Great Reads from Great Places

Every year, a list of books representing the literary heritage of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands is distributed by the Library of Congress’s Center for the Book  during the National Book Festival. Each book is selected by a local Center for the Book or state library and most are for children and young readers. Books may be written by authors from the state, take place in the state, or celebrate the state’s culture and heritage. Why not read the book suggested for your state or district and then learn, through these books, about the other places that interest you?

 Great Reads from Great Places, 2024 full selection list

The Great Reads from Great Places book list is available in an easy-to-print PDF file. Other versions and a text version of all the years from 2002 to the present is also available from The Library of Congress Great Reads website.

2024 Great Reads from Great Places Selection

The South Carolina State Library's Center for the Book has chosen as this year's Great Reads from Great Places books, The Big Game is Every Night, by Robert Maynor, and the Parker Inheritance, by Varian Johnson.

Cover of The Big Game is Every Night

The Big Game is Every Night

Robert Maynor

Grady Hayes is a young high school football player being raised by his hard working single mother. His life revolves around football, until-in a game against cross-county rivals-he breaks his leg. Cut off from his teammates, Grady is lost. He takes prescription pills to dull the pain and pass the time. But when his leg finally heals and Grady tries to return to the team, his spot has been filled and he can't relate to his teammates anymore. Grady takes up with Hambone, a brooding older boy, and they start hunting together in the swamp at night. Their relationship is volatile, fueled by alcohol and pills, and their hunting ritual quickly turns dark and carelessly violent. Feeling helpless and out of ways to stop her son's downward spiral, Grady's mother asks his estranged father to pay them a visit to set Grady straight, leading to a tragic family reckoning. Told in the keen, honest voice of a young man growing up in the rural American South, The Big Game is Every Night is a literary novel that explores the cultural forces that shape contemporary blue-collar America.

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Cover of The Parker inheritance

The Parker inheritance

Varian Johnson

Twelve-year-old Candice Miller is spending the summer in Lambert, South Carolina, in the old house that belonged to her grandmother, who died after being dismissed as city manager for having the city tennis courts dug up looking for buried treasure--but when she finds the letter that sent her grandmother on the treasure hunt, she finds herself caught up in the mystery and, with the help of her new friend and fellow book-worm, Brandon, she sets out to find the inheritance, exonerate her grandmother, and expose an injustice once committed against an African American family in Lambert.

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