Virginia books

Here's a place to talk about fiction/nonfiction set in Virginia.

Rita Mae Brown has loads of books set in VA, there's also Barbara Kingsolver's Prodigal Summer and Adriana Trigiani's Big Stone Gap Series.

A Good and Happy Child by Justin Evans is set in Virginia. It's a very gothic sort of novel, though - dark and a little bit disturbing.

LA, Barbara also wrote a true-life story that has changed my life: Animal Vegetable Mineral about her family's move from out west back to Virginia to try to live more sustainably, not eating anything they didn't purchase locally, grow seasonally, or raise themselves.

If anyone here liked Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma, it's in that same vein.

A great historical novel is Washington's Lady by Nancy Moser. It has some excellent research providing the backstory of the book, including details on the death of Washington's children and activity in and around Mount Vernon during the American Revolution.

A Strong and Gentle Thaw by R. W. Day.

This is a gentle gay romance presented as light post-apocalyptic fiction. Enjoyable fluff, but it does take place in a near-future Virginia following a sudden climatic shift to an ice age.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebekah Sloot, a book that's pretty popular in book club and other book discussion circles right now, is mostly set in southwestern Virginia. It's literary nonfiction with a lot of science in it.