Around the Year in 52 Books discussion

What books have a strong sense of place? That is, you can really see, feel, hear, maybe even smell the surroundings.

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese, Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver, and Dune by Frank Herbert, just to provide a few different settings.

I agree with Demon Copperhead, also Where the Crawdads Sing, and in a very different setting Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk.

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet was a recent one for me, also Hamnet. Agree with all the above!

The Living Mountain by Nan Shepherd

The White Mirror

My review from 2016 actually included the words of this QOW:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Two that fit the bill for me:
- Jade City by Fonda Lee
I fell in love with the place in the first paragraph of this fantasy novel.

- Big Two-Hearted River by Ernest Hemingway

The book I just read, Maud's Line, conjures up rural Oklahoma in the 1920's - including the need to carry a stick and gun with you to combat poisonous snakes.

I'm currently reading The Town by Conrad Richter, set in 19th century Ohio. This is the third book in The Awakening Land series, following The Trees (29) and The Fields (30). All three books have a wonderful sense of place.

I read if the Creek Don't Rise....It wasn't my favorite book as far as story but the author did conjure up Appalachia in detail. I also agree with Where the Crawdads Sing. I loved everything about No Land To Light On including the descriptions of America from the immigrant point of view that gave it a very different sense of place, the passages about the abundance of different food choices in particular evoked smell and feel of the surroundings.

I thought The Starless Sea was the best book I read with a sense of place

Robin I agree with all three. I was thinking about Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk last night when we were watching the NYC scenes in When Harry Met

Demon Copperhead, The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek and Kingsolver’s memoir give three different but vivid views of Appalachia.

Plainsong, Eventide, Lonesome Dove - Midwest, west

I seemed to find a lot of tropical and water related books for ATY prompts in the last couple years. These all have a strong sense of place:
The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey-Amazon river
The Garden of Evening Mists -Malaysia
Salvage the Bones - Mississippi coast
People of the Whale - Pacific NW island
The Hungry Tide - India, Sundarbans
Migrations - from Greenland to Antarctica.
The Rain Heron - the country was unnamed but it felt very real.

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent

Cold Coast by Robyn Mundy

Some of my favorites are The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See and Next Year in Havana by Chanel Cleeton and Where the Crawdads Sing.