What are your favorite novels by state...?
I was thinking about this the other day--I've done lots of unsystematic reading over the decades, and realized I had read at least one novel for every state in the union. So I decided to make a list of my own favorites. Some of my picks are obvious, some are eccentric, but all are what I actually have read and liked. List your own, and I welcome all comments and emendations:
Alabama: "To Kill a Mockingbird", Harper Lee
Alaska: "White Fang", Jack London
Arizona: "The Book of Skulls", Robert Silverberg
Arkansas: "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings", Maya Angelou
California: "The Big Sleep", Raymond Chandler
Colorado: "The Dog Stars", Peter Heller
Connecticut: "The Red Right Hand", Joel Townsley Rogers
Delaware: "Hawkes Harbor", S.E. Hinton
Florida: "To Have and Have Not", Ernest Hemingway
Georgia: "Chiefs", Stuart Woods
Hawaii: "From Here to Eternity", James Jones
Idaho: "Idaho Falls", William McKeown
Illinois: "True Detective", Max Allan Collins
Indiana: "The Friendly Persuasion", Jessamyn West
Iowa: "Shoeless Joe", W.P. Kinsella
Kansas: "Gilead", Marilynne Robinson
Kentucky: "Beloved", Toni Morrison
Louisiana: "A Confederacy of Dunces", J.P. O'Toole
Maine: "It", Stephen King
Maryland: "Kindred", Octavia Butler
Massachusetts: "Mystic River", Dennis Lehane
Michigan: "The Road to Wellville", T.C. Boyle
Minnesota: "Ordinary Grace", William Kent Krueger
Mississippi: "Light in August", William Faulkner
Missouri: "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn", Mark Twain
Montana: "The Big Sky", A.B. Guthrie, Jr
Nebraska: "My Antonia", Willa Cather
New Hampshire: "A Separate Peace", John Knowles
New Jersey: "American Pastoral", Philip Roth
New Mexico: "The Crossing", Cormac McCarthy
New York: Tie--"The Great Gatsby", F. Scott Fitzgerald
"Invisible Man", Ralph Ellison (I simply couldn't decide between them.)
North Carolina: "Look Homeward, Angel" Thomas Wolfe
North Dakota: "Downtown Owl", Chuck Klosterman
Ohio: "Praise the Human Season", Don Robertson
Oklahoma: "Cimarron", Edna Ferber
Oregon: "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", Ken Kesey
Pennsylvania: "The Burning Court", John Dickson Carr
Rhode Island: "The Witches of Eastwick", John Updike
South Carolina: "The Water is Wide", Pat Conroy
South Dakota: "Nearly Departed in Deadwood", Ann Charles
Tennessee: "A Death in the Family", James Agee
Texas: "The Gates of the Alamo". Stephen Harrigan
Utah: "A Study in Scarlet", Arthur Conan Doyle
Vermont: "The Secret History", Donna Tartt
Virginia: "The Confessions of Nat Turner", William Styron
Washington State: "Phoenix island", Charlotte Paul
West Virginia: "John Henry Days", Colson Whitehead
Wisconsin: "Way Station", Clifford D Simak
Wyoming: "Shane", Jack Schaefer
Washington, D.C.: "Lincoln", Gore Vidal
So that's my list. Would love to see other suggestions...
= new reply since forum marked as read
...how about "The Road to Wellville", by T. C. Boyle...?
I think we deserved better... 