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- Business Insider identified the most famous book set in every state through surveys and research.
- The list features various genres, from historical fiction and thrillers to romance novels.
- This compilation highlights America’s diverse literary landscape.
One of the best ways to learn more about a place and its people is by traveling there — but when you can’t do that, books are your next best bet.
To borrow from Dr Seuss‘ “I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!“: “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”
In the US, where each state has a storied past and varied cultures and traditions, there’s so much to explore. If you’re curious about life in Louisiana or itching to experience the many neighborhoods in New York City — or just love reading about new places — one way to travel across the country without going through the trouble of rental cars or airports is by picking a book in the comfort of your home.
To ensure you have the most wholesome literary tour around the country, Business Insider scoured published listings and surveyed our reporters for their best picks, rounding up the most famous book set in every state — and, as a bonus — Washington DC, too.
Here are the most famous books set in every state.
Melissa Stanger contributed reporting on a previous version of this post.
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Christopher McCandless, a young man from a family of money, donates all of his savings to charity and abandons his possessions before hitchhiking into the Alaskan wilderness to reinvent himself.
This true-story survival-drama was made into a movie of the same name in 2007, directed by Sean Penn and starring Emile Hirsch, shedding light on McCandless’ idealism of a life unburdened by material possessions and the harsh realities of the Alaskan wild.
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Luke Chandler lives on a cotton farm with his parents and grandparents and suddenly finds himself keeping the deadly secrets of harvest workers. The legal-thriller follows the 7-year-old as he grows up and loses his innocence in the 1950s.
The narrator’s upbringing in rural Arkansas inspired this coming-of-age tale.
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A recovering alcoholic writer accepts a position as winter caretaker of the isolated Overlook Hotel, which sits in the Colorado Rockies. He moves in with his family, including 5-year-old son Danny, who has psychic abilities and begins to witness aspects of the hotel’s horrific past.
The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, which inspired the fictional Overlook, offers a Ghost Adventure Package for guests.
Hachette Group
Seven years after settling in Wilmington, an Italian couple is still in pursuit of the American Dream. Maddalena sews at a factory, but desperately wants to be a mother, while her husband’s nighttime escapades threaten to unravel all their hard work.
Castellani wove bits of his own family history into the book. His Italian father, who emigrated to Wilmington after World War II, dreamed of opening a restaurant in Wilmington’s Little Italy neighborhood just like Maddalena’s husband did.
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Mitchell’s 1936 classic love story, set in the South during the Civil War and its aftermath, introduced the world to Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler. O’Hara, the young spoiled daughter of a plantation owner, and her rogue star-crossed lover are torn apart and reunited through the tragedies and comedies of the human existence.
Mitchell spent nine years writing her manuscript, and the ensuing, unwanted fame led her to vow she would never write again.
But the book has been criticized for its portrayal of slavery, for romanticizing the Confederacy, and for its inclusion of racist stereotypes. In 2023, a new edition of the book came with a warning from its UK publisher, Pan Macmillan, that “there may be hurtful or indeed harmful phrases and terminology that were prevalent at the time this novel was written,” The Telegraph reported.
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Little to do with housekeeping, Robinson’s poetic story follows two orphaned girls who are cared for by eccentric female relatives in the fictional town of Fingerbone.
Robinson describes the town as “chastened by an outsized landscape and extravagant weather.” This, and many other details in “Housekeeping,” conjure images of her own Idaho hometown of Sandpoint.
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Written by a native Hoosier, the novel centers on characters struggling to preserve their status during the rapid industrialization between the Civil War and 20th century. The aristocratic Amberson family loses its prestige and wealth as “new money” tycoons take over.
Woodruff Place, Indianapolis’ earliest suburb, was the setting for Tarkington’s “The Magnificent Ambersons,” which Orson Welles later adapted as a movie.
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There’s no place like the Great Kansas Plains.
Baum’s imaginative tale of Dorothy Gale from Kansas and her Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion friends was the best-selling children’s story of the 1900 Christmas season and spawned the 1939 film “The Wizard of Oz.”
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“A Confederacy of Dunces” is one of the funniest American novels ever published. It’s hard to describe, but it’s basically about a 30-year-old man named Ignatius J. Reilly who lives with his mother in New Orleans. Reilly is educated and philosophically opposed to having a job, but has to confront reality when his mom makes him get one.
The story behind the novel is as famous as the novel itself. It was Toole’s first published novel, published 11 years after his death after being championed by his mother and the writer Walker Percy. It was released to instant acclaim, winning a rare posthumous Pulitzer Prize.
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Another Baltimore-based novel by Tyler, “Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant” tells how three siblings remember growing up with their perfectionist mother as she lies on her deathbed. The Pulitzer Prize-nominated novel examines how the siblings’ recollections vary drastically.
Tyler’s characters live in Charles Village, near her long-time residence.
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“The Virgin Suicides” is a gripping tale of five beautiful yet eccentric sisters who all die by suicide in the same year in Gross Pointe, Michigan. It is written from the perspective of an anonymous group of boys who are observant, infatuated, and endlessly struggling to explain the tragedy.
Eugenides said he was inspired by the deterioration of the state’s auto industry and the “feeling of growing up in Detroit, in a city losing population, and in perpetual crisis.”
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“The Sound and the Fury” encapsulates the decline of the American South through the dysfunctional Compson family, who face financial ruin during the Roaring ’20s and lose the respect of the townspeople in Jefferson, Mississippi.
Many readers complained that the book’s stream of consciousness style was hard to follow. Faulkner’s advice was to “read it four times,” he told the Paris Review.
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“A River Runs Through It” is the semi-autobiographical tale of everyday life in the west for two brothers who are the sons of a local pastor.
Set amidst the beautiful, wondrous landscape of Montana, the two boys — one dutiful and one rebellious — each grow up and discover themselves, turning, at times, to dark places, but always under the footfalls of their father.
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“Fear and Loathing” follows a journalist, Raoul Duke, and his attorney, Dr. Gonzo, on a trip to Las Vegas to cover an event taking place there.
However, the two are preoccupied and saddened by what they perceive as the decline of 1960s American pop culture and begin experimenting with drugs. Much of the book is seen through their hallucinations and twisted realities, which are only fueled by the hyperreal surroundings of Sin City.
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Based on Díaz’s own experiences as a Dominican immigrant who moved to New Jersey, the 10 short stories in “Drown” tell of the struggles the New Jersey immigrant community faces, from poverty to homesickness to the language barrier.
The outlook is often grim, but thanks to Díaz’s riveting and intoxicating narrative, we manage to see the characters’ unsentimental determination for a better life.
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“The Great Gatsby” tells the story of Jay Gatsby, a young, lovesick millionaire, through the eyes of his friend and next-door neighbor, Nick Carraway. The novel progresses as Gatsby tries to rekindle his love with Daisy Buchanan, Nick’s cousin.
Through Gatsby’s shady business dealings and his extravagant wealthy lifestyle on Long Island, Fitzgerald reveals a world in New York that is both terribly beautiful and terribly corrupt.
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A woman living on a North Dakota Indian reservation is attacked, but police have a hard time investigating the case when she is unwilling to discuss what transpired.
Her son takes matters into his own hands, recruiting his friends to find out what happened and bring justice to his family and tribe.
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“Paradise” chronicles tensions between the patriarchal, all-Black town of Ruby, which was founded by the descendants of free slaves intent on isolating themselves from the outside world, and a nearby community of five women, each seeking refuge from the past.
Morrison conceived the idea for “Paradise” after researching the all-Black towns in Oklahoma that formed when newly freed men left plantations under duress.
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“The Lovely Bones” is a dark, gripping tale about Susie Salmon, a young girl who was brutally raped and murdered in the cornfields of Norristown. It’s told from her point of view after her death.
Looking down on her family from heaven, Susie watches as they come to terms with what happened to her and try to solve a case that, to police, seems to lead nowhere.
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Lily Owens is a young girl growing up in 1960s South Carolina with an abusive father and an African American nanny who serves as a surrogate mother. When her nanny ends up in jail for insulting some white men, Lily breaks her out and the two run away, seeking refuge among three eccentric bee-keeping sisters.
Monk Kidd injects some of her own Southern upbringing into this contemporary heartwarming novel.
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“A Death in the Family” is the only novel by the polymath writer James Agee. It’s a semiautobiographical book about the emotional reverberations in a family after a father dies in a car accident. Set in Knoxville, it lyrically captures the feelings of every character, from the inner mind of a child to the tragedy of a widow.
The novel was published posthumously, after Agee died of a heart attack at 45, and won the Pulitzer Prize. He was also an acclaimed screenwriter, critic, and journalist.
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Ebershoff weaves a novel based on the life of Ann Eliza Young, one of the wives of Mormon leader Brigham Young, who escapes her oppressive husband and embarks on a mission to end polygamy. The tale is juxtaposed against a modern-day story, following a young Mormon man who was cast out of the church and is trying to re-enter to solve his father’s murder.
In this work of historical fiction, Ebershoff takes a critical look at polygamy through his side-by-side narratives.
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Jesse Aarons wants to be the fastest runner in his rural Virginia elementary school and almost realizes his dream until a new girl shows up and outruns everyone. This leads to an unlikely friendship between Jesse and the girl, Leslie, who together invent a magic wooded kingdom they call Terabithia.
The book is loosely based on events from Patterson’s own childhood, which she spent in the greater DC area.
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In this story of espionage, conspiracies, and buried American secrets, “The Da Vinci Code” author Dan Brown has done it again.
Brown’s beloved character Robert Langdon returns, this time chasing down his mentor’s kidnapper in DC while trying to decode five puzzling symbols linked to the Free Masons.
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The classic characters Laura, Mary, and their family struggle to make a home for themselves in Ingalls Wilder’s beloved “Little House” children’s book series.
Based in part on Ingalls Wilder’s own journey around the Midwest, young Laura and Mary, along with their parents and baby sister Carrie, learn to survive the long winter, fend for themselves, and take care of each other in this true-to-life work.
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Kaufman wrote “The Laramie Project” as a play to recount the murder of Matthew Shepard, a young gay man who became the victim of an extreme hate crime in a quiet Wyoming town.
Shepard is remembered and honored from the perspective of family and friends as Kaufman takes a lens to the stubborn intolerance in society.
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