Reading List: Personified Places

We love the extra magic of stories where places seem personified: cities become characters, houses are humanized, and supermarkets take center stage. Check out our reading list featuring some great books where settings come alive on the page!

1) Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

H Mart is the supermarket chain specializing in Asian food that’s referred to in the title of Zauner’s memoir and a place that reminds the author of her mother.

2) Whereabouts by Jhumpa Lahiri

In Whereabouts an unnamed Italian city acts as a geographical companion and confidant to the novel’s narrator, a middle-aged woman on the brink of transformation.

3) The Neapolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante

My Brilliant Friend, The Story of a New Name, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, and The Story of the Lost Child

In many ways the Neapolitan Novels are the story of Naples, Italy in the last half of the twentieth century, as seen through the eyes of two brilliant girls.

4) The Yellow House by Sarah Broom

In Sarah Broom’s hundred-year history of her family and their home in New Orleans, the titular Yellow House represents her mother’s “thirteenth and most unruly child.”

CHF is proud to partner with Seminary Co-op, a not-for-profit bookstore whose mission is bookselling.

[Image description: The banner image at the top of the page is a collage of the book covers listed in this article, interspersed with images of places, such as a canal in Italy and a map of New Orleans.]