*The Good Rain: Across Time and Terrain in the Pacific Northwest, by Timothy Egan (1990). Egan's brooding book focuses on his native Washington State and the concerns of the region: timber and loggers, salmon, fruit-growing, urban development, Native Americans, and the Columbia River.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, by Dave Eggers (2000). In this tender, witty memoir, a young man raises his adolescent brother while exploring San Francisco's Gen-X culture during the '90s.

Historic Photos of Sacramento, by James Scott and Tom Tolley (2007)
This coffee-table volume compiles black and white archival photos that capture the events and flavor of the city's transformation from the late 19th century through World War II hardships and its ascent to a historical and political hub of the Golden State.

If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name: News from Small-Town Alaska, by Heather Lende (2005). Alaska obit-writer Lende writes about death to celebrate life. Each chapter profiles a birth, wedding, or death that introduces us to the colorful folk of Haines (pop. 2,500), among them the one-legged lady gold miner, the tattooed Presbyterian pastor, and a school principal/Roy Orbison impersonator.

The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, ed. by Gary E. Moulton (1983-2001). This 13-volume set chronicles the Lewis and Clark expedition's grueling 1804 journey west across mountains and rivers toward the Pacific. Moulton, a historian at University of Nebraska, provides fascinating footnotes that put the voyage into context. "Lewis and Clark loom over the narrative literature of the West as the Rockies loom over the rivers that run through them. These Journals are to the narrative of the American West as the Iliad is to the epic or as Don Quixote is to the novel," wrote the New York Review of Books.

The Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan (1989). This multigenerational novel set in San Francisco's Chinatown and in China details the complex relationships between mothers and daughters, the past and present, and Chinese and American cultures.

A Land Gone Lonesome: An Inland Voyage along the Yukon River, by Dan O'Neill (2006). Alaskan O'Neill chronicles his journey down the Yukon River from Dawson, Yukon Territory, to Circle City, Alaska. As O'Neill writes of his exploration of the northern wilderness, its history and inhabitants, he also retells the lore of the Yukon region—"the original record of human memory in this place."

The Loved One, by Evelyn Waugh (1948). Before Six Feet Under came The Loved One—Waugh's hilarious send-off of the Los Angeles funeral industry. His satire of blithe American attitudes toward sex and romance, of British expats in Los Angeles, and of Hollywood is still scathingly relevant.

The Maltese Falcon, by Dashiell Hammett (1929). San Francisco private-eye Sam Spade investigates his partner's murder, dodges shady characters, and uncovers jewel-encrusted treasure in this classic of hard-boiled detective fiction.

The Man Who Could Fly And Other Stories, by Rudolfo Anaya (2006). In this collection of 18 short stories, spanning 30 years, the many landscapes that make up the American Southwest and Northern Mexico—from deserts to tropical forests—are reflected in the relationships between New Mexico native Anaya's varied characters.

McTeague, by Frank Norris (1899). Inspired by a sensational 1893 murder case, this naturalist novel portrays a dark, violent San Francisco at the turn of the 20th century.

The Oregon Trail: An American Saga, by David Dary (2004). Historian Dary uses a pastiche of historical documents, including journal entries and newspaper accounts, to sketch the history of Oregon's settlement beginning in the 1800s. He introduces a diverse cast of characters—fur traders, missionaries, farmers, gold seekers—and creates an action-packed tale of a great migration through the eyes of the people that lived it.

The Pleasure of My Company, by Steve Martin (2003). This novella chronicling the daily ordeal of a mildly autistic ex-programmer in Santa Monica illustrates that extreme neurosis can exist in sunny Los Angeles, too.

*Roughing It, by Mark Twain (1872). Every American traveler (and Yankee travel writer) rambles in the comforting shadow of Twain, who in 1869 satirized the pretensions of mindless travelers to Europe and the Holy Land in The Innocents Abroad and who here spins a fictionalized recollection of his stagecoach trip through the West and his subsequent adventures in the Pacific. Beneath his genteel demeanor beats the heart of a streetwise original.

Run River, by Joan Didion (1963). Didion wrote her first novel right out of college when she was working at Vogue. This gripping story of marriage, adultery, and murder among the great grandchildren of Western pioneers is set along the banks of her native Sacramento.

The Shadow Catcher, by Marianne Wiggins (2007). In this historical novel, Wiggins turns the lens on the controversial American West photographer Edward Curtis, who snapped the portraits of thousands of Native Americans throughout the early 20th century. Critics argue that he objectified his subjects and virtually deserted his family in pursuit of fame. The protagonist, a woman on a quest to accurately portray Curtis's life, discovers parallels to her own complicated father. With Curtis's photographs interspersed with Wiggins's evocative prose, this book is a delight for anyone wanting to take a profound journey into history, family, and the American imagination.

Skid Road: An Informal Portrait of Seattle, by Murray Morgan (1951). This accessible and engaging history of Seattle's early days stars the infamous characters that founded the city. A must-read if you're visiting downtown, Pioneer Square, or the Capitol Hill neighborhoods.

The Slide Area: Scenes of Hollywood Life, by Gavin Lambert (1959). Narrated by a screenwriter, these short stories provide evocative descriptions of Hollywood, the Pacific Palisades, Malibu, and other distinctive L.A. spots.

Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Essays, by Joan Didion (1961). If you want to know about California, then you want to read Joan Didion. In this 1960s collection of essays, the Sacramento native captures the counter-culture lifestyle of San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury in the title essay.

Snow Falling on Cedars, by David Guterson (1994). Centered around the murder trial of a Japanese fisherman on a small island in Puget Sound, Guterson's debut novel deals with lingering bitterness and racism in the aftermath of World War II. Forests of stately cedars shrouded in mist serve as the haunting backdrop for this page-turning mystery that travels back in time to reveal the truth about war and loss.

The Swan: Tales of the Sacramento Valley, by Andrew F. O'Hara (2004)
Written by a retired California Highway Patrolman, these short stories revolve around everyday people, with the Sacramento Valley as the connecting thread between them.

Tales of the City, by Armistead Maupin (1978). The first in a series of six novels praised for their compassion and humor and set in 1970s San Francisco follows the lives of a young woman, her gay friend, and their transsexual landlord.

Until Proven Guilty, by J. A. Jance (1985). The first in an old-fashioned murder mystery series starring Seattle detective J. P. Beaumont offers an insider's tour of gritty 1960s Seattle.

*Vanishing Breed: Photographs of the Cowboy and the West, by William Albert Allard (1982). Traveler staffers are unabashed photophiles. We love Jack Dykinga's red-rock studies in Desert: The Mojave and Death Valley and Michael Melford's endless landscapes in Big Sky Country: The Best of Montana, North Dakota, Wyoming and Idaho. But there's something 100 percent American about Allard's take on our Western lands that leaves us feeling proudly patriotic.

Wild Yosemite: Personal Accounts of Adventure, Discovery, and Nature, edited by Susan M. Neider (2007). Experience one of the country's first national parks through the eyes of great activists and thinkers. These early writings touch on everything the pristine, 1,200-mile (1,931-kilometer) stretch of wilderness has to offer, from its Giant Sequoias, close calls with avalanches, native birds, and breathtaking views. Frederick Law Olmsted called Yosemite "the greatest glory of nature," and in this volume he is joined by Theodore Roosevelt, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Mark Twain, Horace Greeley, and Sierra Club founder John Muir, who campaigned tirelessly to preserve Yosemite's beauty.

Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers, by Lois-Ann Yamanaka (1996). This debut novel by Hawaii-born Yamanaka chronicles the tumultuous, darkly comic coming of age of Lovey Nariyoshi, a girl from a working-class Japanese-American family in Hilo, Hawaii. Mainstream American ideas of beauty and success permeate 1970s Hawaii, and Nariyoshi feels uncomfortable in her own skin. She is bullied at school and works picking macadamia nuts, all the while daydreaming about living with a haole (white) family. Written in Pidgin, Wild Meat is a collection of vignettes that paint a portrait of the Big Island as a place of cultural contradictions.

The Willow Field, by William Kittredge (2006). The American West: The mere phrase sends the imagination reeling. These seductive landscapes are in good hands in Kittredge's debut novel, complemented by his stark, powerful writing, which explores the ill effects of modernism's encroach on the West through the book's main character, Rossie Benasco. Annie Dillard calls Kittredge "one of our finest writers," and the Washington Post raves that "you'll want to strap on spurs and head out for the territory."

A Yellow Raft in Blue Water, by Michael Dorris (1987). Alternately narrated by three generations of Native American women, this contemporary novel takes place on an Indian reservation in Montana. (Dorris himself was part Modoc and spent portions of his childhood on an eastern Montana reservation.) The perspectives of Rayona, a troubled teenager of mixed race, her mother, and grandmother, are braided together in a story that reveals the complexities of modern Indian life. Rayona's grandmother, known as Aunt Ida, watches soap operas all day and her uncle is killed in Vietnam. Her desire to leave the reservation ultimately leads her back home, where she rediscovers that her identity is tied to land and family.