A good reference bookOctober 8, 2008 Rama Rao(Morgantown, WV USA) 3 out of 7 found this review helpful
This is a useful reference book about each of the 50 states in the union by journalists and novelists who lived in these states. I enjoyed Cristina Henriquez's interesting account of Texas, and Jhampa Lahiri's essay on Rhode Island. Jonathan Franzen describes an imaginary interview with the state of New York, which is outlandish. Essays on South Dakota and Michigan could have been better.
I lived in several states that includes; Massachusetts, California, Colorado, New Jersey, North Carolina and West Virginia, I thought the authors could have provided a little more info about these states. There are some interesting facts and figures given at the end of the book; cigarette consumption, breastfeeding rate (as if someone is interested in this statistics!), suicide rate, toothlessness (how amazing for authors to find a statistics about this!), military enlistment, etc.
1. Rand Mcnally Road Atlas: USA, Canada, Mexico (Rand McNally Road Atlas) 2. Big Road Atlas USA (AA Atlases and Maps) (AA Atlases and Maps) 3. State-By-State Atlas
