Reading about Pennsylvania

Here are some recommendations for Pennsylvania:

Books by John O'Hara

Yes, that's the point of separating it out into its own group, so that each state can be tackled separately without taking up space in other groups.

For the record, I think it's okay to do this. If splitting everything into fifty became a regular thing, that might not be good.

I also only did it for states that had recommended books on my original thread. I left it open for others to be added by other LTers.

Cool.

I suggested this mostly because the original thread had logged a ton of replies in a very short amount of time, which (at least for me) would have made it very hard to go back and pick through the whole thing to find which recommendations went with which state...

And goodness, it's blown up.

Baker Towers by Jennifer Haigh

Appointment in Samarra by John O'Hara based on the town of Pottsville but fictionalised with another name

I quite like the Mario Balzic series by K.C. Constantine. I guess they are technically police procedurals, but I think you get a real feel for what it must be like to live in a small industrial town. Lots of colorful characters.

Mysteries of Pittsburgh is (obviously) set in Pittsburgh. It's not quite as good as Michael Chabon's later stuff, but even in his first book, he's an excellent writer.

How about historical fiction about when Pennsylvania was the American frontier? The bread sister of Sinking Creek : life on the Pennsylvania frontier is my favorite PA-related fiction.

Pennsylvania Curiosities is my favorite book about this state. Its a tourism book about the weirdest parts of Pennsylvania.

Jane Haddam's Gregor Demarkian lives in Philadelphia, although several of his cases take place elsewhere. Not a Creature Was Stirring and Conspiracy Theory involve families living in Bryn Mawr.

Pittsburgh is already well represented, but I must recommend An American Childhood by Annie Dillard. The writing is just unbelieveable, and she spent her American childhood in Pittsburgh. For historical fiction choice, try In Sunlight in a Beautiful Garden , which deals with the Johnstown flood.

Plain Truth by Jodi Picoult is a fictional, but well-researched, account of an incident in an Amish community near Lancaster, PA.

Mason and Dixon by Thomas Pynchon takes place in 18th century Pennsylvania, among other places.

The book Wicked Lovely takes place in PA. The name of the town escapes me right now, but I think it might be fictional.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower is set in Pennsylvania and it's a wonderful book! Here's quite a few more...

http://avidreader25.blogspot.com/2012/09/reading-states-pennsylvania.html