How to find books from or set in different regions of the UNITED STATES

Discover your next great read with Whichbook.net.

Whichbook.net is a resource for finding books that are from or set in different countries. You can also look up works by their individual characteristics. You can even match moods and emotions to your unread next read. Free access, no limit, and it’s fun!

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(Alaska) The Snow Child | Eowyn Ivey

Check it out in our online card catalog!

Summary: A magical story, but one that does not shy away from life’s cruel disappointments and the brutal facts of living in a harsh environment. The vivid writing made me feel that I shared the settlers’ lives, the hardships that make the 1920s seem like the 1820s, but also the bittersweet magic that the Snow Child brought them. And at the end I felt the powerful connections that make a family.

Recommendation: Whichbook provides multiple methods by which you might find a new item to read. Explore this link to play with the software yourself: https://www.whichbook.net/world-map/

Visit each country in turn to discover works you MIGHT find through the Smithton Public Library District (all those titles recommended here ARE available through our system for borrowing).

Image Credit: Aspen Card Catalog; Image Link

(Hawaii) Sharks in the Time of Saviors | Kawai Strong Washburn

Check it out in our online card catalog!

Summary: In 1995 Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, on a rare family vacation, seven-year-old Nainoa Flores falls overboard a cruise ship into the Pacific Ocean. When a shiver of sharks appears in the water, everyone fears for the worst. But instead, Noa is gingerly delivered to his mother in the jaws of a shark, marking his story as the stuff of legends. Nainoa’s family, struggling amidst the collapse of the sugarcane industry, hails his rescue as a sign of favor from ancient Hawaiian gods–a belief that appears validated after he exhibits puzzling new abilities.

Recommendation: Whichbook provides multiple methods by which you might find a new item to read. Explore this link to play with the software yourself: https://www.whichbook.net/world-map/

Visit each country in turn to discover works you MIGHT find through the Smithton Public Library District (all those titles recommended here ARE available through our system for borrowing).

Image Credit: Aspen Card Catalog; Image Link

(Midwest) A Gate at the Stairs | Lorrie Moore

Check it out in our online card catalog!

Summary: As the United States begins gearing up for war in the Middle East, twenty-year-old Tassie Keltjin, the Midwestern daughter of a gentleman hill farmer–his ‘Keltjin potatoes’ are justifiably famous–has come to a university town as a college student, her brain on fire with Chaucer, Sylvia Plath, Simone de Beauvoir. Between semesters, she takes a job as a part-time nanny. The family she works for seems both mysterious and glamorous to her, and although Tassie had once found children boring, she comes to care for, and to protect, their newly adopted little girl as her own. As the year unfolds and she is drawn deeper into each of these lives, her own life back home becomes ever more alien to her: her parents are frailer; her brother, aimless and lost in high school, contemplates joining the military. Tassie finds herself becoming more and more the stranger she felt herself to be, and as life and love unravel dramatically, even shockingly, she is forever changed.

Recommendation: Whichbook provides multiple methods by which you might find a new item to read. Explore this link to play with the software yourself: https://www.whichbook.net/world-map/

Visit each country in turn to discover works you MIGHT find through the Smithton Public Library District (all those titles recommended here ARE available through our system for borrowing).

Image Credit: Aspen Card Catalog; Image Link

(North East) Look at Me | Jennifer Egan

Check it out in our online card catalog!

Summary: How much about us is determined by how we look? Charlotte, a model, finds her appearance completely altered after an appalling accident. As a result her life, and her views of that life, change dramatically. Plenty of mystery here in this enjoyable and thought provoking novel – in places shocking but never predictable.

Recommendation: Whichbook provides multiple methods by which you might find a new item to read. Explore this link to play with the software yourself: https://www.whichbook.net/world-map/

Visit each country in turn to discover works you MIGHT find through the Smithton Public Library District (all those titles recommended here ARE available through our system for borrowing).

Image Credit: Aspen Card Catalog; Image Link

(South) Basket Case | Carl Hiaasen

Check it out in our online card catalog!

Summary: Jack Tagger is a frustrated journalist. His outspoken views have relegated him to the obituary page, with his byline never again to disgrace the front page. But Jack has stumbled across a whale of a story that might just resurrect his career… James Stomarti, infamous frontman of rock band Jimmy and the Slut Puppies, has died in a diving accident and Jack harbours suspicions that the glamorous pop starlet widow may have had a vested interest in her husband’s untimely death. It all smells a little too fishy. Aided and abetted by his rather sexy (if unnervingly ambitious) young editor, Emma, Jack sets out to in pursuit of the truth – and a nice juicy story.

Recommendation: Whichbook provides multiple methods by which you might find a new item to read. Explore this link to play with the software yourself: https://www.whichbook.net/world-map/

Visit each country in turn to discover works you MIGHT find through the Smithton Public Library District (all those titles recommended here ARE available through our system for borrowing).

About the author

Smithton Public Library

The Smithton Public Library District is located in southern Illinois, near St. Louis, MO. The library serves nearly 5,000 residents. We hope you visit us soon!