If you're looking for reading to broaden your understanding of the region, you need not look much further than the many excellent bookstores (both new and used) you'll find scattered throughout the region. Among my favorite books are these:
In the Memory House, by Howard Mansfield (1993). This finely written book by a New Hampshire author provides a penetrating look at New England's sometimes estranged relationship with its own past.
Inventing New England, by Dona Brown (1995). A University of Vermont professor tells the epic tale of the rise of 19th-century tourism in New England in this uncommonly well-written study.
Lobster Gangs of Maine, by James M. Acheson (1988). This exhaustively researched book answers every question you'll have about the lobsterman's life, and then some.
Northern Borders, by Howard Frank Mosher (1994). This magical novel is ostensibly about a young boy living with his taciturn grandparents in northern Vermont, but the book's central character is really Vermont's Northeast Kingdom.
One Man's Meat, by E. B. White. White was a sometime resident of a saltwater farm on the Maine coast and frequent contributor to The New Yorker. His essays, from the late 1930s and early 1940s, are only incidentally about Maine, but you get a superb sense of place by observing the shadows. Still in print in paperback.
Serious Pig, by John Thorne, with Matt Lewis Thorne (1996). The way to a region's character is through its stomach. The Thornes' finely crafted essays on Maine regional cooking are exhaustive in their coverage of chowder, beans, pie, and more.
Vermont Traditions, by Dorothy Canfield Fisher. Written in that somewhat overwrought style popular in the 1950s, this still remains the best survey of the Vermont character.
