Best Books Set in Massachusetts

Every state is known for something. As you work your way through the list, don’t miss the best books set in Massachusetts.

Massachusetts, officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States.

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Best Books Set in Massachusetts

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Caleb's Crossing: A Novel

Brooks, Geraldine (Author)
English (Publication Language)

Caleb’s Crossing

Author: Geraldine Brooks

Bethia Mayfield is a restless and curious young woman growing up in Martha’s vineyard in the 1660s amid a small band of pioneering English Puritans. At age twelve, she meets Caleb, the young son of a chieftain, and the two forge a secret bond that draws each into the alien world of the other.

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The Crucible: A Play in Four Acts

Miller, Arthur (Author)
English (Publication Language)

The Crucible

Author: Arthur Miller

Based on historical people and real events, Arthur Miller’s play uses the destructive power of socially sanctioned violence unleashed by the rumors of witchcraft as a powerful parable about McCarthyism.

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Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson, 25th Anniversary Edition

This book will tug at your emotions.
Albom, Mitch (Author)

Tuesdays with Morrie

Author: Mitch Albom

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Mitch Albom had that second chance. He rediscovered Morrie in the last months of the older man’s life. Knowing he was dying, Morrie visited with Mitch in his study every Tuesday, just as they used to back in college.

Their rekindled relationship turned into one final “class”: lessons in how to live. “The truth is, Mitch,” he said, “once you learn how to die, you learn how to live.”

The Scarlet Letter (Reader's Library Classics)

Hawthorne, Nathaniel (Author)
English (Publication Language)

The Scarlet Letter

Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne

Set in the mid-17th century in New England, The Scarlet Letter follows married Hester Prynne after she conceives a daughter through an affair. Societal standards of puritan New England force her to wear a scarlet “A” on her clothes as a constant reminder to her and everyone else of her past infidelity.

Throughout the life of Hester and her child, they both struggle through the overwhelming stigma behind Hester’s adultery, and despite the mounting pressure, she refuses to name the father of her child.

Walden

Thoreau, Henry David (Author)
English (Publication Language)

Walden

Author: Henry David Thoreau

A new edition of Henry David Thoreau’s 1854 classic work, Walden, a reflection on the simplicity and beauty of life in nature.

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Walden recounts Thoreau’s experiences over a two-year, two-month, and two-day period in which he lived by himself in a cabin he built near Walden Pond, located in an isolated stretch of woodland outside Concord, Massachusetts.

In Walden, Thoreau marries the physical with the transcendent — intermixing precise scientific observations of the flora and fauna he encounters and changes in the pond itself with poetic and metaphorical musings on nature.

A middling success in Thoreau’s own life, Walden has proven to be an enduring classic and one of the most celebrated works of 19th-century nonfiction literature.

Practical Magic

Hoffman, Alice (Author)
English (Publication Language)

Practical Magic

Author: Alice Hoffman

For more than two hundred years, the Owens women have been blamed for everything that has gone wrong in their Massachusetts town. Gillian and Sally have endured that fate as well: as children, the sisters were forever outsiders, taunted, talked about, and pointed at.

Their elderly aunts almost seemed to encourage the whispers of witchery, with their musty house and their exotic concoctions, and their crowd of black cats. But all Gillian and Sally wanted was to escape. One will do so by marrying, the other by running away. But the bonds they share will bring them back—almost as if by magic.

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