Armchair Tourism Made Easy!

Great books have been set in every state—and the District of Columbia—and there are numerous sites out there that will tell you what they are. I’ve chosen three recent ones and summarized them for you here.

 

Reader’s Digest sought to identify the most iconic book set in every state. They note that “Literature is often a source of state pride, with a vast array of novels set in and around each of the great 50 states. With this list, you can tour the entire country—without leaving home.” These iconic book choices are indicated in the following list by RD.
 
Business Insider scoured the internet and surveyed colleagues to round up the most famous book that takes place in each state in America. Their choices are indicated by BI.
 
Travel & Leisure compiled a list of the best books based in every state and DC. They “selected the best books based in every state by looking for titles that almost use their state as another character. The setting is so deeply entwined with theses texts, the story couldn’t even exist in another place or time. In the listings below, their choices are designated by TL.
 
to kill a mockingbird harper lee
 
Alabama: RD, BI, TL all chose To Kill a Mocking Bird, Harper Lee.

 

Alaska: RD, BI, TL all chose Into the Wild, Jon Krakaur

 

jon krakauer into the wild
Arizona: RD = Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy; BI = The Bean Trees, Barbara Kingsolver; TL = Here and Gone, Haylen Beck

 

Arkansas: RD & TL = I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou; BI = A Painted House, John Grisham

 

California: RD & BI = East of Eden, John Steinbeck; TL = Big Sur, Jack Kerouac

 

stephen king the shining
Colorado: RD, BI, TL all chose The Shining, Stephen King
 
Connecticut: RD = The Stepford Wives, Ira LevinBI = Revolutionary Road, Richard Yates; TL = White Fur, Jardine Libaire

 

Delaware: RD = Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk; BI  = The Saint of Lost Things, Christopher Castellani; TL = A Light in the Storm: The Civil War Diary of Amelia Martin, Karen Hesse
 
Florida: RD = Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston; BI = To Have and Have Not, Ernest Hemingway; TL = Because of Winn-Dixie, Kate DiCamillo

 

gone with the wind margaret mitchell
Georgia: RD, BI, TL all chose Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

 

Hawaii: RD & TL = The Descendants, Kaui Hart Hemmings; BI = Hawaii, James Mitchner

 

Idaho: RD = The Stand, Stephen King; BI = Housekeeping, Marilynne Robinson; TL = The Sheep Queen, Thomas Savage

 

Illinois: BI & TL = The Jungle, Upton Sinclair; RD = Divergent, Veronica Roth

 

Indiana: RD = The Fault in Our Stars, John Green; BI = The Magnificent Ambersons, Booth Tarkington; TL = All the Bright Places, Jennifer Niven

 

Iowa: RD & BI = A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley; LT = The Bridges of Madison County, Robert James Waller

 

Kansas: RD & BI = The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum; TL = In Cold Blood, Truman Capote

 

Kentucky: BI & TL = Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe; RD = Beloved, Toni Morrison

 

Louisiana: RD & BI = Interview With the Vampire, Anne Rice; TL = The Awakening, Kate Chopin

 

Maine: RD & BI = Carrie, Stephen King; TL = The Cider House Rules, John Irving

 

Maryland: RD = Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Ann Brashares; BI = Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, Anne Tyler; TL = The Accidental Tourist, Anne Tyler

 

Massachusetts: RD & BI = Walden, Henry David Thoreau; TL = The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne

 

Michigan: RD = Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides; BI = The Virgin Suicides, Jeffrey Eugenides; TL = Once Upon a River, Bonnie Jo Campbell

 

Minnesota: RD & BI = Main Street, Sinclair Lewis; TL = On the Banks of Plum Creek, Laura Ingalls Wilder

 

Mississippi: RD = The Help, Kathryn Stockett; BI = The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner; TL = Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, Mildred D. Taylor

 

Missouri: RD & BI = The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain; TL = The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain

 

a river runs trhough it norman maclean
Montana: RD, BI, TL all chose A River Runs Through It and other stories, Norman Maclean

 

Nebraska: RD & TL = Eleanor and Park, Rainbow Rowell; BI = My Antonia, Willa Cather

 

fear and loathing in las vegas
Nevada: RD, BI, TL all chose Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hunter S. Thompson

 

New Hampshire: RD & BI = The Hotel New Hampshire, John Irving; TL = Frindle, Andrew Clements

 

New Jersey: RD = Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, Judy Blume; BI = Drown, Junot Diaz; TL = The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz

 

New Mexico: RD = Brave New World, Aldous Huxley; BI = Red Sky at Morning, Richard Bradford; TL = The Green Sea Glass, Ellen Klages

 

New York: RD & BI = The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald; TL = A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith

 

North Carolina: RD & BI = A Walk to Remember, Nicholas Sparks; TL = The Notebook, Nicholas Sparks

 

North Dakota: RD & BI =The Round House, Louise Erdrich; TL = Beyond the Bedroom Wall, Larry Woiwode

 

Ohio: RD = Winesburg, Ohio: A Group of Tales of Small Town Ohio Life, Sherwood Anderson; BI = The Broom of the System, David Foster Wallace; TL = Everything I Never Told You, Celeste Ng

 

Oklahoma: RD = The Outsiders, S. E. Hinton; BI = Paradise, Toni Morrison; TL = The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck

 

Oregon: RD = Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Coast Trail, Cheryl Strayed; BI = One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey; TL = The Jump-Off Creek, Molly Gloss

 

Pennsylvania: RD & BI = The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold; TL = Maniac Magee, Jerry Spinelli

 

Rhode Island: RD = She’s Come Undone, Wally Lamb; BI = My Sister’s Keeper, Jodi Picoult; TL = The Witches of Eastwick, John Updike

 

South Carolina: RD = Bastard Out of Carolina, Dorothy Allison; BI = The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd; TL = The Summer Girls, Mary Alice Monroe

 

South Dakota: RD = Little Town on the Prairie, Laura Ingalls Wilder; BI = A Long Way From Home, Tom Brokaw; TL = The Personal History of Rachel DuPree, Ann Weisgarber

 

Tennessee: RD & BI = The Client, John Grisham; TL = The Silence of the Lambs, Thomas Harris

 

Texas: RD & BI = No Country for Old Men, Cormac McCarthy; TL = Holes, Louise Sachar

 

Utah: BI & TL = The 19th Wife, David Ebershoff; RD = Under the Banner of Heaven, Jon Krakauer

 

Vermont: RD & BI = Pollyanna, Eleanor H. Porter; TL =  All the Best People, Sonja Yoerg

 

Virginia: BI & TL = Bridge to Terabithia, Katherine Patterson; RD = Flowers in the Attic, V. C. Andrews

 

Washington: RD & BI = Twilight, Stephenie Meyer; TL = Snow Falling on Cedars, David Guterson

 

Washington, DC: BI = The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown; TL = Lost in the City, Edward P. Jones; RD did not list DC

 

West Virginia: RD = Freedom, Jonathan Franzen;  BI = Shiloh, Phyllis Reynolds Naylor; TL = The Glass Castle, Jeanette Walls

 

Wisconsin: RD = The Deep End of the Ocean, Jacquelyn Mitchard; BI = Little House in the Big Woods, Laura Ingalls Wilder; TL = A Reliable Wife, Robert Goolrick

 

Wyoming: RD & BI = The Laramie Project, Moisés Kaufman and Members of the Tectonic Theater Project; TL = Brokeback Mountain, Annie Proulx
 
armchair tourism made easy
 
So, what say you? Are these the books you would choose for your state(s)?