Read your way around the USA

[ScarerAndFuck]

Just seen a list of the most famous books, one from every state in the USA.

I thought it might be interesting to share here in case anyone felt like a reading challenge with a difference.

The list is here

I've already read 20 of them, although two were for the same state as they were joint first on the list.

[mrscog]

OOh thanks - I love this kind of thing :)

[tripfiction]

Wow, that is a great achievement to have read 20 so far. I am debating whether to replicate this for the UK, what do you think?

[DontMentionThePrunes]

I would love a county-by-county list for the whole of the UK, what a brilliant challenge.
Love the US list too.

[Apileofballyhoo]

What a super idea.

[Apileofballyhoo]

Have read a lot of them, but delighted to have some to look forward too. Would like to read them all again, with a map.

[ScarerAndFuck]

That sounds like a great idea tripfiction. I'd be interested in that.

I've read 20 more by accident than design, but I'm still quite pleased about it

[SconeRhymesWithGone]

As someone with strong ties to both Georgia and Florida, I certainly can't argue with GWTW as the most famous for Georgia, but I was expecting The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings to be the Florida book.

[Cherrypi]

Great idea for a UK one. I can't think of anything. Hmm Hardy and Wessex.

[ConfusedandDazed24]

This looks fab, thanks for sharing OP. I'd also be quite interested in a UK version

[EBearhug]

I've read 13 and seen the films of 5 more.

If I have the funds one day, I'll do a Laura Ingalls Wilder tour of the US, which means I'll see some fairly uninspiring parts, but it won't be entirely the normal tourist route. Also, PEI in Canada because of LM Montgomery.

I've already been to the Snowy Mountains in Australia because of Elyne Mitchell, and I saw real brumbies up on Mt Koscuiszcko, though not a silver one.


For the UK - there could have Daphne du Maurier for Cornwall. RD Blackmoore on Devon. Bloody Hardy for Dorset (I grew up in Dorchester, so had a fair bit of Hardy at school). Jane Austen for Hampshire. Dickens or Monica Edwards or EF Benson (I've discounted Henry James on the grounds that he's actually American) or Virginia Woolf for Kent. Brontes for Yorkshire. Alexander Cordell for South Wales somewhere. Malcolm Saville for Shropshire. Arthur Ransome for Cumbria. Walter Scott for somewhere Scottish. Lilian Beckwith for Skye. Catherine Cookson or Robert Westall for Tyneside. Sue Townsend for Leicestershire. DH Lawrence for Nottinghamshire. Shakespeare for Warwickshire.

[ScarerAndFuck]

I just knew it would be DH Lawrence for Nottinghamshire.

I am going to make it my mission to find something, anything, else, and make it more famous that sodding DH Lawrence if it kills me.

[BabeRuthless]

Wow, thanks for posting this.

See you all in a few months then ??

[SconeRhymesWithGone]

Walter Scott for somewhere Scottish? Hmm, that would be Edinburgh and the Borders.

[EBearhug]

Scones, I've never actually read Walter Scott, so that's why I was a bit vague. If we give him the Borders, we could have Irvine Welsh for Edinburgh.

Scarer, that's rather how I feel about Hardy. I suspect people may feel that way about the Brontes in Yorkshire, too.

[SconeRhymesWithGone]

Or Ian Rankin for Edinburgh.

[tripfiction]

Ok everyone, doing a UK version looks as though this could fly? Some great suggestions coming in already! I am happy to collate and put the final choices on the final map. The American one is titled "The Most Famous Book" which we could do by county. So how would you feel if we start with one county, say, - Cornwall - and see what comes in and choose the novel with the most suggestions? If you are up for this, please start your message with CORNWALL and then add your book so it is easy to spot... Ebearhug has already suggested Daphne Du Maurier but which one ? (and I am sure we can find something other than DH Lawrence for Notts, ScarerAndFuck!!....) Over to you folks! (Does that sound like a good way to start??)

[tripfiction]

CORNWALL: Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier or The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher?

[SarahAndFuck]

It sounds like a great way to start.

CORNWALL: I don't think we can go wrong with the du Maurier suggestions, so I second Jamaica Inn, but it can't hurt to have a back-up and I've never read The Shell Seekers.

And if nobody minds, I'm going to suggest something for younger readers as well, because they are still books that I enjoy now.

CORNWALL: Green Smoke by Rosemary Manning (and the others in the Dragon series that follow it. DS loves these books. And a couple of books in The Dark Is Rising series by Susan Cooper are set in Cornwall too. They are for older children/teens and Over Sea, Under Stone, which starts the series, and Green Witch, which is the third book in the series, are set there.

[tripfiction]

Fab suggestions SarahandFuck. So, it looks like we may have found our first 'Most famous Book' Jamaica Inn for CORNWALL? Who would like to start us of for DEVON? The Hound of the Baskervilles or Lorna Doone or War Horse or Tarka the Otter or... or...??
Please suggest your faves, starting the message with DEVON. Thanks everyone, this will such an interesting project!

[SarahAndFuck]

DEVON: Doesn't Treasure Island start in Devon?

Also Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, which is apparently her bestselling book with over 100,000,000 copies sold and one of the biggest selling books of all time (although I suspect the poster in the library that told me so was printed before the 50 Shades boom, so it might be out of date by now

[EBearhug]

Green Smoke by Rosemary Manning

Oh yes, that's why I had to visit Kynance Cove.

[SarahAndFuck]

I've been looking into NOTTINGHAM but realise I'm getting ahead of myself.

But apparently The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner is set there. That's famous. It was mentioned in our pub quiz. You don't get more famous than that.

There's got to be something about Robin Hood as well, or there's something very wrong with the world.

Anything but Lawrence and the misery he inflicted on my English Lit class for months with that son and his godawful mother.

[SarahAndFuck]

In fact, a quick google of famous Nottingham books has brought me to Torvill and Dean: The Autobiography of Ice Dancing's Greatest Stars by Jayne Torvill.

I like Jayne Torvill, she looks nowhere near as depressing as Lawrence and his miserable, exposed men.

[BasketzatDawn]

We'll need more for Scotland than just WS and Skye. It's a very diverse place. i'll have a think .... . Anything that's not crime? Of course there is ....

[SconeRhymesWithGone]

Robin Jenkins, Janice Galloway, James Kelman, Robert Louis Stevenson, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, James Robertson