looks like fun for GR Group: Fans of Maps maybe

Low star rating is my personal opinion. I found these essays mostly instantly forgettable - the states I am familiar with, I barely recognized. Also, too many selections were personal memoirs - exploring a particular experience at a particular time in the past, and saying nothing about the character of the state itself. Of the others, the majority were less personal memoirs... iow, the authors of those tried to speak to some ongoing characteristic of the state. And some of the tidbits were just plain wrong, for example claiming Utah's Spiral Jetty is visible from space." Sure, from LEO with a powerful telescope... "visible from space" is meaningless, even applied to something much more imposing, for example the Great Wall (look it up).

I opine that the most interesting thing was in the back, the 30 lists, of, for example, Roller Coasters per Capita, Violent Crime Rate, and Incarceration Rate... lists 18, 19, and 20 respectively... and I wonder why the second two don't align more closely than they do...." ( )

I loved this book. There are some fantastic essays in this collection---and a few bad ones---and the roll call of writers who participated in this anthology is impressive: S.E. Hinton, Sara Vowell, Tony Horowitz, George Packer, Kevin Brockmeier, Lydia Millet, William T. Vollman, Ha Jin, Rick Moody, Anthony Doerr, Dave Eggers, Jon Franzen, Jhumpa Lahiri and more than 35 others. Each author takes a different state and contributes a piece of writing about that state. Some of the writers were born in the state, some just visit or have spent time there. A great way to take a cross country trip without paying thousands of dollars. ( )

This collection of essays is a brilliant summer read. Short essays are digestible in between jaunts into the lake or the ocean, and a handful of them are laugh-out-loud funny. A few are lame (editors: you found a native North Dakotan and you couldn't find a native Texan??), and some are outstanding (Anthony Bourdain's New Jersey kicks all the other states' butts). I feel like I took a great road trip without having to drive through that boring-and-terrifying-all-at-once stretch of Pennsylvania with no gas stations and foresty hills hiding deer that want to jump in front of your car. ( )

As with all collections with essays by various authors, the results are somewhat uneven. However, I can’t imagine anyone who lives in or has traveled extensively in the United States not being interested in how the states they have lived in or visited are portrayed. I was thrilled that Anthony Bourdain took on my home state of New Jersey (and did a good job with it), and I thought it fitting that Oregon’s entry was one of the few in the form of a “comic” strip (which prominently featured rain and umbrellas). Looking back now, the essay I remember the most fondly was Dave Eggers’s take on Illinois. Although I read this book straight through, I think the better approach would be to read one or two states a day—or just dip your toes in every so often. In addition to the essays, there are little factoids about each state that were interesting in their own right. ( )

I read this collection of essays as a companion to the 50 states reading challenge. After I completed a book for a state, I read the essay about that state. Although it took more than two years to read the book that way, I think the pace was suited to the nature of the book. It's the sort of book you periodically dip into, rather than one you read in the span of a few days.

The book was inspired by the Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration. The editors commissioned essays on each state, instructing the writers to “Tell us a story about your state, the more personal the better, something that catches the essence of the place...The kind of story the enlisted soldier tells his boot-camp bunkmate about back home.” The authors followed these instructions. The only similarity among the essays is their length. The content highlights the diversity that still exists in the U.S.

A few of the essays were so negative that they quenched any desire I might have had to visit that state. Other essays made me want to hop in the car and head for that state to experience what the author had experienced there. My favorite essays include “Georgia” by Ha Jin, “Missouri” by Jacki Lyden, “New York” by Jonathan Franzen, and “Ohio” by Susan Orlean.

There's enough variety in the collection that there is surely something that will appeal to every reader. It would be a great gift, especially for those hard to buy for people on your gift list. ( )