I recently started listening on Audible to Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens, and discovered the salt water marshes along the North Carolina coast. So far, this is an entrancing listen, and the wonderful descriptions of the marshes make me wish I had a hard copy of the book so I could share some […]
I really enjoyed the music references in this book–and I got a kick out of the main character, Shoe, having an Uncle Albert, given all the Paul McCartney references. Plus, I’m reading it after having watched the movie Yesterday, so I’m getting a double dose of McCartney nostalgia. But the book really shone a light […]
I’ve been putting off New York for a while now, but as I finished Hawaii, I decided to come back to the opposite end of the country–and to my roots. I was born and raised in a small town in upstate New York. I have family in the urban areas of upstate–Binghamton, Albany, Syracuse, Rochester, […]
I loved this book! It took me a little bit to get used to the style, which can be a bit confusing, and if fairly explicit, bisexual, profanity-laced sex is going to bother you, you’ll probably want to avoid this one, but in terms of our books for Idaho, it was definitely a win! I […]
This one reminds me a bit of the thriller I read and posted about in New Hampshire Pre-Visited–it really didn’t do it for me in terms of plot or characters, but there were some great descriptions of Idaho and Lake Coeur d’Alene that I really wanted to post. I’m reading my way across the USA–5 […]
Idaho has been full of odd contrasts. Ruth Ozeki’s All Over Creation was preachy and full of shallow stereotypes of Idaho and its people. Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson was a depressing, maddening, but lovely bit of prose that (hopefully) is not terribly revealing about the people of Idaho while being full of gorgeous descriptions of […]
I associate Idaho with several of my cousins who grew up in Eureka, Montana–the “nearby” mid-sized towns included Bonner’s Ferry, Idaho, in the panhandle. But Idaho also makes me think of Craters of the Moon National Monument, a volcanic site near the center of the state. And Picabo Street, the Olympic skier, who grew up […]
My dad is a history buff, and one of his areas of interest is the conflicts between Native Americans and the pioneers and settlers who took over their land. He always takes the side of the Native Americans. One of his heroes is the great Nez Perce leader Chief Joseph, who led the United States […]
This was a last minute addition, and I’m really glad I found it–Casanova does a really nice job with the northern Minnesota setting in her Young Adult novel Frozen. I am reading my way across the USA–5 or so books from each state, with an emphasis on setting–books where the setting is really tangible, and […]
As I mentioned on the main Minnesota page, this book didn’t seem like a great choice for my reading challenge, although it was an interesting read. For at least 80% of the book, the setting was mostly ignored–even though in the very beginning of the book the main character visits the reservation where her birth […]