Books Set In Alabama: Alabama Books


How well do you know the literature of Alabama? When we talk about books set in Alabama, one novel tends to loom over the rest. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. This modern classic has won a Pulitzer Prize, is a staple on school (and college) curriculums and often tops must-read lists. The story of racial injustice has cemented it as one of the most influential novels in modern American literature; but this is only the beginning.

In the heart of the south, Alabama was the birthplace of the civil rights movement and has a rich culture and history that has been widely explored in literature. Some classics below include Invisible Man, the story of an African-American man and his experiences from the South to Harlem, New York; The Keepers of the House, a Pulitzer Prize winner which follows seven generations of a family living in rural Alabama; and Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, a story of friendship that explores themes of family, age and race.

I hope this list of books set in Alabama takes you to the Heart of Dixie; if you have any thoughts or further recommendations, please let me know in the comments below! 🍑

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Books Set In Alabama

Books Set In Alabama, The Story of My Life by Helen Keller - Visit www.taleway.com to find books set around the world. alabama books, alabama novels, alabama travel, books from every state, books from each state, american books, usa books, us books, book challenge, alabama adventures, alabama road trip, books and travel, travel reading list, reading list, reading challenge, books to read, books around the world

1.
The Story of My Life
by Helen Keller, 1902

An American classic rediscovered by each generation, The Story of My Life is Helen Keller’s account of her triumph over deafness and blindness. This book–published when Keller was only twenty-two–portrays the wild child who is locked in the dark and silent prison of her own body. With an extraordinary immediacy, Keller reveals her frustrations and rage, and takes the reader on the unforgettable journey of her education and breakthroughs into the world of communication.

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Books Set In Alabama, Rosa Parks: My Story by Rosa Parks - Visit www.taleway.com to find books set around the world. alabama books, alabama novels, alabama travel, books from every state, books from each state, american books, usa books, us books, book challenge, alabama adventures, alabama road trip, books and travel, travel reading list, reading list, reading challenge, books to read, books around the world

2.
Rosa Parks: My Story
by Rosa Parks, 1948

Rosa Parks is best known for the day she refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus, sparking the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott. Yet there is much more to her story than this one act of defiance. In this straightforward, compelling autobiography, Rosa Parks talks candidly about the civil rights movement and her active role in it. Her dedication is inspiring; her story is unforgettable.

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Books Set In Alabama, Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison - Visit www.taleway.com to find books set around the world. alabama books, alabama novels, alabama travel, books from every state, books from each state, american books, usa books, us books, book challenge, alabama adventures, alabama road trip, books and travel, travel reading list, reading list, reading challenge, books to read, books around the world

3.
Invisible Man
by Ralph Ellison, 1952

First published in 1952 and immediately hailed as a masterpiece, Invisible Man is one of those rare novels that have changed the shape of American literature. For not only does Ralph Ellison’s nightmare journey across the racial divide tell unparalleled truths about the nature of bigotry and its effects on the minds of both victims and perpetrators, it gives us an entirely new model of what a novel can be.

As he journeys from the Deep South to the streets and basements of Harlem, from a horrifying “battle royal” where black men are reduced to fighting animals, to a Communist rally where they are elevated to the status of trophies, Ralph Ellison’s nameless protagonist ushers readers into a parallel universe that throws our own into harsh and even hilarious relief.

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Books Set In Alabama, A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote - Visit www.taleway.com to find books set around the world. alabama books, alabama novels, alabama travel, books from every state, books from each state, american books, usa books, us books, book challenge, alabama adventures, alabama road trip, books and travel, travel reading list, reading list, reading challenge, books to read, books around the world

4.
A Christmas Memory
by Truman Capote, 1956

First published in 1956, this much sought-after autobiographical recollection of Truman Capote’s rural Alabama boyhood has become a modern-day classic.

Seven-year-old Buddy inaugurates the Christmas season by crying out to his cousin, Miss Sook Falk: “It’s fruitcake weather!” Thus begins an unforgettable portrait of an odd but enduring friendship between two innocent souls – one young and one old – and the memories they share of beloved holiday rituals.

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Books Set In Alabama, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee - Visit www.taleway.com to find books set around the world. alabama books, alabama novels, alabama travel, books from every state, books from each state, american books, usa books, us books, book challenge, alabama adventures, alabama road trip, books and travel, travel reading list, reading list, reading challenge, books to read, books around the world

5.
To Kill a Mockingbird
by Harper Lee, 1960

The unforgettable novel of a childhood in a sleepy Southern town and the crisis of conscience that rocked it, To Kill A Mockingbird became both an instant bestseller and a critical success when it was first published in 1960. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and was later made into an Academy Award-winning film, also a classic. Compassionate, dramatic, and deeply moving, To Kill A Mockingbird takes readers to the roots of human behavior – to innocence and experience, kindness and cruelty, love and hatred, humor and pathos.

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Books Set In Alabama, The Keepers of the House by Shirley Ann Grau - Visit www.taleway.com to find books set around the world. alabama books, alabama novels, alabama travel, books from every state, books from each state, american books, usa books, us books, book challenge, alabama adventures, alabama road trip, books and travel, travel reading list, reading list, reading challenge, books to read, books around the world

6.
The Keepers of the House
by Shirley Ann Grau, 1964

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1965, The Keepers of the House is Shirley Ann Grau’s masterwork, a many-layered indictment of racism and rage that is as terrifying as it is wise.

Entrenched on the same land since the early 1800s, the Howlands have, for seven generations, been pillars of their Southern community. Extraordinary family lore has been passed down to Abigail Howland, but not all of it. When shocking facts come to light about her late grandfather William’s relationship with Margaret Carmichael, a black housekeeper, the community is outraged, and quickly gathers to vent its fury on Abigail.

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Books Set In Alabama, Paper Moon by Joe David Brown - Visit www.taleway.com to find books set around the world. alabama books, alabama novels, alabama travel, books from every state, books from each state, american books, usa books, us books, book challenge, alabama adventures, alabama road trip, books and travel, travel reading list, reading list, reading challenge, books to read, books around the world

7.
Paper Moon
by Joe David Brown, 1971

The classic tale of a female Huck Finn, Peter Bogdanovich’s film version of the book was nominated for four Academy Awards. Set in the darkest days of the Great Depression, this is the timeless story of an 11-year-old orphan’s rollicking journey through the Deep South with a con man who just might be her father. Brimming with humor, pathos, and an irresistible narrative energy, this is American storytelling at its finest. Paper Moon is tough, vibrant, and ripe for rediscovery.

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Books Set In Alabama, South To A Very Old Place by Albert Murray - Visit www.taleway.com to find books set around the world. alabama books, alabama novels, alabama travel, books from every state, books from each state, american books, usa books, us books, book challenge, alabama adventures, alabama road trip, books and travel, travel reading list, reading list, reading challenge, books to read, books around the world

8.
South To A Very Old Place
by Albert Murray, 1971

The highly acclaimed novelist and biographer Albert Murray tells his classic memoir of growing up in Alabama during the 1920s and 1930s in South to a Very Old Place. Intermingling remembrances of youth with engaging conversation, African-American folklore, and astute cultural criticism, it is at once an intimate personal journey and an incisive social history, informed by “the poet’s language, the novelist’s sensibility, the essayist’s clarity, the jazzman’s imagination, the gospel singer’s depth of feeling” (The New Yorker).

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Books Set In Alabama, Forrest Gump by Winston Groom - Visit www.taleway.com to find books set around the world. alabama books, alabama novels, alabama travel, books from every state, books from each state, american books, usa books, us books, book challenge, alabama adventures, alabama road trip, books and travel, travel reading list, reading list, reading challenge, books to read, books around the world

9.
Forrest Gump
by Winston Groom, 1986

Meet Forrest Gump, the lovable, herculean, and surprisingly savvy hero of this remarkable comic odyssey. After accidentally becoming the star of University of Alabama’s football team, Forrest goes on to become a Vietnam War hero, a world-class Ping-Pong player, a villainous wrestler, and a business tycoon – as he wonders with childlike wisdom at the insanity all around him. In between misadventures, he manages to compare battle scars with Lyndon Johnson, discover the truth about Richard Nixon, and survive the ups and downs of remaining true to his only love, Jenny, on an extraordinary journey through three decades of the American cultural landscape. Forrest Gump has one heck of a story to tell – and you’ve got to read it to believe it.

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Books Set In Alabama, Tongues of Flame by Mary Ward Brown - Visit www.taleway.com to find books set around the world. alabama books, alabama novels, alabama travel, books from every state, books from each state, american books, usa books, us books, book challenge, alabama adventures, alabama road trip, books and travel, travel reading list, reading list, reading challenge, books to read, books around the world

10.
Tongues of Flame
by Mary Ward Brown, 1986

These beautifully crafted stories depict the changing relationships between black and white southerners, the impact of the civil rights movement, and the emergence of the New South. Mary Ward Brown is a storyteller in the tradition of such powerful 20th-century writers as William Faulkner, Harper Lee, Flannery O’Connor, and Eudora Welty-writers who have explored and dramatized the tension between the inherited social structure of the South and its contemporary dissolution. With Tongues of Flame, her first collection of short stories, Brown bares the awkward, sometimes hopeful, and often tragic suffering of people caught in changing times within a timeless setting.

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Books Set In Alabama, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg - Visit www.taleway.com to find books set around the world. alabama books, alabama novels, alabama travel, books from every state, books from each state, american books, usa books, us books, book challenge, alabama adventures, alabama road trip, books and travel, travel reading list, reading list, reading challenge, books to read, books around the world

11.
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe
by Fannie Flagg, 1987

It’s first the story of two women in the 1980s, of gray-headed Mrs. Threadgoode telling her life story to Evelyn, who is in the sad slump of middle age. The tale she tells is also of two women — of the irrepressibly daredevilish tomboy Idgie and her friend Ruth, who back in the thirties ran a little place in Whistle Stop, Alabama, a Southern kind of Cafe Wobegon offering good barbecue and good coffee and all kinds of love and laughter, even an occasional murder.

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Books Set In Alabama, Boy’s Life by Robert R. McCammon - Visit www.taleway.com to find books set around the world. alabama books, alabama novels, alabama travel, books from every state, books from each state, american books, usa books, us books, book challenge, alabama adventures, alabama road trip, books and travel, travel reading list, reading list, reading challenge, books to read, books around the world

12.
Boy’s Life
by Robert R. McCammon, 1991

Zephyr, Alabama, is an idyllic hometown for eleven-year-old Cory Mackenson – a place where monsters swim the river deep and friends are forever. Then, one cold spring morning, Cory and his father witness a car plunge into a lake – and a desperate rescue attempt brings his father face-to-face with a terrible, haunting vision of death. As Cory struggles to understand his father’s pain, his eyes are slowly opened to the forces of good and evil that surround him. From an ancient mystic who can hear the dead and bewitch the living, to a violent clan of moonshiners, Cory must confront the secrets that hide in the shadows of his hometown – for his father’s sanity and his own life hang in the balance…

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Books Set In Alabama, Crazy in Alabama by Mark Childress - Visit www.taleway.com to find books set around the world. alabama books, alabama novels, alabama travel, books from every state, books from each state, american books, usa books, us books, book challenge, alabama adventures, alabama road trip, books and travel, travel reading list, reading list, reading challenge, books to read, books around the world

13.
Crazy in Alabama
by Mark Childress, 1993

Comic and tragic, unique and outlandish, Crazy in Alabama is the story of two journeys – Lucille’s from Industry, Alabama, to Los Angeles, to star on ‘The Beverly Hill Billies’ and her 12-year-old nephew Peejoe’s, who is about to discover two kinds of Southern justice, and what that means about the stories he’s heard and the people he knows.

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Books Set In Alabama, Murder On A Girls’ Night Out by Anne George - Visit www.taleway.com to find books set around the world. alabama books, alabama novels, alabama travel, books from every state, books from each state, american books, usa books, us books, book challenge, alabama adventures, alabama road trip, books and travel, travel reading list, reading list, reading challenge, books to read, books around the world

14.
Murder On A Girls’ Night Out
by Anne George, 1996

Patricia Anne—“Mouse”—is respectful, respectable, and demure, a perfect example of genteel Southern womanhood. Mary Alice—“Sister”—is big, brassy, flamboyant, and bold. Together they have a knack for finding themselves in the center of some of Birmingham’s most unfortunate unpleasantness.

Country Western is red hot these days, so over impulsive Mary Alice thinks it makes perfect sense to buy the Skoot ‘n’ Boot bar – since that’s where the many-times-divorced “Sister” and her boyfriend du jour like to hang out anyway. Sensible retired schoolteacher Patricia Anne is inclined to disagree – especially when they find a strangled and stabbed dead body dangling in the pub’s wishing well.

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Books Set In Alabama, All Over But The Shoutin’ by Rick Bragg - Visit www.taleway.com to find books set around the world. alabama books, alabama novels, alabama travel, books from every state, books from each state, american books, usa books, us books, book challenge, alabama adventures, alabama road trip, books and travel, travel reading list, reading list, reading challenge, books to read, books around the world

15.
All Over But The Shoutin’
by Rick Bragg, 1997

The extraordinary gifts for evocation and insight and the stunning talent for storytelling that earned Rick Bragg a Pulitzer Prize for feature writing in 1996 are here brought to bear on the wrenching story of his own family’s life. It is the story of a violent, war-haunted, alcoholic father and a strong-willed, loving mother who struggled to protect her three sons from the effects of poverty and ignorance that had tainted her own life. It is the story of the life Bragg was able to carve out for himself on the strength of his mother’s encouragement and belief.

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Books Set In Alabama, Four Spirits by Sena Jeter Naslund - Visit www.taleway.com to find books set around the world. alabama books, alabama novels, alabama travel, books from every state, books from each state, american books, usa books, us books, book challenge, alabama adventures, alabama road trip, books and travel, travel reading list, reading list, reading challenge, books to read, books around the world

16.
Four Spirits
by Sena Jeter Naslund, 2003

Stella Silver is an idealistic, young white college student brought up by her genteel, mannered aunts. She first witnesses the events of the freedom movement from a safe distance but, along with her friend Cat Cartwright, is soon drawn into the mounting conflagration. Stella’s and Cat’s lives are forever altered by their new friendships with other committed freedom fighters.

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Books Set In Alabama, Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer by Warren St John - Visit www.taleway.com to find books set around the world. alabama books, alabama novels, alabama travel, books from every state, books from each state, american books, usa books, us books, book challenge, alabama adventures, alabama road trip, books and travel, travel reading list, reading list, reading challenge, books to read, books around the world

17.
Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer: A Road Trip into the Heart of Fan Mania
by Warren St John, 2004

What is it about sports that turns otherwise sane people into raving lunatics? Why does winning compel people to tear down goal posts, and losing, to drown themselves in bad keg beer? In short, why do fans care? In search of answers, Warren St. John seeks out the roving community of RVers who follow the Alabama Crimson Tide from game to game. A movable feast of Weber grills and Igloo coolers, these are hard-core football fans who arrive on Wednesday for Saturday’s game.

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Books Set In Alabama, Looking For Alaska by John Green - Visit www.taleway.com to find books set around the world. alabama books, alabama novels, alabama travel, books from every state, books from each state, american books, usa books, us books, book challenge, alabama adventures, alabama road trip, books and travel, travel reading list, reading list, reading challenge, books to read, books around the world

18.
Looking For Alaska
by John Green, 2005

Before. Miles “Pudge” Halter is done with his safe life at home. His whole life has been one big non-event, and his obsession with famous last words has only made him crave “the Great Perhaps” even more (Francois Rabelais, poet). He heads off to the sometimes crazy and anything-but-boring world of Culver Creek Boarding School, and his life becomes the opposite of safe. Because down the hall is Alaska Young. The gorgeous, clever, funny, sexy, self-destructive, screwed up, and utterly fascinating Alaska Young. She is an event unto herself. She pulls Pudge into her world, launches him into the Great Perhaps, and steals his heart. Then…

After. Nothing is ever the same.

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Books Set In Alabama, Gods In Alabama by Joshilyn Jackson - Visit www.taleway.com to find books set around the world. alabama books, alabama novels, alabama travel, books from every state, books from each state, american books, usa books, us books, book challenge, alabama adventures, alabama road trip, books and travel, travel reading list, reading list, reading challenge, books to read, books around the world

19.
Gods In Alabama
by Joshilyn Jackson, 2005

For 10 years Arlene has kept her promises, and God has kept His end of the bargain. Until now. When an old schoolmate from Possett turns up at Arlene’s door in Chicago asking questions about Jim Beverly, former quarterback and god of Possett High, Arlene’s break with her former hometown is forced to an end. At the same time, Burr, her long-time boyfriend, has raised an ultimatum: introduce him to her family or consider him gone. Arlene loves him dearly but knows her lily white (not to mention deeply racist) Southern Baptist family will not understand her relationship with an African American boyfriend. Reluctantly, Arlene bows to the pressure, and she and Burr embark on the long-avoided road trip back home.

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Books Set In Alabama, On The Run by Iris Johansen - Visit www.taleway.com to find books set around the world. alabama books, alabama novels, alabama travel, books from every state, books from each state, american books, usa books, us books, book challenge, alabama adventures, alabama road trip, books and travel, travel reading list, reading list, reading challenge, books to read, books around the world

20.
On The Run
by Iris Johansen, 2005

For eight years, single mother Grace Archer has been living a picture-perfect life raising her daughter on a horse farm in the small town of Tallanville, Alabama. Watching Frankie grow into a talented and confident young girl has made Grace as happy as any mother could hope to be. Happy enough, even, to forget the past. But the past never quite goes away. Which is why a certain charismatic man also moved to Tallanville eight years ago to watch over her.

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Books Set In Alabama, Thistle and Twigg by Mary Saums - Visit www.taleway.com to find books set around the world. alabama books, alabama novels, alabama travel, books from every state, books from each state, american books, usa books, us books, book challenge, alabama adventures, alabama road trip, books and travel, travel reading list, reading list, reading challenge, books to read, books around the world

21.
Thistle and Twigg
by Mary Saums, 2007

Jane Thistle is a widow who has just settled down in Tullulah, Alabama, after a long and happy life with her husband, a career military officer whose job took them all over the world. But now that she’s on her own, she’s just as happy to have found this delightful small Southern town to call home. Her new best friend is Phoebe Twigg, also a widow, who has lived in Tullulah all her life. Phoebe is about as different as could be from the worldly and refined Jane Thistle, but her colorful personality and warm, welcoming Southern nature make them quite a team.

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Books Set In Alabama, Scottsboro by Ellen Feldman - Visit www.taleway.com to find books set around the world. alabama books, alabama novels, alabama travel, books from every state, books from each state, american books, usa books, us books, book challenge, alabama adventures, alabama road trip, books and travel, travel reading list, reading list, reading challenge, books to read, books around the world

22.
Scottsboro
by Ellen Feldman, 2008

Alabama, 1931. A posse stops a freight train and arrests nine black youths. Their crime: fighting with white boys. Then two white girls emerge from another freight car, and fast as anyone can say Jim Crow, the cry of rape goes up. One of the girls sticks to her story. The other changes her tune, again and again. A young journalist, whose only connection to the incident is her overheated social conscience, fights to save the nine youths from the electric chair, redeem the girl who repents her lie, and make amends for her own past.

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Books Set In Alabama, What They Always Tell Us by Martin Wilson - Visit www.taleway.com to find books set around the world. alabama books, alabama novels, alabama travel, books from every state, books from each state, american books, usa books, us books, book challenge, alabama adventures, alabama road trip, books and travel, travel reading list, reading list, reading challenge, books to read, books around the world

23.
What They Always Tell Us
by Martin Wilson, 2008

James and Alex have barely anything in common anymore—least of all their experiences in high school, where James is a popular senior and Alex is suddenly an outcast. But at home, there is Henry, the precocious 10-year-old across the street, who eagerly befriends them both. And when Alex takes up running, there is James’s friend Nathen, who unites the brothers in moving and unexpected ways.

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Books Set In Alabama, Days of Little Texas by R.A. Nelson - Visit www.taleway.com to find books set around the world. alabama books, alabama novels, alabama travel, books from every state, books from each state, american books, usa books, us books, book challenge, alabama adventures, alabama road trip, books and travel, travel reading list, reading list, reading challenge, books to read, books around the world

24.
Days of Little Texas
by R.A. Nelson, 2009

Acclaimed YA author R. A. Nelson delivers a tantalizing tale set in the environs of the evangelical revival circuit and centered around Ronald Earl, who at ten became the electrifying “boy wonder” preacher known as Little Texas. Now sixteen, though the faithful still come and roar with praise and devotion, Ronald Earl is beginning to have doubts that he is worthy of and can continue his calling.

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Books Set In Alabama, The Splendor Falls by Rosemary Clement-Moore - Visit www.taleway.com to find books set around the world. alabama books, alabama novels, alabama travel, books from every state, books from each state, american books, usa books, us books, book challenge, alabama adventures, alabama road trip, books and travel, travel reading list, reading list, reading challenge, books to read, books around the world

25.
The Splendor Falls
by Rosemary Clement-Moore, 2009

Sylvie Davis is a ballerina who can’t dance. A broken leg ended her career, but Sylvie’s pain runs deeper. What broke her heart was her father’s death, and what’s breaking her spirit is her mother’s remarriage—a union that’s only driven an even deeper wedge into their already tenuous relationship.

Uprooting her from her Manhattan apartment and shipping her to Alabama is her mother’s solution for Sylvie’s unhappiness. Her father’s cousin is restoring a family home in a town rich with her family’s history. And that’s where things start to get shady. As it turns out, her family has a lot more history than Sylvie ever knew.

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Books Set In Alabama, The Darling Dahlias and the Cucumber Tree by Susan Wittig Albert - Visit www.taleway.com to find books set around the world. alabama books, alabama novels, alabama travel, books from every state, books from each state, american books, usa books, us books, book challenge, alabama adventures, alabama road trip, books and travel, travel reading list, reading list, reading challenge, books to read, books around the world

26.
The Darling Dahlias and the Cucumber Tree (The Darling Dahlias #1)
by Susan Wittig Albert, 2010

The good old ladies of Darling, Alabama, are determined to keep their town beautiful. The Darling Dahlias garden club is off to a good start until rumors of trouble at a bank, an escaped convict, and a ghost digging around their tree surface. If anyone can get to the root of these mysteries, it’s the Darling Dahlias.

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Books Set In Alabama, Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai - Visit www.taleway.com to find books set around the world. alabama books, alabama novels, alabama travel, books from every state, books from each state, american books, usa books, us books, book challenge, alabama adventures, alabama road trip, books and travel, travel reading list, reading list, reading challenge, books to read, books around the world

27.
Inside Out and Back Again
by Thanhha Lai, 2011

For all the ten years of her life, Hà has only known Saigon: the thrills of its markets, the joy of its traditions, and the warmth of her friends close by. But now the Vietnam War has reached her home. Hà and her family are forced to flee as Saigon falls, and they board a ship headed toward hope. In America, Hà discovers the foreign world of Alabama: the coldness of its strangers, the dullness of its food… and the strength of her very own family.

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Books Set In Alabama, Georgia Bottoms by Mark Childress - Visit www.taleway.com to find books set around the world. alabama books, alabama novels, alabama travel, books from every state, books from each state, american books, usa books, us books, book challenge, alabama adventures, alabama road trip, books and travel, travel reading list, reading list, reading challenge, books to read, books around the world

28.
Georgia Bottoms
by Mark Childress, 2011

Georgia Bottoms is known in her small community of Six Points, Alabama, as a beautiful, well-to-do, and devoutly Baptist Southern belle. Nobody realizes that the family fortune has long since disappeared, and a determinedly single woman like Georgia needs an alternative, and discreet, means of income. In Georgia’s case it is six well-heeled lovers-one for each day of the week, with Mondays off-none of whom knows about the others.

But when the married preacher who has been coming to call (Saturdays) decides to confess their affair in front of the whole congregation, Georgia must take drastic measures to stop him. In Georgia Bottoms, Mark Childress proves once again his unmistakable skill for combining the hilarious and the absurd to reveal the inner workings of the rebellious human heart.

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Books Set In Alabama, The Darling Dahlias and the Naked Ladies by Susan Wittig Albert - Visit www.taleway.com to find books set around the world. alabama books, alabama novels, alabama travel, books from every state, books from each state, american books, usa books, us books, book challenge, alabama adventures, alabama road trip, books and travel, travel reading list, reading list, reading challenge, books to read, books around the world

29.
The Darling Dahlias and the Naked Ladies (The Darling Dahlias #2)
by Susan Wittig Albert, 2011

Rumors are sprouting in Depression-era Darling, Alabama. The town’s newest visitors, Nona Jean Jamison and Miss Lake, may be the Naughty and Nice Sisters from the Ziegfeld Frolic, who specialize in dancing nearly naked. The Dahlias suspect more than modesty when Nona denies her association. They’ll have to dig through clues to get to the root of the mystery…

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Books Set In Alabama, Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Anne Fowler - Visit www.taleway.com to find books set around the world. alabama books, alabama novels, alabama travel, books from every state, books from each state, american books, usa books, us books, book challenge, alabama adventures, alabama road trip, books and travel, travel reading list, reading list, reading challenge, books to read, books around the world

30.
Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald
by Therese Anne Fowler, 2013

A dazzling novel that captures all of the romance, glamour, and tragedy of the first flapper, Zelda Fitzgerald. When beautiful, reckless Southern belle Zelda Sayre meets F. Scott Fitzgerald at a country club dance in 1918, she is seventeen years old and he is a young army lieutenant stationed in Alabama. Before long, the “ungettable” Zelda has fallen for him despite his unsuitability: Scott isn’t wealthy or prominent or even a Southerner, and keeps insisting, absurdly, that his writing will bring him both fortune and fame.

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Books Set In Alabama, March by John Lewis - Visit www.taleway.com to find books set around the world. alabama books, alabama novels, alabama travel, books from every state, books from each state, american books, usa books, us books, book challenge, alabama adventures, alabama road trip, books and travel, travel reading list, reading list, reading challenge, books to read, books around the world

31.
March: Book One
by John Lewis, 2013

Congressman John Lewis (GA-5) is an American icon, one of the key figures of the civil rights movement. His commitment to justice and nonviolence has taken him from an Alabama sharecropper’s farm to the halls of Congress, from a segregated schoolroom to the 1963 March on Washington, and from receiving beatings from state troopers to receiving the Medal of Freedom from the first African-American president.

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Books Set In Alabama, Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson - Visit www.taleway.com to find books set around the world. alabama books, alabama novels, alabama travel, books from every state, books from each state, american books, usa books, us books, book challenge, alabama adventures, alabama road trip, books and travel, travel reading list, reading list, reading challenge, books to read, books around the world

32.
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption
by Bryan Stevenson, 2014

A powerful true story about the potential for mercy to redeem us, and a clarion call to fix our broken system of justice—from one of the most brilliant and influential lawyers of our time

Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal practice dedicated to defending those most desperate and in need: the poor, the wrongly condemned, and women and children trapped in the farthest reaches of our criminal justice system. One of his first cases was that of Walter McMillian, a young man who was sentenced to die for a notorious murder he insisted he didn’t commit. The case drew Bryan into a tangle of conspiracy, political machination, and legal brinksmanship—and transformed his understanding of mercy and justice forever.

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Books Set In Alabama, Go Set A Watchman by Harper Lee - Visit www.taleway.com to find books set around the world. alabama books, alabama novels, alabama travel, books from every state, books from each state, american books, usa books, us books, book challenge, alabama adventures, alabama road trip, books and travel, travel reading list, reading list, reading challenge, books to read, books around the world

33.
Go Set A Watchman
by Harper Lee, 2015

From Harper Lee comes a landmark new novel set two decades after her beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece, To Kill a Mockingbird. Maycomb, Alabama. Twenty-six-year-old Jean Louise Finch – “Scout” – returns home from New York City to visit her aging father, Atticus. Set against the backdrop of the civil rights tensions and political turmoil that were transforming the South, Jean Louise’s homecoming turns bittersweet when she learns disturbing truths about her close-knit family, the town and the people dearest to her. Memories from her childhood flood back, and her values and assumptions are thrown into doubt.

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Books Set In Alabama, My Southern Journey by Rick Bragg - Visit www.taleway.com to find books set around the world. alabama books, alabama novels, alabama travel, books from every state, books from each state, american books, usa books, us books, book challenge, alabama adventures, alabama road trip, books and travel, travel reading list, reading list, reading challenge, books to read, books around the world

34.
My Southern Journey: True Stories from the Heart of the South
by Rick Bragg, 2015

From celebrated New York Times bestselling author and winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Rick Bragg, comes a poignant and wryly funny collection of essays on life in the south.

Keenly observed and written with his insightful and deadpan sense of humor, he explores enduring Southern truths about home, place, spirit, table, and the regions’ varied geographies, including his native Alabama, Cajun country, and the Gulf Coast. Everything is explored, from regional obsessions from college football and fishing, to mayonnaise and spoonbread, to the simple beauty of a fish on the hook.

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Books Set In Alabama, Work Like Any Other by Virginia Reeves - Visit www.taleway.com to find books set around the world. alabama books, alabama novels, alabama travel, books from every state, books from each state, american books, usa books, us books, book challenge, alabama adventures, alabama road trip, books and travel, travel reading list, reading list, reading challenge, books to read, books around the world

35.
Work Like Any Other
by Virginia Reeves, 2016

Roscoe T Martin set his sights on a new type of power spreading at the start of the twentieth century: electricity. It became his training, his life’s work. But when his wife, Marie, inherits her father’s failing farm, Roscoe has to give up his livelihood, with great cost to his sense of self, his marriage, and his family. Realizing he might lose them all if he doesn’t do something, he begins to use his skills as an electrician to siphon energy from the state, ushering in a period of bounty and happiness. Even the love of Marie and their child seem back within Roscoe’s grasp.

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Books Set In Alabama, This Is Where It Ends by Marieke Nijkamp - Visit www.taleway.com to find books set around the world. alabama books, alabama novels, alabama travel, books from every state, books from each state, american books, usa books, us books, book challenge, alabama adventures, alabama road trip, books and travel, travel reading list, reading list, reading challenge, books to read, books around the world

36.
This Is Where It Ends
by Marieke Nijkamp, 2016

10:00 a.m. The principal of Opportunity High School finishes her speech, welcoming the entire student body to a new semester and encouraging them to excel and achieve.

10:02 a.m. The students get up to leave the auditorium for their next class.

10:03 a.m. The auditorium doors won’t open.

10:05 a.m. Someone starts shooting.

Told from four different perspectives over the span of fifty-four harrowing minutes, terror reigns as one student’s calculated revenge turns into the ultimate game of survival.

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Books Set In Alabama, Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi - Visit www.taleway.com to find books set around the world. alabama books, alabama novels, alabama travel, books from every state, books from each state, american books, usa books, us books, book challenge, alabama adventures, alabama road trip, books and travel, travel reading list, reading list, reading challenge, books to read, books around the world

37.
Homegoing
by Yaa Gyasi, 2016

Two half-sisters, Effia and Esi, are born into different villages in eighteenth-century Ghana. Effia is married off to an Englishman and lives in comfort in the palatial rooms of Cape Coast Castle. Unbeknownst to Effia, her sister, Esi, is imprisoned beneath her in the castle’s dungeons, sold with thousands of others into the Gold Coast’s booming slave trade, and shipped off to America, where her children and grandchildren will be raised in slavery.

One thread of Homegoing follows Effia’s descendants through centuries of warfare in Ghana, as the Fante and Asante nations wrestle with the slave trade and British colonization. The other thread follows Esi and her children into America. From the plantations of the South to the Civil War and the Great Migration, from the coal mines of Pratt City, Alabama, to the jazz clubs and dope houses of twentieth-century Harlem, right up through the present day, Homegoing makes history visceral, and captures, with singular and stunning immediacy, how the memory of captivity came to be inscribed in the soul of a nation.

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Books Set In Alabama, Grace by Natashia Deon - Visit www.taleway.com to find books set around the world. alabama books, alabama novels, alabama travel, books from every state, books from each state, american books, usa books, us books, book challenge, alabama adventures, alabama road trip, books and travel, travel reading list, reading list, reading challenge, books to read, books around the world

38.
Grace
by Natashia Deon, 2016

For a runaway slave in the 1840s south, life on the run can be just as dangerous as life under a sadistic Massa. That’s what fifteen-year-old Naomi learns after she escapes a brutal Alabama plantation, leaving behind her beloved Momma and sister Hazel and taking refuge in a Georgia brothel run by a freewheeling, gun-toting Jewish madam named Cynthia. There, amidst a revolving door of gamblers, prostitutes, and drunks, Naomi falls into a star-crossed love affair with a smooth-talking white man named Jeremy who frequents the brothel’s dice tables all too often.

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Books Set In Alabama, Dirt Road by James Kelman - Visit www.taleway.com to find books set around the world. alabama books, alabama novels, alabama travel, books from every state, books from each state, american books, usa books, us books, book challenge, alabama adventures, alabama road trip, books and travel, travel reading list, reading list, reading challenge, books to read, books around the world

39.
Dirt Road
by James Kelman, 2016

After his mother’s recent death, sixteen-year old Murdo and his father travel from their home in rural Scotland to Alabama to be with his American aunt and émigré uncle for a few weeks. Stopping at a small town on their way from the airport, Murdo happens upon a family playing zydeco music and joins them, leaving with a gift of two CDs of southern American songs. “Ye meet people and they have lives, but ye don’t,” thinks Murdo, an aspiring musician.

While at their kind relatives’ house, the grieving father and son share no words of comfort with each other, Murdo losing himself in music while his reticent and protective dad escapes through books.

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Books Set In Alabama, The Almost Sisters by Joshilyn Jackson - Visit www.taleway.com to find books set around the world. alabama books, alabama novels, alabama travel, books from every state, books from each state, american books, usa books, us books, book challenge, alabama adventures, alabama road trip, books and travel, travel reading list, reading list, reading challenge, books to read, books around the world

40.
The Almost Sisters
by Joshilyn Jackson, 2017

With empathy, grace, humor, and piercing insight, the author of Gods in Alabama pens a powerful, emotionally resonant novel of the South that confronts the truth about privilege, family, and the distinctions between perception and reality – the stories we tell ourselves about our origins and who we really are.

Superheroes have always been Leia Birch Briggs’ weakness. One tequila-soaked night at a comics convention, the usually level-headed graphic novelist is swept off her barstool by a handsome and anonymous Batman.

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Books Set In Alabama, South and West: From A Notebook by Joan Didion - Visit www.taleway.com to find books set around the world. alabama books, alabama novels, alabama travel, books from every state, books from each state, american books, usa books, us books, book challenge, alabama adventures, alabama road trip, books and travel, travel reading list, reading list, reading challenge, books to read, books around the world

41.
South and West: From A Notebook
by Joan Didion, 2017

Joan Didion has always kept notebooks: of overheard dialogue, observations, interviews, drafts of essays and articles – and here is one such draft that traces a road trip she took with her husband, John Gregory Dunne, in June 1970, through Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. She interviews prominent local figures, describes motels, diners, a deserted reptile farm, a visit with Walker Percy, a ladies’ brunch at the Mississippi Broadcasters’ Convention. She writes about the stifling heat, the almost viscous pace of life, the sulfurous light, and the preoccupation with race, class, and heritage she finds in the small towns they pass through.

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Books Set In Alabama, The Sun Does Shine by Anthony Ray Hinton - Visit www.taleway.com to find books set around the world. alabama books, alabama novels, alabama travel, books from every state, books from each state, american books, usa books, us books, book challenge, alabama adventures, alabama road trip, books and travel, travel reading list, reading list, reading challenge, books to read, books around the world

42.
The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row
by Anthony Ray Hinton, 2018

A powerful, revealing story of hope, love, justice, and the power of reading by a man who spent thirty years on death row for a crime he didn’t commit.

In 1985, Anthony Ray Hinton was arrested and charged with two counts of capital murder in Alabama. Stunned, confused, and only twenty-nine years old, Hinton knew that it was a case of mistaken identity and believed that the truth would prove his innocence and ultimately set him free.

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Books Set In Alabama, The Best Cook In The World by Rick Bragg - Visit www.taleway.com to find books set around the world. alabama books, alabama novels, alabama travel, books from every state, books from each state, american books, usa books, us books, book challenge, alabama adventures, alabama road trip, books and travel, travel reading list, reading list, reading challenge, books to read, books around the world

43.
The Best Cook In The World: Tales from My Momma’s Table
by Rick Bragg, 2018

Margaret Bragg does not own a single cookbook. She measures in “dabs” and “smidgens” and “tads” and “you know, hon, just some.” She cannot be pinned down on how long to bake corn bread (“about 15 to 20 minutes, depending on the mysteries of your oven”). Her notion of farm-to-table is a flatbed truck. But she can tell you the secrets to perfect mashed potatoes, corn pudding, redeye gravy, pinto beans and hambone, stewed cabbage, short ribs, chicken and dressing, biscuits and butter rolls. The irresistible stories in this book are of long memory – many of them pre-date the Civil War, handed down skillet by skillet, from one generation of Braggs to the next. In The Best Cook in the WorldRick Bragg finally preserves his heritage by telling the stories that framed his mother’s cooking and education, from childhood into old age. Because good food always has a good story, and a recipe, writes Bragg, is a story like anything else.

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What do you think of these books set in Alabama?

Have some great books set in Alabama that I’ve missed? Are you planning a trip to Alabama soon? Are you interested in other books set in America? I’d love to hear about more about your travels and tips for books set in Alabama in the comments below.

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Books Set In Alabama. Visit www.taleway.com to find books set around the world. alabama books, alabama novels, alabama travel, alabama authors, books from alabama, books about alabama, alabama literature, alabama history, books from every state, books from each state, alabama adventures, alabama road trip, alabama trip, alabama vacation, books and travel, travel reading list, reading list, reading challenge, books to read, books around the world, american books, usa books, us books, book challenge

Books Set In Alabama. Visit www.taleway.com to find books set around the world. alabama books, alabama novels, alabama travel, alabama authors, books from alabama, books about alabama, alabama literature, alabama history, books from every state, books from each state, alabama adventures, alabama road trip, alabama trip, alabama vacation, books and travel, travel reading list, reading list, reading challenge, books to read, books around the world, american books, usa books, us books, book challenge

Books Set In Alabama. Visit www.taleway.com to find books set around the world. alabama books, alabama novels, alabama travel, alabama authors, books from alabama, books about alabama, alabama literature, alabama history, books from every state, books from each state, alabama adventures, alabama road trip, alabama trip, alabama vacation, books and travel, travel reading list, reading list, reading challenge, books to read, books around the world, american books, usa books, us books, book challenge


7 comments
  1. i have lived in Alabama since 1974. I want to print the checklist of book set in alabama. How do i do that. I clicked on send it to me. All I get is a confirmation e-mail.
    i have clicked on every possible thing in that “box” at the end of the descriptive list. Nothing happens. Please help.

    1. Hi Nancy, nice to meet you! I’m so sorry you’re having trouble with the download. Once you’ve signed up with your email, you will receive an email containing the login details that allow you to download it. I’ve sent you an email with the details too. Hope you enjoy these books set in your home state! 🙂

    1. Hi CJ, thanks for stopping by! I hope you find some new Alabama reads in here. Thanks also for your recommendation and especially for sharing your blog, totally love your concept of combining reading and cooking! 🙂

  2. Thank you for making this list. I am looking forward to reading some of these books before I come to Alabama on a big trip soon. Your list is very interesting and helpful.
    Poppy
    Brisbane, Australia

    1. Hi Poppy, I’m so glad to hear this list is helpful! Thanks for your kind words. I hope you have a wonderful trip to Alabama (thats quite the distance from Brisbane!) and hopefully find some new favorite books along the way! 🙂

  3. Hello Ash
    Many thanks for the booklist from which I’ve picked several titles for my TBR list. I live in the UK and have ever only visited the east and west coasts of the USA. My daughter and her three children have recently moved from Washington State to Alabama and I’m desperately trying to learn something about their new home state – as always, I start with books.

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