California Has Always Been a Literary Muse—Put These Works by Iconic Authors on Your Reading List

Octavia E. Butler was born in Pasadena in 1947 and became an award-winning pioneer of the science fiction genre. In her 1979 novel Kindred, Butler writes of characters from Altadena. Butler’s novel from 1993 Parable of the Sower is a profound exploration of a post-apocalyptic society, ravaged by climate change, fires, and racial and economic inequality. The main character, Lauren, comes from a fictional town outside of Los Angeles. Butler’s own personal perspective of living in Los Angeles County shaped the author’s writing. The Huntington Library’s Octavia Butler archive in San Marino includes the author’s self-motivational notes detailing “[her] own Santa Monica home that is [hers] free and clear” and an early draft of Kindred that describes the main character’s street in the town of Altadena.

Find Butler’s novels in-store or online at Book Soup in West Hollywood or her namesake Octavia’s Bookshelf in Pasadena.

Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck was born in 1902 in Salinas on California’s Central Coast. The author wrote a number of widely acclaimed novels, including East of Eden, Of Mice and Men, and the Pulitzer Prize winner The Grapes of Wrath. The aforementioned novels have deep roots in California settings, particularly in and around the Salinas Valley and Central Coast. They explore contemporary struggles of Steinbeck’s time, universal themes of the human experience, and how location shapes understanding and perspective.

Find Steinbeck’s novels in-store or online at Bookshop Santa Cruz or Downtown Book and Sound, based in Steinbeck’s hometown of Salinas. 

From her birth and early life in Sacramento to college years at the University of California, Berkeley and living with her husband and daughter in Malibu, Joan Didion is an iconic California writer. A symbol of New Journalism and a renowned essayist, Didion covers a range of subjects and themes in her writing. Some of her greatest works are nuanced explorations of life in California, including ruminations on 1960s culture in California in Slouching Towards Bethlehem or understanding California myth and history in Where I Was From. Her novel Play It As It Lays follows a young woman through a story that demystifies the nihilistic nature of Hollywood living. Didion shows a deep understanding of life in the Golden State, including its complexities and realities.

Find Didion’s novels in-store or online at Wild Sisters Book Company in Sacramento and Pegasus Bookstore in Berkeley.