The Most Famous Book of Every State in the USA

Melia Robinson and Melissa Stanger from Business Insider put together a delicious literary list. They matched every single state of America with the most well known book set there.

A lovely idea indeed as books have the magic power of transporting us not only to other times in history, but also to different places and lifestyles. If you are familiar with the book’s geographical settings, it will bring you feelings of nostalgia or love or even hate or, if you don’t know the place, the book could make you want to visit or the opposite. For instance, the beauty and nostalgic longing captured in Death in Venice by German novelist Thomas Mann planted an urge on me to go to Italy. Venice became the first city I traveled to in Europe.

Thanking Melia and Melissa for rounding up the most famous book set in every state in America, I share their list with you.

What do you think? Did they get your state right? Let us know in the comments if you have alternative picks.

1. Alabama: To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
2. Alaska: Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
3. Arizona: The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver
4. Arkansas: A Painted House by John Steinbeck
5. California: East of Eden by John Steinbeck
6. Colorado: The Shinning by Steven King
7. Connecticut: Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
8. Delaware: The Saint of Lost Things by Christopher Catellani
9. Florida: To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway
10. Georgia: Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
11. Hawaii: Hawaii by James Michener
12. Idaho: Housekeeping by Marilinne Robinson
13. Illinois: The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
14. Indiana: The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington
15. Iowa: A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
16. Kansas: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
17. Kentucky: Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
18. Louisiana: Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
19. Maine: Carrie by Stephen King
20. Maryland: Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler
21. Massachusetts: Walden by Henry David Thoreau
22. Michigan: The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
23. Minnesota: Main Street by Sinclair Lewis
24. Mississippi: The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
25. Missouri: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
26. Montana: A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean
27. Nebraska: My Ántonia by Willa Cather
28. Nevada: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
29. New Hampshire: The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving
30. New Jersey: Drown by Junot Diaz
31. New Mexico: Red Sky at Morning by Richard Bradford
32. New York: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
33. North Carolina: A Walk to Remember by Nicholas Sparks
34. North Dakota: The Round House by Louise Erdrich
35. Ohio: The Broom of the System by David Foster Wallace
36. Oklahoma: Paradise by Toni Morrison
37. Oregon: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
38. Pennsylvania: The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
39. Rhode Island: My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult
40. South Carolina: The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
41. South Dakota: A Long Way From Home by Tom Brokaw
42. Tennessee: The Firm and The Client by John Grisham
43. Texas: No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
44. Utah: The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff
45. Vermont: Pollyanna by Eleanor H. Porter
46. Virginia: Bridge to Terabithis by Katherine Paterson
47. Washington: Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
48. District of Columbia: The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown
49. West Virginia: Shiloh by Phillis Reynolds Naylor
50. Wisconsin: Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder
51. Wyoming: The Laramie Project by Moises Kaufman

Via Business Insider