Local Picks From Bookshop Santa Cruz’s 250th Anniversary Lists
Our friends at Bookshop Santa Cruz marked the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the United States with two staff-curated reading lists: one of enduring classic fiction, one of newer books that are shaping up to be classics of their own. Between the two lists there are nearly 40 titles, spanning two centuries of American storytelling.
We went looking for the ones with a Central Coast or California through-line — books either set here, written by authors who called this coast home, or built around the same immigrant, land, and identity stories that define so much of life in Monterey County. Here’s where to start, plus a note on which ones are better suited for the grown-ups’ nightstand versus the family bookshelf.
The one that’s practically ours
No list of only-in-California literature gets far without John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. Steinbeck grew up in Salinas, and the world he wrote about — migrant farmworkers pouring into the Salinas Valley in search of a living — is the literal ground many Monterey County families still live and work on. It’s a heavy, essential read for older teens and adults, and a good excuse for a family trip to the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas if you haven’t been.
New classics rooted in California
A few of the newer titles on Bookshop Santa Cruz’s list are also unmistakably Californian:
- There There by Tommy Orange follows a wide cast of Native characters converging on a powwow in Oakland. It’s a clear-eyed, contemporary look at Native American life in California cities, best suited for older teens and adults given its intensity.
- The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen is narrated by a Vietnamese double agent who eventually resettles in Los Angeles, and much of its second half is a sharp, satirical take on the Vietnamese diaspora in Southern California. Adult content and themes — this one’s for the parents’ pile.
- I Hotel by Karen Tei Yamashita is written by a longtime UC Santa Cruz professor and centers on San Francisco’s real-life International Hotel, a flashpoint of the Asian American movement in the late 1960s. A great pick for readers interested in Bay Area and Filipino American history.
Older California classics worth revisiting
From the original classics list, a couple more have deep West Coast roots:
- Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner — a Pulitzer winner about a wheelchair-bound historian piecing together his grandmother’s life in the 19th-century West, including a stretch in a California mining town. A rewarding read for adults, especially anyone who loves regional Western history.
- The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan — set largely in San Francisco, following four Chinese American mothers and their daughters across generations. Widely taught, widely loved, and a good fit for older teens as well as adults.
- On the Road by Jack Kerouac and The Call of the Wild by Jack London both carry California threads too — Kerouac’s cross-country journeys repeatedly land in San Francisco, and London wrote much of his adventure fiction while living on his ranch in Sonoma County. Both skew toward teen-and-up readers.
A note for family reading
Several titles on both of Bookshop Santa Cruz’s lists — including a few mentioned here — deal with mature themes: war, sexual violence, addiction, and racial trauma among them. They’re excellent books, but worth previewing before handing them to a younger reader. If you’re building a summer reading list with tweens or younger teens in the house, The Joy Luck Club, There There, and The Grapes of Wrath are the more classroom-friendly starting points; the rest are better suited to older teens and adults.
See the full lists
Bookshop Santa Cruz’s booksellers put real thought into both collections, and there’s plenty here beyond the California picks — from Toni Morrison’s Beloved to Percival Everett’s James. Browse the complete lists and support your local independent bookstore:
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