Read your way around the USA

We already have chosen famous books for 11 counties BTW! Doing well!

Thank you Oldyellow....was wondering about Swallows and Amazons being a famous book? Ebearhug has suggested this

Next up Derbyshire - both Ilovemyanyfucker and octopusinastringbag suggest Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks, sounds perfect.

Devon There were lots of contenders but I think Hound of the Baskervilles won out??

Dorset is next up - what do we think should feature?

Margaret Forster maybe? Hidden lives I think is mostly in Carlisle. Or maybe Mervyn Bragg.

So many great ideas. Terrific!

Cleveland has proved a bit tricky but how about Pat Barker's Union Street?

Cornwall Octopusinastringba lists these (which do you think is the MOST famous?) I vote for Jamaica Inn

Jamaica InnDaphne Du Maurier
CornwallThe Dark is RisingSusan Cooper
CornwallThe Shell SeekersRosamund Pilcher

Cumberland is next up, any thoughts?

i would put Peter Ackroyd in there for London.

What about South Riding by Winifred Holtby for Yorkshire? Or Wuthering Heights

I've read 16 of the US ones, but can't believe that there isn't a better choice for DC than Dan flipping Brown!

If poetry is allowed perhaps we could have Tam O'Shanter, by Robert Burns, for Ayrshire (Scotland).

This is really coming together! Everyone happy for:
Cheshire The weirdstone of Brisingamen Alan Garner from Octopusinastringbag

Cleveland (Middlesbro') is proving difficult, anyone got anything?

I've read 20 of the US ones.

This is a bit of a challenge!

Have read 13 of the US ones. Very interested to see the UK list.

Can we do poetry because John Betjeman should probably get Middlesex.

I'm never sure where to put London generally. City of London is obviously a different thing to London London which is beautifully covered by Norman Collins' "London Belongs to Me".

Great Expectations is another fab London book but could also do service for the Kent marshes. Also David Copperfield could do Suffolk and Norfolk.

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit- for Lancashire

Glos - Cider with Rosie?
Swansea area (Carmarthenshire?) - quite early one morning Dylan Thomas
Whichever county covers south Kensington surely The Treasure Seekers by E Nesbit
The card by Arnold Bennett for staffs

Was Waterland set in lincolnshire or Norfolk?

I think Nine Tailors by Dorothy sayer was set in Norfolk.

In Search of the Liberty Tree by Tom McCaughren is set in Co Antrim in 1798. Think it might be out of print though...

And Dorset, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, or The French Lieutenant's Woman?

If you're still stuck for something for Somerset, there's this one Ferney which is set in Pen Selwood, just up the road from us.

Oh bugger...why didn't the spaces work? :( Sorry....

So far we have these:

Aberdeen, City of
Anglesey
Angus
Antrim
Argyll
Armagh
Ayrshire
Banffshire
Bath Persuasion
Bedfordshire Pilgrim's Progress Bunyan
Bedfordshire Bageye at the wheel Colin Grant
Bedfordshire The Yips Nicola Barker
Berkshire Three Men and a Boat Jerome K Jerome
Berkshire Cocktail Time PG Wodehouse
Berwickshire
Breconshire
Bristol Sense of Ending Julian Barnes
Bristol Only time will tell Jeffrey Archer
Buckinghamshire Enigma Robert Harris
Buckinghamshire Boy Roald Dahl
Bute
Caernarvonshire
Caithness
Cambridgeshire Porterhouse Blue Tom Sharpe
Cambridgeshire Case Histories Kate Atkinson
Cambridgeshire Engelby Sebastian Faulks
Cardiganshire
Carmarthenshire
Ceredigion
Cheshire The weirdman of Brisingamen Alan Garner
Clackmannanshire
Cleveland
Co. Down
Co. Durham
Co. Fermanagh
Co. Londonderry The Pineapple Tart Anne Dunlop
Co. Londonderry Seamus Heaney
Co. Londonderry Jennifer Johnstone
Cornwall Jamaica Inn Daphne Du Maurier
Cornwall The Dark is Rising Susan Cooper
Cornwall The Shell Seekers Rosamund Pilcher
Cumberland
Cumbria
Denbighshire
Derbyshire Year of Wonders Geraldine Brooks
Devon Hound of the Baskervilles Arthur Conan Doyle
Devon Treasure Island
Devon Green Smoke Rosemary Manning
Devon Lorna Dorne
Devon Tarka the Otter
Devon And then there were none Agatha Christie
Devon Warhorse Michael Morpurgo
Dorset
Dumbartonshire
Dumfriesshire
Dundee, City of
East Lothian
East Riding of Yorkshire
East Sussex
East Yorkshire
Essex
Fife
Flintshire
Glamorgan
Gloucestershire
Greater Manchester
Gwent
Gwynedd
Hampshire
Herefordshire Wine of Angels Phil Rickman
Hertfordshire Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen
Humberside
Huntingdonshire
Inverness
Isle of Man
Isle of Wight
Jersey
Kent
Kincardineshire
Kinross-shire
Kirkcudbrightshire
Lanarkshire Lanark Alexander Grey
Lancashire
Leicestershire
Lincolnshire
London - City of London London Edward Rutherford
Merionethshire
Merseyside
Mid Glamorgan
Middlesex
Midlothian
Monmouthshire
Montgomeryshire
Morayshire
Nairnshire
Norfolk
North Yorkshire
Northamptonshire
Northumberland
Nottinghamshire The Autobiography of ice skating's greatest stars Jayne Torvill
Nottinghamshire The loneliness of the long distance runner
Orkney Orkney Amy Sackville
Oxfordshire Lark rise to Candleford Flora Thompson
Peebleshire
Pembrokeshire
Perthshire
Powys
Radnorshire
Renfrewshire
Ross and Cromarty Winter Solstice Rosamund Pilcher
Roxburghshire
Rutland
Salisbury Sarum Edward Rutherford
Selkirkshire
Sheffield The Northern Clemency
Shetland
Shrewsbury Ellis Peters books Ellis Peters
Shropshire The Happy Prisoner Monica Dickens
Somerset
South Yorkshire
South Glamorgan
Staffordshire
Stirlingshire
Suffolk
Surrey Emma Jane Austen
Sussex The Cazelet Chronicles
Sutherland
Tyne and Wear
Warwickshire
West Lothian
West Sussex
West Yorkshire Red Riding Trilogy
Wigtownshire
Wiltshire The Remains of the Day
Worcestershire Youthenasia Duncan Peberdy

Yay! Lots coming in. This is so great.

BasketzatDawn As far as I understand it, Bristol is like a county in its own right, like Greater London and like Manchester for some reason.

Bristol Sense of an Ending seems to be the one (tks octopusinastringbag)

Cambs Porterhouse Blue? Anyone not happy with that?

Next up:
Cheshire - any suggestions? Perhaps The Weirdstone of Brisingamen by Alan Garner set in Alderley?

I've got a suggestion of a book for Co Londonderry. The Pineapple Tart by Anne Dunlop. Its years since I read it, and I think its set in a fictional village, but I'm about 99% sure it's the mid Ulster area which is Co Londonderry. Does that count? I mean, its not high literature, but its an entertaining read!

Basket it has reality parts and fantasy parts, and the reality parts are very evocative of Glasgow, even if not explictly stated. If we're talking about books with a sense of place then it fits the bill. I'd recommend it!

I still don't know why we have to have Bristol not Bath. Both in Somerset, no? Please do tell what point I am missing .....

I liked Winter Solstice too. Couldn't have told you where in the Highlands it was set, but yes. A few of R Pilcher's are set in Fife, I think? And did she not write the Cornwall ones too. The Shell Seekers, or am I totally mixed up? I was thinking Neil Gunn for 'up north' too but he was Caithness anyway. I think. Is Lanark set in Lanarkshire? So many wonderful writers in Scotland.

I found a good website. I think it's called www.booksinscotland.com. It does the job for us!!

What about Lanark, by Alexander Grey, for Lanarkshire (obvs).