10 books down, 41 to go! Not bad considering how little time I give myself to read. Here is a rundown of what I have read so far:

1. 01/29/09 Ahab's Wife: Or, The Star-gazer: A Novel by Sena Jeter Neslund (Massachusetts)
overall book: 4.5/5 A few lines/passages just went clunk, but overall a wonderful
novel about a girl coming of age in the age of the great whaling ships.
sense of place: 5/5 The descriptions of Nantucket in particular are vivid enough to
make you feel you have paid a visit.

2. 02/27/09 The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wrobelewski (Wisconsin)
overall: 2.5/5. It's an interesting re-telling of Hamlet, but if you've read Hamlet then you pretty much know _exactly_
what is going to happen. It's almost like peeking further into the book or something, a little distracting for me. I recommend reading it whether you are familiar with Hamlet or not, but it may be more enjoyable if you are not.
sense of place: 5/5. The author is from central Wisconsin, and his love for the
landscape shines though. Beautiful descriptions make the reading worthwhile.

3. 07/05/09 Lake Woebegon Days by Garrison Keillor (Minnesota)
overall book: 4/5 A collection of short stories on the theme of Lake Woebegon, much
like Keillor's famous radio show monologue. I love the radio show, so I liked the
book. It would have been better if Keillor was reading the book on tape though. I
discovered that half of what makes the stories funny is the way he tells them!
sense of place: for sheer small town Americana 5/5, for Minnesota characters 5/5
oh ya, you betcha.

4. 07/25/09 The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler (California)
overall book: 5/5. Terrific. A hard-boiled detective novel from the early days of the noir genre. Hard to believe it was written over 70 years ago!
sense of place: 3.5/5. It's hard to imagine an LA where Pasadena is an easy country
drive away from downtown and is surrounded by orange groves, but that is the way it was in Chandler's time.

5. 07/27/09 A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley (Iowa)
overall book: 4/5. A retelling of King Lear, so you know it's going to be
heartbreaking. It drags a little at the end, but only because you are unsure how
much more grief you can take.
sense of place: 4/5. Lyrical descriptions of Iowa's farm country. I didn't feel like I
had been there, but I did get a sense of a farmer's love for the land.

6. 08/09/09 Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon (Pennsylvania)
overall book: 3/5. Good, but not my favorite Chabon book. I think I probably liked the movie
better. Is that a bad thing to say?
sense of place: 2/5. This book takes place in Pittsburgh, but the city is not a
central figure in the book. Some passages give a good sense of place, but overall
it's more about the inner lives of the characters.

7. 08/14/09 Back When We Were Grownups by Anne Tyler (Maryland)
overall book: 4/5. I loved the characters in this book. By the end I felt I was part
of their family.
sense of place: 2/5. Again, not really fair, since the book is about the people, not
the place. The book is set in Baltimore, but it could have been set anywhere, the
city is not central to the themes of the book.

8. 08/19/09 A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean (Montana)
overall book: 4/5 the greatest book about fly fishing ever written. And I mean that
in a good way. In the end, it's not about fishing, its about family, how each person in a family has a role that is defined by the others, and how difficult that role can be to escape.
sense of place: 5/5 great descriptions of the Blackfoot River area of Montana.

9. 09/10/09 The Milagro Beanfield War by John Nichols (New Mexico)
overall book: 5/5 if you can keep track of the 30+ characters Nichols throws at you
(it's hard, some names are very similar) it's a hysterical book. I loved every minute.
sense of place: 5/5 definitely from the 70's, lots of talk about Vietnam and hippies.
But if you ever wanted to know what it would be like to be a VISTA volunteer in a
small New Mexico subsistence farming community, this is the book for you.

10. 09/12/09 Plainsong by Kent Haruf (Colorado)
overall book: 2/5 a meh book, although certain parts were 5/5 for pure humor.
sense of place: 2/5 for scenery, 4/5 for inhabitants. This is tough because I grew
up on the plains of Colorado, so I am probably over critical. For scene, not so great,
but the bachelor farmers and farm life are pretty close.

Edited to add touchstones for book titles.

Message edited by its author, Sep 18, 2009, 6:55pm.

You've made a great start. I love your comments and how you rate the overall book apart from the place setting. I've never read any of these books, although we've seen the movie version of "A River Runs Through It" more times than I can count as it is one of hubby's favorites (even though he hates fishing), but you make all of them sound tempting. If I ever get up the nerve to crawl out from under my rock, do you recommend reading the Shakespeare versions before the re-tellings, or do Edgar Sawtelle and Thousand Acres stand on their own?

Thanks for the compliments sjmccreary! I saw the movie version of "A River Runs Through It" a long time ago and liked it very much, but I couldn't really say how faithful the movie was to the book. If you decide to read it, I would be interested to hear what you thought.

My husband was an English major, and I did a lot of college theater, so I guess I assume that everybody was forced to read and watch lots of Shakespeare. :)

I certainly think both Edgar Sawtelle and A Thousand Acres stand on their own. They both use Shakespeare for basic storyline, but both add so much description of place, time and characters that it becomes something new and great. Like a classic song covered by a cool new band.

I would even go so far as to argue that the new books could be _better_ if you haven't read Shakespeare first, because then the stories unfold more naturally. You won't be constantly saying to yourself, OK, this is the so-and-so character, so I know that something like this is probably going to happen to them, and this plot point should be coming up soon, and all that.

Oh - good point. Then if I read the Shakespeare later, I'll be able to look back and judge how closely they stuck to the original.

My husband and I were both accounting majors. Not so much Shakespeare on that side of campus!

Hubby has read the book that they made the movie "A River Runs Through It" from, but since I don't care much for the movie, I didn't bother with the book, either. He seemed to like it, though.

I scrolled back up to re-read your "under a rock" comment, because I thought it was so funny only to discover that you took it out when you edited the post. :-(

Oh, I was afraid it was offensive, so I did take it out. I'm glad to know you thought it was funny. Should I put it back in for continuity? I'm new to this message board thing.

My personal rock does not permit anything by a Bronte sister, and very little of the Russians. I insist that I am not missing anything, but my husband thinks otherwise. Darn English majors!! : )

#7 Well, I wasn't offended, but some others might be. But then, some people have no sense of humor.

If you can remember just how you worded it, by all means put it back in, or just add it here in the conversation.

We are reasonably difficult to offend here. We have to be since we are always disagreeing about books. What one loves, someone will consider it the worst book they'd read all year, etc...

#9 -- Well, I guess we are all passionate about books, or we wouldn't be here!

By the way RidgewayGirl, thanks for listing the Milagro Beanfield War in the NM section. I never would have read it if not for this challenge (and quick access to a copy from BookMooch). It ended up being one of the best books I have ever read.

Yay! I'm glad you liked it. It's been years since I read it--maybe it's time for a revisit.

After a brief visit to the borderland of India and Tibet/Nepal with The Inheritance of Loss (meh, did not live up to the hype. I'll have to review and post a link here) I decided to head for the South for a bit. I finished Truman Capote's novella Other Voices, Other Rooms for Louisiana and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil for Georgia. I will try to post capsule reviews for both later today, but as a start I will say I recommend both for this Challenge, great sense of place and great storytelling.

I'm finally getting around to re-posting my list of states and books after (accidentally and stupidly) deleting them.

14 books done, 37 to go!

Alabama
Alaska
Arizona
Arkansas
California - The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler, fiction (07/25/09)
Colorado - Plainsong by Kent Haruf, fiction (09/12/09)
Connecticut
Delaware
Florida
Georgia - Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt, non-fiction (10/11/09)
Hawaii
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa - A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley, fiction (07/27/09)
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana - Other Voices, Other Rooms by Truman Capote, fiction (10/03/09)
Maine
Maryland - Back When We Were Grownups by Anne Tyler, fiction (08/14/09)
Massachusetts - Ahab's Wife: Or, The Star-gazer: A Novel by Sena Jeter Neslund, fiction (01/29/09)
Michigan
Minnesota - Lake Woebegon Days by Garrison Keillor, fiction (07/05/09)
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana - A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean, fiction (08/19/09)
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico - The Milagro Beanfield War by John Nichols, fiction (09/10/09)
New York
North Carolina
North Dakota
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon - The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wrobelewski, fiction (02/27/09)
Pennsylvania - Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon, fiction (08/09/09)
Rhode Island - The Memory of Running by Ron McLarty, fiction (11/15/09)
South Carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Vermont
Virginia
Washington - This Boy's Life by Tobias Wolff, non-fiction (10/27/09)
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Wyoming

Washington D.C.

Message edited by its author, Dec 16, 2009, 1:44pm.

11. 10/03/09 Other Voices, Other Rooms by Truman Capote, fiction
overall book: 5/5 Joel Harrison Knox's mother has died, and now his long-absent father has sent for him, asking the 13-year-old to move in with him. Joel agrees, and moves to the strange and slightly spooky world of The Landing in rural Louisiana. Here the line between the living and the dead, between fantasy and reality, and between friend and foe is always blurred.
sense of place: 5/5 Beautiful descriptions of the decaying mansions and overgrown gardens in Capote's version of the rural South at mid-century.

12. 10/11/09 Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt, non-fiction
overall book: 4/5. It's hard to believe some of the events in this book actually happened, and that all the people actually exist. The story takes place in Savannah, Georgia during the 1980's revitalization period. Most of the action is framed in the context of the alleged murder of Danny Hansford by Savannah social fixture Jim Williams and it's impact on Savannah society.
sense of place: 5/5. The murder mystery is interesting, but the supporting characters give the best sense of what it's like to live among the people of Savannah. There's a debutante, a drag queen, a man who walks an imaginary dog, an heiress, a witch, a nightclub owner hosting a perpetual house party, and a chemist with the power to poison half of Savannah hidden in his underwear drawer.

13. 10/27/09 This Boy's Life: A Memoir by Tobias Wolff, non-fiction
overall book: 4/5. Wolff's memoir about life with his loving and adventure-seeking mother in the 1950's and 60's. Together they survive life with Wolff's abusive stepfather, oddball step-siblings and sincere but sometimes violent friends. Very heartfelt and real, it's a book by a successful man who seems to accept and almost love his past for what it is and what it has made him.
sense of place: 5/5 Most of the action takes place in a small town in Washington State. Great descriptions of the landscape and the collection of small towns.

14. 11/15/09 The Memory of Running by Ron McLarty, fiction

overall book: 5/5 I loved this book, I read it in two days because I could not put it down. It's about an overweight, down-on-his-luck, middle-aged man named Smithson "Smithy" Ide who in the course of a week loses his entire family (father, mother and emotionally troubled sister). After learning of his sister's death, he begins riding his childhood bike to California to collect her remains. On the road, he encounters both kindness and hostility. As he rides, he thinks back over his relationships with his parents (loving), his sister (loving, but difficult due to her mental illness, which reads like schizophrenia) and his wheelchair-bound neighbor Norma (who has been in love with him since childhood, but whom he ignores). Through both the inner and outer experiences of his journey, he learns a great deal about himself and his place in the world.

Mmm, I just read that, and it makes the book sound really sappy. But it's not, I promise.

sense of place: 4/5 although this book is set during a cross-country bike ride, most of the flashbacks are set in Rhode Island. In the book McLarty describes ordinary, hard working, middle-class Americans in a loving but troubled family. I suppose this type of family could live anywhere, but they seemed to have the (stereo)-typical "New England" steadfastness about them.