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[betty_p]

Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury

Also Absalom, Absalom!

Ernest Gaines, A Lesson Before Dying

Toni Morrison, Paradise

[moodymoodie]

This probably isn't what you're looking for, but....

I'd think about Elizabeth Gaskell's North & South.  One of the major themes is home (city/region) and identity, and one of the ways that's expressed is through the physical descriptions of the houses the main characters live in.  Perhaps it would work as a discussion question -- read an excerpt and see what the class divines from the description of a room, say.  Or if you're compiling a list of books for paper topics, say, you might wish to consider it.

Gaskell's "Lois the Witch" might also be interesting in terms of defining and losing home.

[paddington_bear]

You could run course after course with all these suggestions but here's another anyway - NZ author Kirsty Gunn's The Place You Return To Is home - wonderful short stories.  Her novellas Rain, and The Boy and the Sea would also actually fit in to the course as would her 44 Things - a mixture of poems, stories, and musings about the nature of home and domesticity. 

Yes, I think I have multiple semester's worth of books! Thanks for your recommendations. I'm not familiar with Kirsty Gunn.

Short stories:  Gordon R. Dickson's Lulungomeena, Clifford Simak's Huddling Place.  Charles DeLint's collection, Dreams Underfoot, has quite a few good options, including In the House of my Enemy and another whose name I can't remember, concerning a young homeless woman who creates her home in an abandoned building.  It includes a collection of dogs and a severely brain-damaged young man, and it deals with her efforts to hold her life together and rejoin society. 

These sound very interesting. Thanks!

I would add two suggestions by Barbara Kingsolver.

In Animal Dreams.......
In Prodigal Summer,

I remember really loving Animal Dreams, so I will definitely look at Kingsolver again.

For short stories, "Moths," Helena Maria Viramontes, and "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings," Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

For a novel, Keepers of the House by Lisa St Aubin de Terán.  An English writer, a Venezuelan setting.

I've read "Moths," I believe. But I don't remember it, so I'll definitely look it up again.   I'm not familiar with de Teran at all, so thanks for the new reference.

"Life Of Pi," a novel by Yann Martel. Recommended.

Thanks! I've heard of this book, but never read it.

Marilynne Robinson's Gilead is the most beautiful book I've read in years. It's about home, and I think it's better than her other two books, Housekeeping and Home.

Re: marfa's mention of Will Weaver... wow... I LOVE A Gravestone Made of Wheat. And yes, it's about home.

I just finished Kathryn Stockett's The Help, about home being Jackson, Mississippi. Phenomenal.

Robinson has gotten numerous mentions here, so I'll definitely be checking it out. Not familiar with Weaver, but since it's gotten a second mention, I'll look it up.  I'm ambivalent about Stockett's book, although I haven't read it.

Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury

Also Absalom, Absalom!

Ernest Gaines, A Lesson Before Dying

Toni Morrison, Paradise

I hadn't really considered Faulkner, but that's worth considering. Haven't read Paradise, but Morrison is usually reliable for quality.

This probably isn't what you're looking for, but....

I'd think about Elizabeth Gaskell's North & South.  One of the major themes is home (city/region) and identity, and one of the ways that's expressed is through the physical descriptions of the houses the main characters live in.  Perhaps it would work as a discussion question -- read an excerpt and see what the class divines from the description of a room, say.  Or if you're compiling a list of books for paper topics, say, you might wish to consider it.

Gaskell's "Lois the Witch" might also be interesting in terms of defining and losing home.

Not familiar with either of these Gaskell pieces, so thanks!

[tanglesandwaves]

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson.  It's an outlier in the list of potential suggestions you've been given so far but I think it would be a good fit.

[nezahualcoyotl]

La Casa Tomada (The Seized House?) by Cortázar. It's a short story, ambiguous and unsettling.

[barred_owl]

The Late Homecomer by Kao Kalia Yang.  Chronicles a Hmong family's history, from their homeland in Laos to refugee camps in Thailand to communities in the U.S.'s upper midwest.  This book was assigned reading for our college's entry-level English classes last year, and was very well-received by students.

Caveat:  It's more a memoir than a novel, but still very engaging reading.

[mythbuster]

The two I immediately thought of:

Willa Cather My Antonia
Betty Smith A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Both American lit I know. I can think of a lot of war movies (Saving Private Ryan etc.) that deal with home quite effectively as well. And you might get some great reflection papers by the end of the semester when all your fresh-peeps are homesick!

[me437]

The best novel I've read on the search for home is Wendell Berry's JAYBER CROW.  Denise Giardina's STORMING HEAVEN and THE UNQUIET EARTH are also compelling.  Consider also Harriete Arnow's DOLLMAKER.