Connecticut

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.