July 4th: A Celebration of American Literature

American Independence Day is a great day, even though I am not American and nor do I live in America, I like to see how our friends across the Atlantic are celebrating this auspicious occasion. Filled with fireworks, party foods, gatherings of friends and family, this is set to be incredible day complete with unforgettable memories and happiness all around. American Independence Day is obviously the day where America celebrate being free of their overlords in Britain and became their own country, their own power and their own land. I think it’s a brilliant day to celebrate the works of fiction and nonfiction that came out of America due to its rapidly changing scene. From the late 1700s to the present, the USA has undergone so many changes in their artistic movements and so many social reforms that it is difficult to really count where one ends and another begins. I would like to celebrate alongside our friends across the Atlantic by offering a book set in every state of the USA. From the Southern Gothic to the Jazz Age, from the Harlem Renaissance to the 80s Transgressive Era and from Civil War Literature to the Post-Modern Destruction of the American Dream. American Literature has so much to offer us in terms of characters like the loveable George and Lennie from Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men” or the regrets of characters like Thomas Sutpen from Faulkner’s “Absalom, Absalom!”, the terrifying prospect felt by John Unger in Fitzgerald’s “Diamond as Big as the Ritz” and even the innocence of one of the most beloved character from any American Literature Work ever, little Scout Finch of Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird”. From fiction to nonfiction, poetry and back again, American Literature is endless in its surprises and innovation…

So, without further introduction, let us have a look at our list of books!

Alabama - “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee

Alaska - “The Call of the Wild” by Jack London

Arizona - “The Monkey Wrench Gang” by Edward Abbey

Arkansas - “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” by Maya Angelou

California - “Cannery Row” by John Steinbeck

Colorado - “The Song of the Lark” by Willa Cather

Connecticut - “Revolutionary Road” by Richard Yates

Delaware - “Smokey O” by Celia Cohen

Florida - “Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston

Georgia - “Gone With the Wind” by Margaret Mitchell

Hawaii - “From Here to Eternity” by James Jones

Idaho - “Educated” by Tara Westover

Illinois - “Devil in the White City” by Erik Larson

Indiana - “The Fault in Our Stars” by John Green

Iowa - “The Bridges of Madison County” by Robert James Waller

Kansas - “In Cold Blood” by Truman Capote

Kentucky - “Beloved” by Toni Morrison

Louisiana - “A Lesson Before Dying” by Ernest J Gaines

Maine - “The Cider House Rules” by John Irving

Maryland - “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot

Massachusetts - “Little Women” by Louisa May Alcott

Michigan - “The Virgin Suicides” by Jeffrey Eugenides

Minnesota - “Main Street” by Sinclair Lewis

Mississippi - “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain

Missouri - “The Glass Menagerie” by Tennessee Williams

Montana - “Missoula” by Jon Krakauer

Nebraska - “Eleanor and Park” by Rainbow Rowell

Nevada - “Desperation” by Stephen King

New Hampshire - “The Rules of Attraction” by Bret Easton Ellis

New Jersey - “Indignation” by Philip Roth

New Mexico - “Death Comes for the Archbishop” by Willa Cather

New York - “Call it Sleep” by Henry Roth

North Carolina - “If Morning Ever Comes” by Anne Tyler

North Dakota - “The Grass Dancer” by Susan Power

Ohio - “Winesburg, Ohio” by Sherwood Anderson

Oklahoma - “Killers of the Flower Moon” by David Grann

Oregon - “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” by Ken Kesey

Pennsylvania - “Appointment in Samara” by John O’Hara

Rhode Island - “My Sister’s Keeper” by Jodi Picoult

South Carolina - “Bastard Out of Carolina” by Dorothy Allison

South Dakota - “Little Town on the Prairie” by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Tennessee - “A Death in the Family” by James Agee

Texas - “All the Pretty Horses” by Cormac McCarthy

Utah - “The Executioner’s Song” by Norman Mailer

Vermont - “The Secret History” by Donna Tartt

Virginia - “The Confession of Nat Turner” by William Styron

Washington - “Where’d You Go, Bernadette?” by Maria Semple

West Virginia - “John Henry Days” by Colson Whitehead

Wisconsin - “A Prayer for the Dying” by Stewart O’Nan

Wyoming - “Close Range” by Annie Proulx