ALABAMA: "To Kill A Mockingbird" by Harper Lee
This Pulitzer Prize-winner tells the story of local attorney Atticus Finch's two children, Scout and Jem, growing up in Maycomb, Ala.—a community divided by racism and inspired by Lee's hometown of Monroeville.
When Atticus is asked to defend an African American man accused of rape, he has to decide between doing what's right and doing what society expects of him, launching Scout and Jem right in the middle of the conflict.
ALASKA: "Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer
Chris McCandless, a young man from a family of money, donates all of his savings to charity and abandons his possessions before hitchhiking into the Alaskan wilderness to reinvent himself.
This true story survival drama was made into a movie of the same name in 2007, directed by Sean Penn and starring Emile Hirsch, shedding light on McCandless' idealism of a life unburdened by material possessions as well as the harsh realities of the Alaskan wild.
ARIZONA: "The Bean Trees" by Barbara Kingsolver
Taylor is well on her way to escaping small-town life by getting a job at the hospital, saving money to buy a VW bug, and avoiding getting pregnant. But shortly into her journey to Tucson, where she hopes to start a new life, a stranger leaves her with a Native American toddler, whose abusive past haunts Taylor.
Kingsolver's story of finding salvation in a barren situation is appropriately set in the Ariz. backdrop, and is packed with real places and events.
ARKANSAS: "A Painted House" by John Grisham
Young narrator Luke Chandler lives on a cotton farm with his parents and grandparents, and suddenly finds himself keeping the harvest workers' deadly secrets. Grisham weaves his legal thriller wheelhouse with the story of a seven-year-old growing up and losing his innocence in the 1950s.
The narrator's upbringing in rural Arkansas inspired this coming-of-age tale.
CALIFORNIA: "East of Eden" by John Steinbeck
Another ode to California, Steinbeck explores the themes of identity and love in the Salinas Valley. The lives of two families, the Trasks and Hamiltons, are intertwined for generations as they continuously, helplessly reenact the downfall of Adam and Eve and the rivalry between Cain and Abel.
Born in Salinas, Steinbeck once described the book as "the story of my country and the story of me."
COLORADO: "The Shining" by Stephen King
A recovering alcoholic writer accepts the position as winter caretaker of the isolated Overlook Hotel, which sits in the Colorado Rockies. He moves in with his family, including his five-year-old son Danny, who has psychic abilities and begins to witness aspects of the hotel's horrific past.
The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, which inspired the fictional Overlook, offers a Ghost Adventure Package for guests.
CONNECTICUT: "Revolutionary Road" by Richard Yates
Considered the original anti-suburban novel, "Revolutionary Road" follows a young, bright couple marooned in Connecticut and trying to escape pressure to conform in the 1950s. Their failed attempts to be different lead to self-destructive affairs and a psychotic breakdown.
In 2008, the book was adapted into a movie of the same name starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet.
DELAWARE: "The Saint of Lost Things" by Christopher Castellani
Seven years after settling in Wilmington, Del., an Italian couple is still in pursuit of the American Dream but laden with immigrants' disappointments. Maddalena sews at the factory but desperately wants to be a mother, while her husband's nighttime escapades threaten to unravel all their hard work.
Castellani wove bits of his own family history into the book, like the fact that his Italian father, who emigrated to Wilmington after World War II, dreamed of opening a restaurant in Wilmington's Little Italy neighborhood like Maddalena's husband did.
FLORIDA: "To Have and Have Not" by Ernest Hemingway
A fishing boat captain falls on hard times and is forced into the black market to make ends meet by moving contraband between Cuba and Key West, Florida. His illegal activities quickly escalate from smuggling in drugs to smuggling in Chinese immigrants and Cuban revolutionaries.
Hemingway had a warm place in his heart for Key West, where he lived and wrote for more than 10 years.
GEORGIA: "Gone with the Wind" by Margaret Mitchell
Mitchell's 1936 classic love story, set in the South during the Civil War and its aftermath, introduced the world to Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler. O'Hara, the young spoiled daughter of a plantation owner, and her rogue star-crossed lover are torn apart and reunited through the tragedies and comedies of the human existence.
Mitchell spent nine years writing her manuscript, and the ensuing, unwanted fame led her to vow she would never write again.
HAWAII: "Hawaii" by James Michener
The first of Michener's mammoth sagas, "Hawaii" tells the Islands' history—from its creation by volcanic activity to its evolving identity as the most recent of the 50 U.S. states.
Michener sought to show how Hawaii harmonizes different cultures and races, as a template that would benefit the rest of the country. However, he and his wife, the daughter of Japanese immigrants, faced harsh discrimination while living there.
IDAHO: "Housekeeping" by Marilynne Robinson
Little to do with housekeeping, Robinson's poetic story follows two orphaned girls who are cared for by eccentric female relatives in the fictional town of Fingerbone, Idaho.
Robinson describes the town as "chastened by an outsized landscape and extravagant weather." This, and many other details in "Housekeeping," conjure images of her own Idaho hometown of Sandpoint.
ILLINOIS: "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair
The story of a Lithuanian immigrant employed in Chicago's stockyards—where Sinclair worked undercover to research for the book—revealed the poverty, hopelessness, and unpleasant living and working conditions experienced by meatpacking laborers in the early 20th century.
The book's graphic depictions of the slaughterhouse work caused a public uproar that contributed to the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act six months after "The Jungle" was published.
INDIANA: "The Magnificent Ambersons" by Booth Tarkington
Written by a native Hoosier, the novel centers on characters struggling to preserve their status during rapid industrialization between the Civil War and 20th century. The aristocratic Amberson family loses its prestige and wealth as "new money" tycoons take over.
Woodruff Place, Indianapolis' earliest suburb, was the setting for Tarkington's "The Magnificent Ambersons," which Orson Welles later adapted as a movie.
IOWA: "A Thousand Acres" by Jane Smiley
When an Iowa farmer decides to retire, he plans to divide his thousand acres of land among his three daughters. The youngest objects, setting off a chain of events that unleashes long-suppressed emotions and secrets. It's a modern-day "King Lear."
Smiley's narrator describes the farm in Zebulon County as "paid for, no encumbrances, as flat and fertile, black, friable and exposed as any piece of land on the face of the earth," like a lot of land in Iowa.
KANSAS: "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" by L. Frank Baum
There's no place like the Great Kansas Plains.
Baum's imaginative tale of Dorothy Gale from Kansas and her Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion friends was the best-selling children's story of the 1900 Christmas season and spawned the 1939 film "The Wizard of Oz."
KENTUCKY: "Uncle Tom's Cabin" by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Uncle Tom, a long-suffering black slave, is sold by the Shelby family and begins a journey that, for 19th-century readers, depicted the realities of slavery and endorsed the power of Christian love to overcome all obstacles.
Stowe based the abolitionist novel on the first-hand stories of former enslaved peoples in Kentucky, a slave state, while she lived across the Ohio River in Cincinnati. Its powerful condemnation of slavery fueled the human rights debate in the mid-19th century.
LOUISIANA: "Interview with the Vampire" by Anne Rice
Louis, a plantation owner living in New Orleans, is distraught by the death of his brother, until the infamous vampire Lestat turns him into his immortal companion. At first Louis is burdened by the guilt of feeding on humans, but he finds solace in a friendship with an orphaned vampire girl.
The French Quarter provides a backdrop for this New Orleans native's first novel.
MAINE: "Carrie" by Stephen King
Carrie, a shy high school girl raised by an unstable, Christian fundamentalist mother, discovers she has telekinetic powers. When her classmates falsely crown her prom queen in an elaborate effort to humiliate her, she enacts her supernatural revenge.
"Carrie" takes place in the fictional town of Chamberlain. The real town of Gorham, Maine, will stage a rock musical adaptation of "Carrie" this Halloween.
MARYLAND: "Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant" by Anne Tyler
Another Baltimore-based novel by Tyler, "Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant" tells how three siblings remember growing up with their perfectionist mother as she lies on her deathbed. The Pulitzer Prize-nominated novel examines how the siblings' recollections vary drastically.
Tyler's characters live in Charles Village, near her long-time residence.
MASSACHUSETTS: "Walden" by Henry David Thoreau
"Walden" is the product of transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau's two-year retreat into the woods, an experiment in isolation, simple living, and self-reliance. By immersing himself in nature, he hopes to understand society more objectively.
Encompassing 61 acres, Walden Pond is the crown jewel of the greater Walden Woods ecosystem in Concord, Massachusetts.
MICHIGAN: "The Virgin Suicides" by Jeffrey Eugenides
"The Virgin Suicides" is a gripping tale of five beautiful yet eccentric sisters who commit suicide all in the same year in Gross Pointe, Mich. It is written from the perspective of an anonymous group of boys who are observant, infatuated, and endlessly struggling to explain the tragedy.
Eugenides said he was inspired by the deterioration of the state's auto industry and the "feeling of growing up in Detroit, in a city losing population, and in perpetual crisis."
MINNESOTA: "Main Street" by Sinclair Lewis
"Main Street" reveals two sides of Minnesota: the thriving metropolis of Saint Paul, where the heroine is from, and the dried-up small town she moves to after much convincing from her new husband. The young woman falls victim to the narrow-mindedness and unimaginative nature of the townspeople.
The author used his birthplace of Sauk Centre as a mold for the fictionalized Gopher Prairie setting.
MISSISSIPPI: "The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner
"The Sound and the Fury" encapsulates the decline of the American South through the dysfunctional Compson family, who face financial ruin during the Roaring Twenties and lose the respect of the townspeople in Jefferson, Mississippi.
Many readers complained that the book's stream of consciousness style was hard to follow. Faulkner's advice was to "read it four times," he told the Paris Review.
MISSOURI: "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" by Mark Twain
This classic coming-of-age story set alongside the Mississippi River follows Tom Sawyer, a young boy who preoccupies himself with pulling pranks and impressing a girl—until he witnesses a murder. Tom and his companions run away to an island, but eventually return to take up treasure hunting.
Twain grew up in Hannibal, Missouri, which which inspired the setting of "Tom Sawyer" and "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn."
MONTANA: "A River Runs Through It" by Norman Maclean
"A River Runs Through It" is the semi-autobiographical tale of everyday life in the west for two brothers who are the sons of a local pastor.
Set amidst the beautiful, wondrous landscape of Montana, the two boys, one dutiful and one rebellious, each grow up and discover themselves, turning, at times, to dark places, but always under the footfalls of their father.
NEBRASKA: "My Ántonia" by Willa Cather
The reader meets Ántonia Shimerda through a written account from the narrator, Jim Burden, a young man who moves to the fictional town of Black Hawk, Neb., to live with his grandparents.
Through Jim's lens of love and infatuation, Ántonia is brought to life as a young Bohemian girl with many trials and triumphs. The reader grows to know her and, simultaneously, the author as well, who wrote the novel from details of her own life in Nebraska.
NEVADA: "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" by Hunter S. Thompson
"Fear and Loathing" follows a journalist, Raoul Duke, and his attorney, Dr. Gonzo, on a trip to Las Vegas to cover an event taking place there.
However, the two are preoccupied and saddened by what they perceive as the decline of 1960s American pop culture, and begin experimenting with drugs. Much of the book is seen through their hallucinations and twisted realities which is only fueled by the hyperreal surroundings of Sin City.
NEW HAMPSHIRE: "The Hotel New Hampshire" by John Irving
Containing all the classic John Irving tropes — a bear, rape, body-building, and social privilege — "The Hotel New Hampshire" follows a peculiar family as they open hotels in New Hampshire, Vienna, and Maine.
The book is evocative of Irving's upbringing in the back woods of New Hampshire.
NEW JERSEY: "Drown" by Junot Díaz
Based on his own experiences as a Dominican immigrant who moved to New Jersey, the 10 short stories in "Drown" perfectly tell of the struggles the New Jersey immigrant community faces, from poverty to homesickness to the language barrier.
The outlook is often grim, but told in Díaz's riveting and intoxicating narrative we manage to see the characters' unsentimental determination for a better life.
NEW MEXICO: "Red Sky at Morning" by Richard Bradford
Regarded as a "novel of consequence" by the New York Times book review, "Red Sky at Morning" is the coming-of-age story of Josh Arnold, a teenager who relocates with his family from Alabama to New Mexico during World War II when his father enlists in the Navy.
Josh is burdened by his responsibilities of being the man of the house while also trying to grow up during a troubling time.
NEW YORK: "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald
"The Great Gatsby" tells the story of Jay Gatsby, a young, lovesick millionaire, as told by his friend and next door neighbor Nick Carraway. The novel progresses as Gatsby tries to rekindle his love with Daisy Buchanan, who is also Nick’s cousin.
Through Gatsby’s shady business dealings and his extravagant wealthy lifestyle on Long Island, Fitzgerald reveals a world in New York that is both terribly beautiful and terribly corrupt.
NORTH CAROLINA: "A Walk to Remember" by Nicholas Sparks
This Sparks romance novel, made famous by its film adaptation starring Mandy Moore, shows the unlikely, blossoming love between two high school students from Beaufort, North Carolina: Landon Carter, a popular rebel, and Jamie Sullivan, a quiet bookworm.
While Landon tries to get closer to Jamie, she pushes him away, fearing that an unwelcome secret will end things between them before it begins.
NORTH DAKOTA: "The Round House" by Louise Erdrich
When a woman living on a North Dakota Indian reservation is attacked, police have a hard time investigating the case, as she is unwilling to discuss what happened to her, even with her husband and son.
But her son takes matters into his own hands, recruiting the help of his friends to find out what happened and bring justice to his family and his tribe.
OHIO: "The Broom of the System" by David Foster Wallace
In Foster Wallace's slightly altered view of Ohio in 1990, we follow our heroine, Lenore Stonecipher Beadsman, a telephone operator/secretary who manages a job with barely any purpose, a relationship with her much-older boss, and the task of finding her decrepit grandmother who, along with 25 other residents of the Shaker Heights Nursing Home, have managed to disappear without a trace.
OKLAHOMA: "Paradise" by Toni Morrison
"Paradise" chronicles tensions between the patriarchal, all-black town of Ruby, Oklahoma—founded by the descendants of free slaves intent on isolating themselves from the outside world—and a nearby community of five women, each seeking refuge from the past.
Morrison conceived the idea for "Paradise" after researching the all-black towns in Oklahoma that formed when newly freed men left plantations under duress.
OREGON: "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" by Ken Kesey
Rebellious Randle McMurphy barges into an Oregon mental institution one day and decides to rally the patients against the tyranny of Nurse Ratched. McMurphy lets all hell break loose as he smuggles in women, alcohol, and other contraband, leading to an all-out war between himself and his way of life, and Nurse Ratched and the authority of the institution.
Told through the eyes of one of the patients, Kesey reveals bits of his own background, having previously worked as an orderly in a mental health ward.
PENNSYLVANIA: "The Lovely Bones" by Alice Sebold
"The Lovely Bones" is a dark yet gripping tale told about Susie Salmon, a young girl who was the victim of a brutal rape and murder in the cornfields of Norristown, Penn., told from her point of view after her death.
Looking down on her family from heaven, Susie watches as her family comes to terms with what happened to her and tries to solve a case that, to police, seems to lead nowhere.
RHODE ISLAND: "My Sister's Keeper" by Jodi Picoult
Anna has always been her older sister Kate's lifesaver. She's undergone countless surgeries, transplants, and donations to help save her sick sister, but when doctors discover that Anna is now a match to be Kate's bone marrow donor, Anna decides to sue for the right to control her own body.
Picoult shows the heartbreaking pull between freedom and family in this Rhode Island-set novel.
SOUTH CAROLINA: "The Secret Life of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd
Lily Owens is a young girl growing up in 1960s South Carolina with an abusive father and an African American nanny who serves as a surrogate mother.
But when her nanny lands herself in jail for insulting some white men, Lily breaks her out and the two run away and are taken in by three eccentric bee-keeping sisters, where Lily learns the secrets and rituals of honey bees, and intimate details of her mother's past.
Monk Kidd injects some of her own southern upbringing into this contemporary heartwarming novel.
SOUTH DAKOTA: "A Long Way From Home" by Tom Brokaw
"A Long Way From Home" details Brokaw's own "American pilgrimage," from his boyhood by the Missouri River, to his journey into broadcast journalism in the '60s.
In Brokaw's honest narrative, we see how much his life has been shaped by growing up in South Dakota and the historic events he lived through as a child and young adult.
TENNESSEE: "The Client" by John Grisham
In a vacant overgrown lot outside Memphis, 11-year-old Mark encounters Romey, a suicidal lawyer who, before killing himself, leaves the boy with the secret of where his client's murder victim is buried.
Now Mark is running for his life, aided only by a friendly young attorney named Reggie Love, as the two try to keep Mark safe from Romey's mobster client, and simultaneously put a killer to justice.
TEXAS: "No Country for Old Men" by Cormac McCarthy
Made famous by the eponymous film starring Javier Bardem, "No Country for Old Men" is Cormac McCarthy's masterpiece about a drug trade on the border between Texas and Mexico that left a hoard of men dead and a stash of heroin, and $2 million, in an abandoned truck.
Llewellyn Moss, who discovered the scene, takes the money, setting off a chain of destructive events and gets him caught up in the illicit drug business.
UTAH: "The 19th Wife" by David Ebershoff
Based on the life of Ann Eliza Young, one of the wives of powerful Mormon leader Brigham Young, Ebershoff weaves his novel between the 1870s story of Ann Eliza, and how her escape from her oppressive husband leads her to try to end polygamy, with the modern-day story of Jordan Scott, a young Mormon man who was cast out of the church and is trying to re-enter to solve his father's murder.
In this work of historical fiction, Ebershoff takes a realistic look at polygamy through his side-by-side narratives.
VERMONT: "Pollyanna" by Eleanor H. Porter
Pollyanna Whittier is a young orphan who goes to live with her rich, stern aunt in Beldingsville, Vermont. Pollyana, who always has an optimistic outlook on every situation, begins to spread her philosophy of gladness to the dreary town of Beldingsville, until an accident threatens to spoil her sunny disposition.
VIRGINIA: "Bridge to Terabithia" by Katherine Patterson
Jesse Aarons wants to be the fastest runner in his rural Virginia elementary school, and almost realizes his dream until a new girl shows up and outruns everyone. This leads to an unlikely friendship between Jesse and the girl, Leslie, who together invent a magic wooded kingdom they call Terabithia, which quickly become their favorite place to be, and also serves as a safe haven and retreat when a tragic event occurs.
The book is loosely based on events from Patterson's own childhood, which she also spent in the greater DC area.
WASHINGTON: "Twilight" by Stephenie Meyer
The small town of Forks, Wash., was made famous by serving as the setting for Meyer's best-selling vampire book series.
Bella Swan moves from her mom's house to live with her dad in Forks where she meets Edward Cullen, a quiet, gorgeous young man in her new high school. Edward usually keeps to himself, but he is drawn to Bella and can't seem to stay away from her—for a shocking reason.
WASHINGTON, DC: "The Lost Symbol" by Dan Brown
In this story of espionage, conspiracies, and buried American secrets, "The Da Vinci Code" author Dan Brown has done it again.
Brown's beloved character Robert Langdon returns in his latest thriller, this time chasing down his mentor's kidnapper in DC while trying to decode five puzzling symbols linked to the Free Masons that could be the key to rescuing his mentor.
WEST VIRGINIA: "Shiloh" by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
A tale of friendship between a boy and his dog comes to life in Friendly, W.V., when Marty, a young boy, comes across a puppy he calls Shiloh in the hills behind his home.
But Shiloh belongs to Judd, a terrifying town drunk who beats the dog. And now Marty, who's made a friend in Shiloh, will do anything to save him.
WISCONSIN: "Little House in the Big Woods" by Laura Ingalls Wilder
The classic characters Laura, Mary, and their family struggle to make a home for themselves in Ingalls Wilder's beloved "Little House" children's book series.
Based in part on Ingalls Wilder's own journey around the Midwest, young Laura and Mary, along with their parents and baby sister Carrie, learn to survive the long winter, fend for themselves, and take care of each other in this true-to-life work.
WYOMING: "The Laramie Project" by Moises Kaufman
Kaufman wrote "The Laramie Project" as a play to recount the murder of Matthew Shepard, a gay young man who became the victim of an extreme hate crime in a quiet Wyoming town. Shepard is remembered and honored from the perspective of family and friends as Kaufman takes a lens to the stubborn intolerance in society.
