as well as such unforgettable incidents as whitewashing a fence, swearing an oath in blood, and getting lost in a dark and labyrinthine cave.

Below Tom Sawyer’s sunny surface lurk hints of a darker reality, of youthful innocence and naïveté confronting the cruelty, hypocrisy, and foolishness of the adult world, a theme that would become more pronounced in Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Despite such suggestions, Tom Sawyer remains Twain’s joyful ode to the endless possibilities of childhood.

T. S. Eliot said, "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is the only one of Mark Twain's various books which can be called a masterpiece. I do not suggest that it is his only book of permanent interest; but it is the only one in which his genius is completely realized, and the only one which creates its own category."

Huckleberry Finn, rebel against school and church, casual inheritor of gold treasure, rafter of the Mississippi, and savior of Jim the runaway slave, is the archetypical American maverick.

Fleeing the respectable society that wants to "sivilize" him, Huck Finn shoves off with Jim on a rhapsodic raft journey down the Mississippi River. The two bind themselves to one another, becoming intimate friends and agreeing "there warn't no home like a raft, after all. Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a raft don't. You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft."

As Huck learns about love, responsibility, and morality, the trip becomes a metaphoric voyage through his own soul, culminating in the glorious moment when he decides to "go to hell" rather than return Jim to slavery.

Washington

2007-07-21T16:34:00.000-04:00

NOLADawn said, "Washington- Snow Falling on Cedars"

Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson is an award-winning book. In 1954 a fisherman from San Piedro Island in Puget Sound is found suspiciously drowned, and a Japanese-American is charged with his murder. The trial, on the rugged island of San Piedro in Puget Sound, is haunted by memories of what happened to the Japanese residents during World War II when the entire community was sent into exile. The story is a beautifully crafted courtroom drama, love story, and war novel about the ambiguities of justice, the racism even between neighbors, and the necessity of individual moral action.

Montana

2007-07-21T13:26:00.000-04:00

NOLADawn said, "Montana- A River Runs Through It"

One reviewer who is an educator wrote about A River Runs through It and Other Stories: "The man was able to write a simple book with far reaching messages. He is the person that allowed us to see the culture of a place and the power of a fly rod." Norman Maclean grew up in the western Rocky Mountains in the first decades of the twentieth century. As a young man he worked many summers in logging camps and for the United States Forest Service. The two novellas and short story in this collection are based on his own experiences, the experiences of a young man who found that life was only a step from art in its structures and beauty.

The beauty he found was in reality, and so he leaves a careful record of what it was like to work in the woods when it was still a world of horse and hand and foot, without power saws, "cats," or four-wheel drives. Populated with drunks, loggers, card sharks, and whores, and set in the small towns and surrounding trout streams and mountains of western Montana, the stories concern themselves with the complexities of fly fishing, logging, fighting forest fires, playing cribbage, and being a husband, a son, and a father.

Bonnie says, "Another excellent book about Montana and fishing is The River Why by David James Duncan."

Since its publication by Sierra Club Books nearly two decades ago, The River Why has become a classic, standing with Norman Maclean's A River Runs Through It as the most-read fiction about fly-fishing of our era. Duncan's protagonist, Gus Orviston, is an irreverent young flyfisherman--a vibrant character who makes us laugh easily and feel deeply, and who speaks with startling truth about the way we live.

Leaving behind a madcap, fishing-obsessed family, Gus embarks on an extraordinary voyage of self-discovery along his beloved Oregon rivers. What he unexpectedly finds is man's wanton destruction of nature and a burning desire to commit himself to its preservation.

The River Why is a tale that gives a contemporary voice to the concerns and hopes of all living things on this beautiful, watery planet. It is the story of one man's search for meaning, for love, and for a sane way to live.

Two decades ago, I read this novel for a seminary class in ethics and especially like the man's humor. Now I have discovered a new book he wrote, called God Laughs and Plays: Churchless Sermons in Response to the Preachments of the Fundamentalist Right, which was published in February 2007. I'll have to get a copy of this one, too. The publisher says:

In this multiple award-winning and bestselling diagnosis of the contemporary American spirit, David James Duncan suggests that the de facto political party embodied by the so-called "Christian Right" has turned worship into a self-righteous betrayal of the words and example of the very Jesus it claims to praise. In a bracing and often hilarious response to this trend, God Laughs & Plays offers "churchless sermons," stories, memoir, conversations, and cosmological reflections that scorn riches and embrace the poor; bless peacemakers, not war-makers; celebrate creation, diversity, empathy, playfulness and beauty; and insist that Divine Mystery is indeed mysterious and compassion is literally compassionate. The spiritual kingdom described by Jesus, this unusual book reminds us, is located not "in the Sky" or beyond a disastrous future, but within us, to be sought and embodied in the here and now.

Maybe this isn't exactly a Montana book, but it does tell you something about the author of The River Why. He also wrote The Brothers K.

23 of 50 states

2007-07-21T10:44:00.000-04:00

create your own visited states map.

We have suggested books for 23 of the 50 states, but there's a lot of blank space on this map! Don't stop now. Who can help fill in these blanks?

NOTE: This state map is too wide to fit here, so I'll post it at the bottom of this page so you can see ALL of the states in the east.

P.S.: As we continue to add books, I won't change THIS map, but I will update the map at the bottom of the page.

Texas

2007-07-20T00:25:00.000-04:00

Gracie said, "Hi again, Bonnie. I'm so intrigued by this idea that I found myself thinking of books that seemed to me to be very specifically about a place. I will try not to be a blog hog, but wanted to share the following: TX - Terms of Endearment and The Last Picture Show by Larry McMurtry."

In Terms of Endearment a memorable mother and her fiesty daughter (Aurora Greenway and her daughter Emma) find the courage and humor to live through life's hazards and to love each other as never before. Aurora is the kind of woman who makes the whole world orbit around her, including a string of devoted suitors. Widowed and overprotective of her daughter, Aurora adapts at her own pace until life sends two enormous challenges her way: Emma's hasty marriage and subsequent battle with cancer.

Set in a small, dusty, Texas town, The Last Picture Show introduces the characters of Jacy, Duane, and Sonny: teenagers stumbling toward adulthood, discovering the beguiling mysteries of sex and the even more baffling mysteries of love. Populated by a wonderful cast of eccentrics and animated by McMurtry's wry and raucous humor, The Last Picture Show is a wild, heart-breaking, and poignant coming-of-age novel.

California

2007-07-20T00:18:00.000-04:00

Gracie said, "CA - Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck."

Of Mice and Men was John Steinbeck's first masterpiece. Originally published in 1937, it's the timeless story of George Milton and Lennie Small, ranch hands who drift from job to job, always one step ahead of the law and a few dollars from the poorhouse. George is small, wiry, sharp-tongued and quick-tempered; slow witted Lennie is his opposite—an immense man, brutishly strong but naturally docile, a giant with the mind of a child. Despite their difference, George and Lennie are bound together by a shared vision: their own small farm, where they'll raise cows, pigs, chickens, and rabbits, where they'll be their own bosses and live off the fat of the land.

When they find work on a ranch in California's Salinas Valley, the dream at last seems within reach. If they can just save up a little money. But their hopes, like "the best-laid schemes of mice and men," begin to go awry. The story unfolds with the power and inevitability of a Greek tragedy, as Lennie commits an accidental murder, and George, in a riveting, deeply moving finale, must do what he can to make things turn our right.

Iowa

2007-07-20T00:02:00.000-04:00

Gracie said, "IA - A Thousand Acres and Moo by Jane Smiley."

Oops! I already posted A Thousand Acres, Gracie, but I don't think I mentioned that it won the Pulitzer Prize in fiction. Excellent book!

Moo, by the same author, is about Moo University which is, of course, an agricultural school. The publisher says: "Nestled in the heart of the Midwest, amid cow pastures and waving fields of grain, lies Moo University, a distinguished institution devoted to the art and science of agriculture. Here, among an atmosphere rife with devious plots, mischievous intrigue, lusty liaisons, and academic one-upmanship, Chairman X of the Horticulture Department harbors a secret fantasy to kill the dean; Mrs. Walker, the provost's right hand and campus information queen, knows where all the bodies are buried; Timothy Nonahan, associate professor of English, advocates eavesdropping for his creative writing assignments; and Bob Carlson, a sophomore, feeds and maintains his only friend: a hog named Earl Butz. In this wonderfully written and masterfully plotted novel, Jane Smiley, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Thousand Acres, offers us a wickedly funny comedy that is also a darkly poignant slice of life."

Louisiana

2007-07-19T23:49:00.000-04:00

Gracie said, "LA - A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole."

Awarded the Pulitzer Prize, A Confederacy of Dunces was not published until a decade after the death of the author. This wildly inventive and amusing novel features one of the most unforgettable characters in modern fiction: Ignatius Reilly. He's a mammoth misfit Medievalist hilariously at odds with the world of the twentieth century, and his adventures take him to way down, to New Orleans' lower depths.

The publisher claims this book "outswifts Swift, one of whose essays gives the book its title. As its characters burst into life, they leave the region and literature forever changed by their presences - Ignatius and his mother; Miss Trixie, the octogenarian assistant accountant at Levy Pants; inept, wan Patrolman Mancuso; Darlene, the Bourbon Street stripper with a penchant for poultry; Jones, the jivecat in space-age dark glasses."

Alaska

2007-07-19T23:40:00.003-04:00

Gracie said, "AK - The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon (it's set in Sitka)."

The starting premise of Michael Chabon's novel rests on a single historical factoid: On the eve of World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt suggested that European Jewish refugees be resettled in the Alaskan territory. From this tiny nugget, the Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist constructs a richly hued noir alternate history/mystery fable, complete with Yiddish jargon and gangster argot.

For sixty years, Jewish refugees and their descendants have prospered in the Federal District of Sitka, a "temporary" safe haven created in the wake of revelations of the Holocaust and the shocking 1948 collapse of the fledgling state of Israel. Proud, grateful, and longing to be American, the Jews of the Sitka District have created their own little world in the Alaskan panhandle, a vibrant, gritty, soulful, and complex frontier city that moves to the music of Yiddish. For sixty years they have been left alone, neglected and half-forgotten in a backwater of history. Now the District is set to revert to Alaskan control, and their dream is coming to an end: once again the tides of history threaten to sweep them up and carry them off into the unknown.
__________

Jill loved this book and gave it five stars. Here's her review.

Sharon, who likes mysteries, gave it a 3/5 rating. Here's her review.

Maryland

2007-07-19T13:53:00.000-04:00

Gracie said, "A few more suggestions (ones I came up with immediately after hitting the Publish button on my last comment): MARYLAND - anything by Anne Tyler, whose books are so specifically set in Baltimore. For example, The Accidental Tourist.

Macon Leary is a travel writer who hates both travel and anything out of the ordinary. He is grounded by loneliness and an unwillingness to compromise his creature comforts when he meets Muriel, a peculiar dog-obedience trainer who up-ends Macon’s insular world and thrusts him headlong into a remarkable engagement with life.

Washington

2007-07-19T13:40:00.000-04:00

Gracie said, "WASHINGTON - Citizen Vince by Jess Walter is set in Spokane."

A petty thief bucks one system to join another. Notching his first felony at 15, Marty Hagen, the quintessential New York City street kid, has a rap sheet to be reckoned with by the time he's 36. Not that there's anything really lurid on it-certainly nothing violent-it's just nonstop. And then suddenly, almost by accident, Marty becomes a person of interest to the feds, a circumstance that leads to a new name, a new location, and the makings of a new life. Farewell Marty, hail Vince (Camden), reborn, as it were, courtesy of the Witness Protection Program.

Though at first Spokane, Washington, rattles his urban sensibilities ("Everyone drives everywhere, even the ladies"), Vince soon grows fond. He gets to like the quirkiness, discovers that the measured pace suits him after all, allowing time for an interest in things that would once have seemed exotic: presidential politics, for instance. The time is 1980, eight days short of the election between Reagan and Carter, and Vince plans to do what he's never done before: vote. Moreover, there are women in his life, two of them, actually, good women in their differing ways. He even likes the kooky job the feds have found for him, donut maker-manager of the estimable Donut Make you Hungry establishment.

Then, after two years, a hit-man from the mob arrives with an overdue bill in his bloodied hands. Is there a way Vince can square himself in time to render the contract null and void? The answers are admirably unpredictable. This story is full of small surprises, among them Vince's way of finally achieving citizenhood.

New Mexico

2007-07-19T13:29:00.000-04:00

Gracie said, "NEW MEXICO - Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather captures the essence of this state."

Death Comes for the Archbishop sprang from Willa Cather's love for the land and cultures of the American Southwest. Published in 1927 to both praise and perplexity, it has since claimed for itself a major place in twentieth-century literature. The narrative follows Bishop Jean Latour and Father Joseph Vaillant, friends since their childhood in France, as they organize the new Roman Catholic diocese of Santa Fe subsequent to the Mexican War. While seeking to revive the church and build a cathedral in the desert, the clerics, like their historical prototypes, Bishop Jean Laury and Father Joseph Machebeuf, face religious corruption, natural adversity, and the loneliness of living in a strange and unforgiving land.

Oklahoma

2007-07-19T12:21:00.000-04:00

Gracie said, "Out of the Dust, by Karen Hesse, is my recommendation for Oklahoma. This Newbery Medal book is easy enough for a child to read but deep enough for an adult of any educational level to enjoy. It's a good book for parents and children to read together, too - could spark a lot of discussion and opportunities to research and learn more about many of the topics raised in the book."

It's 1934 in the Oklahoma Panhandle and fourteen-year-old Billie Jo must face the devastation of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression. Billie Jo creates incredible images to keep her soul alive in the bleakness. Through her eyes we see the dust's coming "like a fired locomotive" that "hisses against the windows" and feel its textures as "my lowered face was scrubbed raw by dirt and wind. / Grit scratched my eyes, / it crunched between my teeth...." She tells of its treachery too, until it becomes almost a character in the book. Billie Jo writes of how she accidentally sets her mother on fire with a bucket of burning kerosene. Billie Jo's swollen lumps of hands won't let her help her suffering mother, or play the piano, which once comforted her.

After reading that online, I (Bonnie) want to know if things get better for Billie Jo. Thanks for suggesting this book, Gracie. It brings to mind a similar book I read a few years ago. Treasures in the Dust by Tracey Porter is about half as long as Out of the Dust, and the two girls in it are only 11 years old.

Eleven-year-olds Annie and Violet are best friends growing up in Cimmaron County, Oklahoma, during the Great Depression. The day Annie learned to walk the first dust storm hit. Hardship is the only thing the girls have known in their short lives, but like children everywhere they adapt, play, and go to school together. Their families help each other out during the hard times. Annie loves her home and digging through the dust for arrowheads, and dreams of becoming an anthropologist. Violet loves to pretend and act out stories; she dreams of getting away from the dust and moving to California.

When things take a turn for the worse in Violet's family, Violet is forced to stay home from school to help out. Finally, in order to save their land from the bank, Violet's family boards up their home and heads to California like so many before them. Annie mourns the loss of her friend and the two vow to keep in touch. Their contrasting letters chronicle the return of the rain (and hope) in Oklahoma and the despair of life in the California migrant worker camps. In the end, Violet and Annie discover that the "treasures in the dust" are truly found in each other and their families.

New York

2007-07-17T19:37:00.001-04:00

Jill said, "Hi, Bonnie! Me again! I just finished a book that I would like to submit for the great state of New York. It's Billy Bathgate by E.L. Doctorow. (And my first official book of this challenge). This book explores the Bronx and surrounding burroughs during the Great Depression. You get a real feel for what it was like to live in NYC during the 1930's - complete with gangsters, ferry trips, elegant hotels and busy city streets."

Here is Jill's book review of Billy Bathgate.

Florida

2007-07-17T04:15:00.000-04:00

NOLADawn said, "Ok, some more Southern Lit here... FL- Their Eyes Were Watching God- by Zora Neal Hurston"

Their Eyes Were Watching God, about a proud and independent black woman, was first published in 1937 and generally dismissed by reviewers. It was out of print for nearly 30 years when the University of Illinois Press reissued it in 1978, at which time it was instantly embraced by the literary establishment as one of the greatest works in the canon of African-American fiction. This novel tells the story of Janie Crawford, a fair-skinned, long-haired, dreamy woman who comes of age expecting better treatment than what she gets from her three husbands and the community. Then she meets Tea Cake, a younger man who captivates Janie's heart and spirit and offers her the chance to relish life without being one man's mule or another man's adornment. Their Eyes Were Watching God created controversy because it refuses to admit black inferiority while simultaneously refusing to depict its characters as victims of a world that thought them inferior.

Louisiana

2007-07-17T03:51:00.000-04:00

NOLADawn said, "Ok, some more Southern Lit here... Another LA book- A Lesson Before Dying- by Ernest J. Gaines"

A Lesson Before Dying is a novel about a young man who returns to 1940s Cajun country and teaches a black youth, who is on death row for a crime he didn't commit. In the end, the two men forge a bond as they both come to understand the simple heroism of resisting -- and defying -- the expected. This book was the winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction. Library Journal said in its review:

What do you tell an innocent youth who was at the wrong place at the wrong time and now faces death in the electric chair? What do you say to restore his self-esteem when his lawyer has publicly described him as a dumb animal? What do you tell a youth humiliated by a lifetime of racism so that he can face death with dignity? The task belongs to Grant Wiggins, the teacher of the Negro plantation school who narrates the story. Grant grew up on the Louisiana plantation but broke away to go to the university. He returns to help his people but struggles over "whether I should act like the teacher that I was, or like the nigger that I was supposed to be." The powerful message Grant tells the youth transforms him from a "hog" to a hero, and the reader is not likely to forget it, either.

The novel by Gaines that I (Bonnie) cannot forget is A Gathering of Old Men. Set on a Louisiana sugarcane plantation in the 1970s, A Gathering of Old Men is a powerful depiction of racial tensions arising over the death of a Cajun farmer at the hands of a black man. A group of men stand up for this black man who represents all blacks who have suffered the indignities and pain inflicted on them over the years.

Mississippi

2007-07-17T03:43:00.000-04:00

NOLADawn said, "Ok, some more Southern Lit here... MS- Delta Wedding by Eudora Welty"

Delta Wedding is a vivid and charming portrait of a large southern family, the Fairchilds, who live on a plantation in the Mississippi delta. The story, set in 1923, is exquisitely woven from the ordinary events of family life, centered around the visit of a young relative, Laura McRaven, and the family's preparations for her cousin Dabney's wedding. Eudora Welty uses this book to explore the limits of family and sexuality.

Alabama

2007-07-17T03:27:00.000-04:00

NOLADawn said, "Ok, some more Southern Lit here... AL- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee."

As Winner of the 1961 Pulitzer Prize for Literature, Fiction, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is definitely a good book for our list. Thanks.

At the age of eight, Scout Finch is an entrenched free-thinker. She can accept her father's warning that it is a sin to kill a mockingbird, because mockingbirds harm no one and give great pleasure. The benefits said to be gained from going to school and keeping her temper elude her.

The place of this enchanting, intensely moving story is Maycomb, Alabama. The time is the Depression, but Scout and her brother, Jem, are seldom depressed. They have appalling gifts for entertaining themselves — appalling, that is, to almost everyone except their wise lawyer father, Atticus.

Atticus is a man of unfaltering good will and humor, and partly because of this, the children become involved in some disturbing adult mysteries: fascinating Boo Radley, who never leaves his house; the terrible temper of Mrs. Dubose down the street; the fine distinctions that make the Finch family "quality"; the forces that cause the people of Maycomb to show compassion in one crisis and unreasoning cruelty in another.

Also because Atticus is what he is, and because he lives where he does, he and his children are plunged into a conflict that indelibly marks their lives — and gives Scout some basis for thinking she knows just about as much about the world as she needs to.

Ohio

2007-07-17T03:11:00.000-04:00

NOLADawn said, "... and one from the North :) ... OH- The Bluest Eye- by Toni Morrison ... This is fun :)"

The Bluest Eye, published in 1970, is the first novel written by Toni Morrison, winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature. It is the story of eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove - a black girl in an America whose love for its blond, blue-eyed children can devastate all others - who prays for her eyes to turn blue: so that she will be beautiful, so that people will look at her, so that her world will be different. This is the story of the nightmare at the heart of her yearning and the tragedy of its fulfillment.

Florida

2007-07-15T05:00:00.001-04:00

Neco said, "Where is Joe Merchant? by Jimmy Buffet is a crazy tale set in and around the Florida Keys. Big Trouble by Dave Barry is a crazy tale set in Miami. I chose those two books because I think the nearly unbelievable craziness exemplifies living in Florida, where stuff you'd say could never happen anywhere else happens easily there. Marley and Me, a story about a man and wife raise a large dog, family, and careers, is also set in Miami and a good non-fiction. But I think I'd have to give my Florida vote to something by Hemingway, who lived in the Florida Keys. He's one of my favorite authors but his books that I can recall off the top of my head are all set elsewhere."

First, Dave Barry's book Big Trouble. In the city of Coconut Grove, Florida, these things happen: A struggling adman named Eliot Arnold drives home from a meeting with the Client From Hell. His teenage son, Matt, fills his Squirtmaster 9000 for his turn at a high school game called Killer. Matt's intended victim, Jenny Herk, sits down in front of the TV with her mom for what she hopes will be a peaceful evening, for once. Jenny's alcoholic and secretly embezzling stepfather, Arthur, emerges from the maid's room, angry at being rebuffed, again. Henry and Leonard, two hit men from New Jersey, pull up to the Herks' house for a real game of Killer, Arthur's embezzlement apparently not having been quite so secret to his employers after all. And a homeless man named Puggy settles down for the night in a treehouse just inside the Herks' yard. In a few minutes, a chain of events that will change the lives of each and every one of them will begin, leaving some of them wiser, some of them deader, and some of them definitely looking for a new line of work.

Where is Joe Merchant? by Jimmy Buffet seems to be more about bopping around the islands of the Caribbean than about Florida. Five years ago, the rock star Joe Merchant committed suicide, yet he keeps popping back into the tabloid headlines like a piece of toast. Will Frank Bama ever be able to talk with a woman? Will Trevor Kane succeed in calming a deadly storm by taking off her clothes? Why did the Jet Ski Killer cross the road? Who is that weirdo with eyes tattooed on his eyelids so he can see while he sleeps? And where is rock star Joe Merchant? Find out in Buffett's modern-day pirate story.

Marley and Me by John Grogan makes us ask, is it possible for humans to discover the key to happiness through a bigger-than-life, bad-boy dog? Just ask the Grogans. John and Jenny were just beginning their life together. They were young and in love, with not a care in the world. Then they brought home Marley, a wiggly yellow furball of a puppy. Life would never be the same. Marley grew into a barreling, 97-pound streamroller of a Labrador retriever, who crashed through screen doors, gouged through drywall, and stole women's undergarments. Obedience school did no good -- Marley was expelled. But Marley's love and loyalty were boundless, too. (Hmm, does location come into this anywhere?)

Would anyone like to suggest a Floria book by Ernest Hemingway?

South Carolina

2007-07-15T04:28:00.000-04:00

Neco said, "Sue Monk Kidd wrote The Secret Life of Bees and The Mermaid's Chair. Dorothea Benton Frank has written Sullivan's Island, Plantation, Shem Creek, The Land of Mango Sunsets, Isle of Palms, Pawley's Island, and Full of Grace. Of all the above books, I would most recommend Sullivan's Island or Plantation for strong South Carolina culture/setting fiction while still being light and easy reads and following a personal journey of the protagonist."

Why don't we start with the first ones on each list? In Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees Lily Owens is living on a peach farm in South Carolina with her harsh, unyielding father. Lily has a blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed, when Lily was only four. Since then, her only real companion has been the fierce-hearted, and sometimes just fierce, Rosaleen, a black woman who acts as her stand-in mother. After watching President Johnson on television as he signs the Civil Rights Act, Rosaleen insults three of the deepest racists in town, she is arrested and Lily knows it's time to spring them both free. They take off in the only direction Lily can think of, toward a town called Tiburon, South Carolina, a name she found on the back of a picture amid the few possessions left by her mother. There they are taken in by an eccentric trio of black beekeeping sisters named May, June, and August. Lily thinks of them as the calendar sisters and enters their mesmerizing secret world of bees and honey.

Sullivan's Island, set on the coast of South Carolina, opens with Susan walking in on her husband and his young lover, a shocking surprise to her and an annoyance to him. Susan throws them both out, packs her husband's toiletries, and begins a new chapter of her life. With the support of her sister, Susan's appreciation for her roots deepens as she tries to come to terms with divorce and raising a teenager. Dorothea Benton Frank was born and raised on Sullivan's Island.

Alabama

2007-07-15T04:10:00.000-04:00

For Alabama, Bonnie suggests the fun-filled Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe by Fannie Flagg. The little town is located just outside Birmingham, Alabama.

Cleo Threadgood and Evelyn Couch meet in the 1980s in the visitors lounge of an Alabama nursing home and find themselves exchanging confidences that are sometimes only safe to reveal to strangers. Evelyn is middle-aged and falling apart, while Cleo, at age 86, cherishes memories of a lifetime spent in Whistle Stop, the tiny town which flourished in the days of the Great Depression. Most of the town's life centered around its single cafe, whose owners, gentle Ruth and tomboyish Idgie, served up grits and fried green tomatoes to anyone who passed by. Their love for each other (and just about everyone else) survived the Depression, visits from the sheriff, the Ku Klux Klan, a host of hungry hoboes, and a murder.

Louisiana

2007-07-15T03:37:00.000-04:00

NOLADawn has a couple of suggestions: "For Louisiana how about No Place, Louisiana by Martin Pousson, or you could always go the traditional route and do Tennesee Williams' Streetcar Named Desire."

Let's put them both up for consideration.

In No Place, Louisiana, Nita is sixteen, working in a diner, putting up with the coarse advances of her stepfather, and living on the edge of Jennings, Louisiana, when her brother sets her up on a blind date with Louis Toussaint. He is rude and cheap, Nita thinks, not exactly what she has in mind. But when he offers an engagement ring, Nita accepts what she believes is her ticket out of the place, the life she already feels is stifling her. She deserves better, and Louis can give it to her, if only he will work hard enough.

NOLADawn's review of No Place, Louisiana.

Streetcar Named Desire is the story of Blanche DuBois, fading and desperate, and how her sensuous and brutal brother-in-law, Stanley Kowalski, pushes her over the edge. One online reviewer says no one can be considered well-read without having read this classic.

North Carolina

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Jill has added another state: "Twist my arm, twist my arm...okay, another idea from my blog. The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks for his beautiful NC imagery, nature and ecology."

In 1932, two North Carolina teenagers from opposite sides of the tracks fall in love. After spending one idyllic summer together in the small town of New Bern, Noah Calhoun and Allie Nelson do not meet again for 14 years. Noah has returned from WW2 to restore the house of his dreams, having inherited a large sum of money. Allie, programmed by family and the "caste system of the South" to marry an ambitious, prosperous man, has become engaged to powerful attorney Lon Hammond. When she reads a newspaper story about Noah's restoration project, she shows up on his porch step, re-entering his life for two days. Will Allie leave Lon for Noah?

Arkansas

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Mercy's Maid said, "What about Summer of My German Soldier for Arkansas?"

Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene is about a Jewish girl and a German soldier in Arkansas during World War Two. Minutes before the train pulled into the station in Jenkinsville, Arkansas, Patty Bergen knew something exciting was going to happen. But she never could have imagined that her summer would be so memorable. German prisoners of war have arrived to make their new home in the prison camp in Jenkinsville. To the rest of her town, these prisoners are only Nazis. But to Patty, a young Jewish girl with a turbulent home life, one boy in particular becomes an unlikely friend. Anton relates to Patty in ways that her mother and father never can. But when their forbidden relationship is discovered, will Patty risk her family and town for the understanding and love of one boy?

Hawaii, Texas, Colorado, Maryland, Alaska

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Framed has suggested books for five states: "James Michener has written several books about different states that start at the beginning of time: Hawaii, Texas, Centennial (Colorado), Chesapeake (Maryland), and Alaska. I enjoyed Hawaii and Centennial the most, but they are really big books."

Maryland Colorado

All of Michener's books are big books! Good suggestions, thanks.

Iowa

2007-07-14T03:02:00.000-04:00

Bonnie suggests two possibilities for Iowa: A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley and Gilead by Marilynne Robinson.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, Smiley's novel of family life on an Iowa farm is a retelling of Shakespeare's King Lear, about a father and his three daughters. When Larry Cook, the aging patriarch of a rich, thriving farm in Iowa, decides to retire, he offers his land to his daughters. For Ginny and Rose, who live on the farm with their husbands, the gift makes sense — a reward for years of hard work, a challenge to make the farm even more successful. But the youngest, Caroline, a Des Moines lawyer, flatly rejects the idea, and in anger her father cuts her out — setting off an explosive series of events that will leave none of them unchanged. A classic story of contemporary American life, A Thousand Acres strikes at the very heart of what it means to be a father, a daughter, a family.

In 1956, toward the end of the Reverend John Ames's life, he begins a letter to his young son, an account of himself and his forebears. Ames is the son of an Iowan preacher and the grandson of a minister who, as a young man in Maine, saw a vision of Christ bound in chains and came west to Kansas to fight for abolition. Ames's grandfather "preached men into the Civil War," then, at age fifty, became a chaplain in the Union Army, losing his right eye in battle. Reverend Ames writes to his son about the tension between his father -- an ardent pacifist -- and his grandfather, whose pistol and bloody shirts, concealed in an army blanket, may be relics from the fight between the abolitionists and those settlers who wanted to vote Kansas into the union as a slave state. And he tells a story of the sacred bonds between fathers and sons, which are tested in his tender and strained relationship with his namesake, John Ames Boughton, his best friend's wayward son. Gilead won both the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for fiction and the 2004 National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction.
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Sept. 21, 2007 ~ Jill has a review of this book on her blog.

Tennessee

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Jill has another suggestion for Tennessee: "My favorite story about Tennessee is Widow of the South by Robert Hicks - a fictional account of the Battle of Franklin and the McGavock Plantation."

Five of the bloddiest hours of the Civil War occurred in 1864 during the Battle of Franklin, Tennessee. Carrie McGavock's farmhouse was commandeered as a Confederate field hospital, four generals lay dead on her back porch, and the pile of amputated limbs rose as tall as the smoke house. There were 9,200 casualties that fateful day. Because McGavock spent the rest of her life mourning those lost, eventually reburying nearly 1,500 of them on her property, she became known as "the widow of the South." Robert Hicks's first historical novel captures the life-altering force that war exerts even on noncombatants.

Jill, this book is certainly more readable that the one I suggested, Summons to Memphis. Good call.

Georgia

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Jill also suggests: "For Georgia, I would recommend Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil in addition to the aforementioned GWTW." Here's Jill's review of the book.

This book of nonfiction by John Berendt, set in steamy Savannah, is written like a novel. The eccentric characters include society ladies, a redneck gigolo, a recluse, a profane Southern belle, a black drag queen, an antiques dealer, a piano-playing con artist, young blacks dancing the minuet at the black debutante ball, and Minerva, the voodoo priestess who works her magic in the graveyard at midnight.