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Comment by lampshades | Hacker News Reader

Link to the actual book finder: https://crossword-solver.io/books-set-around-america

It's actually a pretty shitty tool. I put in William Faulkners hometown and it listed nothing by him.

I'll take this as a joke because Faulkner's novels were set in a fictional place: "William Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County.

I like the idea. I tried out my hometown and the results were pretty good, but I wanted more.

But the tool asks you to name a city and shows you books set in that city. None of Faulkner's books were set in his hometown.

They were set in Mississippi and it mentions being able to find fictional towns.

Edit: Or maybe I misread it because now that I go back I'm not seeing that. My bad.

They should probably check for translation issues across books because one of the cities listed in the graphics is “Providencia RI” which is most likely referencing “Providence RI”. I assume it’s not a popular literary destination, but it appears that none of its references are in English or the books are actually referencing a Providencia Island, which there are a few of, but none of which are in RI nor the US?

It only returns one book per genre over 6 genres. I was expecting to find a certain book set in my hometown (Clear Lake in Houston), the book is called "Friendswood," based on the real Friendswood, TX, and uses the same street names.

It wasn't listed, but it did return "The Martian," which I guess would be right due to the presence of NASA JSC.

That's too bad because I've been really interested in a tool like this. Sometimes I just want to read books taking place in Switzerland or St. Louis MO or Montreal.

I agree. I watch movies and read books entirely based on where they're based so that I can get a feel of being there.

tbh, I posted this hoping someone would make a better one

Seconding this opinion. Why does it have a useless zip code box when you can't search using your zip code? I had to pick a city twenty miles away with the drop-down box. This is garbage.

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