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Books set where you live

Darren

Darren

Active Member
Do you like to read books set in the area you live? Do they reflect your city/region or do you oftehn disagree with the settings?
 
Yes, I love reading books that have my area as a setting! Can't really say if I agree or disagree as most of the ones I've read are historic so the locale had changed quite a bit, such as:

Chesapeake by James Michener (covers MD & VA's Eastern Shore regions)
Texas by James Michener (read it when I lived there for a few yrs)
Mistress of Riversdale (a biography, the setting was right outside Wash, DC)

The last one was particularly enjoyable. Although that area (Riverdale, Bladensburg and Annapolis just a little farther away) has alot of history, I grew up not knowing any of it. So the biography of letters was really great, esp hearing of so many neighborhoods spoken of as the country and major thoroughfares as dirt roads full of dangerous potholes in which they had to navigate their carriages....... It would be fun, too, to have these familiar settings in a modern story also.
 
Belgium is so small that I guess you could say that every book by a Belgian author is set where I live. Maybe that even goes for Dutch books...

I can't really think of any books that were set in this area that I really enjoyed... Maybe I'm thinking about it too hard and that part of my memory is now suffering from the blind spot phenomenon.
 
lies, sounds like Oklahoma.

The region in which I live seems to be uniformly boring to folks who write and therefore unfit for print. However, they tape a great number of fishing shows around here--does that count?

(BTW it's Oklahoman, not Okie no matter what Steinbeck says. All the Okies left.)
 
No. I live in Texas. I've no interest in westerns. :p

I'm just kidding, but I really haven't read anything set in Texas that I enjoyed.
 
Hmm, can't say I've read any Yorkshire-set novels, as far as I can remember. I did start Wuthering Heights, but that was one of the only two books I've started and been unable to finish, I hated it so much.
 
i've read a lot of fiction set in the maritime provinces, particularly syndey nova scotia and newfoundland. the shipping news was set in nfld and was great and anne marie macdonald's fall on your knees was in nova scotia.
i think both were fabulous, but both had instances of incest and abuse and this touched a nerve with some locals. why i don't know,. it happens everywhere.
 
The only book I know of that is set where I live is called 'The Curious Incident of the Dog at Midnight' or something along the lines of that, but I do not intend to read it.
 
Shael Crowtalon said:
The only book I know of that is set where I live is called 'The Curious Incident of the Dog at Midnight' or something along the lines of that, but I do not intend to read it.
Click to expand...

Why not? It's a really good book.....
 
Fictional Texas is more mythic than reality based, so I can't say that there are many books actually set where I live. I did read a romance novel set in Houston, and kept thinking, that's the best date you can invent for these people? Don't you know that great restaurant right down the street?

I also read a romance novel set in my (rural) hometown, and could tell the author had a nice weekend of antiquing there. :rolleyes:
 
I find anything by Irvine Welsh a bit close to the bone because I'm Scottish and grew up in cities, and it's a great country, but areas like his settings do exist.....
 
A lot of novels have been set where I live, mostly because there are a lot of authors living here, some very well known, some working their way onto your bookshelves.

The Ax by Donald Westlake
A Ship Made of Paper by Scott Spencer
Line of Sight by Jack Kelly
World's End by T.C. Boyle
The Epicure's Lament by Kate Christensen
American Woman by Susan Choi
the stories of Washington Irving (Sleepy Hollow, etc.)
some stuff by Gore Vidal
various by Edith Wharton

These are just off the top of my head.
 
the only book I've ever read that took place in (around) Vancouver was a historical fiction novel called Vancouver. i thoroughly enjoyed the stories in the book, but it was really cool to read about places i've been to. i learned a lot about areas around my hometown, it was very interesting.
 
I don't specifically look for books set in Vancouver, but often stumble upon them because of my interest in particular authors or themes. The exception being "Legends of Vancouver" by Pauline Johnson - read when I was about 10 years old and fascinated with mythology and legends.

Books that come readily to mind set in/around Vancouver:

  • 'The Jade Peony' and 'Paper Shadows' - by Wayson Choy
  • Obasan - Joy Kogawa
  • The Disappearing Moon Cafe - Sky Lee
  • Bowering's BC - George Bowering
  • Runaway: Diary of a Street Kid - Evelyn Lau

Also
Numerous short stories by Alice Munro
Portions of Margaret Atwood's books
 
There are a couple of sisters who call themselves Perri O'Shaunessey (or something like that) who write mysteries about a Lake Tahoe lawyer, and they do a pretty good job. Carolyn Keene wrote one called "Trouble at Lake Tahoe".

Isabelle Illende, Amy Tan and Anne Lamott write about the Bay area. San Francisco, that is... Oakley Hall is a local, and he wrote "Downhill Racer", plus a bunch of other books. John McPhee writes about the Sierras, but that's non-fiction.

Wait, wait -- there's a really, really famous book by an equally famous writer -- "Angle of Repose"! Stegner!

So, yeah. None of them do/did such a bad job.

:)
 
I've read all of her books, and I've even gone to one of her book readings. She's a very engaging person. I loved Bird by Bird. After reading only a couple of her books you feel as if you know her!

Have you also read any of Annie Dillard's books about the art of writing?
 
I HATE books set in my area. They make my people sound like complete idiots and they get our food WRONG !!!!! :mad:

There is one writer who lives about 20 minutes from me, and I haven't read any of his books because I am afraid if I did and he committed any of the above mentioned offenses, I'd be too tempted to seek him out and beat him with one of his own books.
 
I've never read anything that's been set where I live, and that goes for Wales, France, and the four places I've lived in England.

I know that Arnold Bennett wrote books set in my hometown of Stoke-on-Trent though, no particular urge to read them though.
 
I'm not aware of too many stories set in Woking, except for the obvious - The War Of The Worlds (haven't read). Horsell Common is about a ten minute walk from my house, and very nice it is too.

Woking Borough Council appears to be pretty proud of the link, but I think they took it a bit tooooo far with the seven-metre-tall Martian sculpture (yes, really) in the town centre:

http://www.woking.gov.uk/woking/martian.html

:rolleyes:

Can you tell that not much else of note ever happened here? :D
 
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