William Faulkner
Yoknapatawpha County
Lafayette County, Mississippi; Jefferson is Oxford, where Faulkner lived. He drew the map of the county himself and signed it as its “Sole Owner”.
North America
United States
748 authors in the ranking·2,695 rated books·393 books set here
American authors in the reader ranking include Stephen King, Brandon Sanderson and Suzanne Collins. The page also lists books whose story is set in the United States. John Steinbeck, who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962, set “East of Eden” (1952) in California’s Salinas Valley, and Harper Lee placed “To Kill a Mockingbird” (1960) in a fictional Alabama town.
The most-read authors and their best books
Authors 748
- Brandon Sanderson35 ranked booksWords of Radiance9.4
- Stephen King74 ranked booksThe Green Mile8.6
- Sarah J. Maas21 ranked booksKingdom of Ash8.9
- Rick Riordan31 ranked booksThe Last Olympian8.7
- Suzanne Collins10 ranked booksSunrise on the Reaping8.6
- George R. R. Martin17 ranked booksA Storm of Swords9.0
- Robert Jordan15 ranked booksA Memory of Light9.0
- Jim Butcher28 ranked booksChanges8.8
- Andy Weir3 ranked booksProject Hail Mary9.0
- Matt Dinniman9 ranked booksThis Inevitable Ruin9.0
- Martha Wells11 ranked booksNetwork Effect8.9
- James S. A. Corey12 ranked booksTiamat's Wrath8.9
- Dan Brown8 ranked booksAngels & Demons7.4
- Isaac Asimov25 ranked booksThe Last Question8.7
- Frank Herbert6 ranked booksDune8.8
- Orson Scott Card29 ranked booksEnder's Game8.8
- Leigh Bardugo16 ranked booksCrooked Kingdom8.8
- Pierce Brown6 ranked booksLight Bringer9.1
- John Scalzi18 ranked booksOld Man's War8.3
- Stephenie Meyer6 ranked booksThe Chemist7.4
- John Green7 ranked booksThe Anthropocene Reviewed8.5
- Cassandra Clare15 ranked booksClockwork Princess8.6
- Christopher Paolini8 ranked booksBrisingr8.0
- Kurt Vonnegut14 ranked booksMother Night8.3
The story is set here 393
Books whose story is set in this country, according to Wikidata and our own additions.
- The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & ClayMichael Chabon8.6
- The Nickel BoysColson Whitehead8.5
- The Battle of the LabyrinthRick Riordan8.5
- Just KidsPatti Smith8.4
- Infinite JestDavid Foster Wallace8.4
- To Kill a MockingbirdHarper Lee8.4
- Roots: The Saga of an American FamilyAlex Haley8.4
- SmileRaina Telgemeier8.4
- The CrossingCormac McCarthy8.4
- The StandStephen King8.4
- The Son of NeptuneRick Riordan8.4
- The HelpKathryn Stockett8.4
- Fun HomeAlison Bechdel8.4
- The Great AloneKristin Hannah8.3
- WonderR. J. Palacio8.3
- Killers of the Flower MoonDavid Grann8.3
- All the Pretty HorsesCormac McCarthy8.3
- American GodsNeil Gaiman8.3
- AmericanahChimamanda Ngozi Adichie8.3
- Fall of GiantsKen Follett8.3
- Cities of the PlainCormac McCarthy8.3
- Parable of the SowerOctavia E. Butler8.3
- MiseryStephen King8.2
- Funny StoryEmily Henry8.2
Places from books 7
To Kill a Mockingbird
Maycomb
Monroeville, Alabama, Harper Lee’s home town. The old courthouse is now a museum, and every spring a play based on the novel is staged there.
It
Derry
Bangor, Maine, where King lived: the canal, the water tower and the Paul Bunyan statue from the novel are real. King confirmed that Derry is his portrait of Bangor.
Stephen King
Castle Rock
Modelled on Durham, Maine, where King grew up. He took the name from the fort in Golding’s “Lord of the Flies”.
Batman
Gotham City
New York was the model: the line that Metropolis is New York by day and Gotham City is New York by night is attributed to Frank Miller or John Byrne, and “Gotham” is an old nickname for New York. Bill Finger found the name in the New York phone book. In DC’s comics the city lies in New Jersey.
The Hunger Games
Panem
North America after the disasters: the Capitol in the Rocky Mountains, District 12 in Appalachia. In the riddle, the United States counts as the answer.
Kinsey Millhone
Santa Teresa
Santa Barbara, California, under a name that Sue Grafton borrowed from Ross Macdonald.
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An author's country is their citizenship in Wikidata or, where none is recorded, the country they were born in; a story's setting comes from Wikidata too. Obvious errors and gaps are corrected by hand. Authors are ordered by the number of reader ratings. Country shapes: Natural Earth.