Destinations: United States
Click on map or destinations in the list below
Destination: Alaska
Put aside stories of a freezing, exotic locale full of igloos and kooks in favor of these portraits of the hardscrabble -- and magical -- Northern state.
Destination: Baltimore
If you like "The Wire," delve into books by Robert Ward, John Waters and William Manchester to experience more avenues of Charm City.
Destination: Louisiana
John Kennedy Toole, Ernest Gaines and the recipes of Enola Prudhomme will instruct you in the sorrows and joys of the Bayou State.
Destination: Washington D.C.
Our famously divided capital has produced novels about white people in power and novels about everyone else. Explore the best of both worlds with Henry Adams and George Pelecanos.
Destination: Jersey Shore
Bruce Springsteen may provide the soundtrack to your boardwalk stroll, but great novels by Richard Ford and Frederick Reiken should keep you company on the beach.
Destination: West Texas
Explore the plains and panhandle of the Lone Star State with the help of Jim Thompson, Larry McMurtry and Dagoberto Gilb.
Destination: Wyoming
Wide open space dotted with the occasional rodeo and watering hole -- you'll need more than Annie Proulx to make it through the long winter here.
Destination: New Mexico
This state's beauty and brutality are reflected in its literature, from the chronicle of explorer Cabeza de Vaca to Cormac McCarthy's masterly westerns to a history of the atomic bomb.
Destination: Nebraska
When you're driving cross-country, get off the interstate and discover the plains and towns that have inspired some fine contemporary writers.
Destination: Brookyln
From Betty Smith to Jonathan Lethem to Truman Capote, the chroniclers of this brownstone-lined borough are as diverse as the millions of people who live there.
Destination: New England
This stern landscape spawned the first titans of American literature -- and the obsessions with religion, race and guilty sex that still haunt us.
Destination: Miami
Crockett and Tubbs can't match Joan Didion and T.D. Allman when it comes to exposing the shadowy side of South Florida.
Destination: Arizona
Look beyond the sprawl and congestion of this desert state with books from Wallace Stegner, Geronimo and Barbara Kingsolver -- and an unlikely guide to the Grand Canyon.
Destination: Martha's Vineyard
Forget the Kennedys! Discover the farmers and seafarers of this famed vacation spot through a rich book of oral history and the story of the island as told from a kayak.
