14 October 2013

Your state in a book

Business Insider has a map of the "most famous" book represented by each of the 50 states. Let me judge them by where I've lived:


  • Wisconsin: LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE. I was raised on these books and they are perennial classics, so this is fine by me. (But I've never been to Pepin, WI near where the Ingallses lived. Road trip?)
  • Rhode Island: Jodi Picoult's MY SISTER'S KEEPER. Wait, it really takes place there? Interesting.
  • Massachusetts: WALDEN, although I think one of Cotton Mather's diaries would be more accurate if my sources inside the state are any indicator. 
  • Illinois: THE JUNGLE. Seems unfair. 
  • New York: THE GREAT GATSBY. Okay, it's almost 90 years old, but we will take it. 
  • Pennsylvania: THE LOVELY BONES. Not a flattering look. 


Scanning the list, I think the person who compiled it has a really mordant sense of humor. You'd have to, to list fun travel reads like THE SHINING, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN and CARRIE among your titles. Seriously, who wants to visit the grave at the end of CARRIE? Nobody. But Kansas is happy, while Ohio is confused.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Gone with The Wind - one of my favorites! ~Jen

Marjorie said...

I had dinner in Pepin just last night! It's a very, very tiny town but the Harbor View Cafe is one of my favorite places in the world.

I knew they'd pick Main Street for Minnesota, but I've never read it, and I'm not sure I know anyone who has. My mother and brother tried to read it together when they were still homeschooling and I'd moved on to public school, but they got too bored to finish it--I think they ditched it in favor of Catch-22.

Ellen said...

I have read MAIN STREET, but if I hadn't blogged about it (here) I would have forgotten it. I think that Sinclair Lewis has fallen out of fashion in the past 50 years and is due for a revival -- but BABBITT is better.