Reading List
Fannie Flagg
Novelist and Actress
Fannie Flagg was a television comedian and game-show regular long before she was a novelist, and she wrote her first book in longhand because dyslexia had convinced her she could not write at all. Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe became a bestseller and then an Oscar-nominated film she co-wrote, and she has since published a string of novels set in the small-town South, among them Standing in the Rainbow and The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion. She reads, by her own account, for company.
Travels With Charley
In Search of America
by John Steinbeck · 1962 · Memoir
“Reading this book made me wonder why I always wanted to travel to faraway places” — via Article
WASPs
Women Airforce Service Pilots of World War II
by Vera S. Williams · 1994 · History
“I knew nothing about the brave and courageous women who served our country as pilots during the Second World War until one of them gave me this book as a gift. It renewed my great admiration of that great generation.” — via Article
A Curtain of Green
by Eudora Welty · 1941 · Fiction
“After I read this book of short stories , I was so inspired I realized I had always secretly wanted to be a writer. But being dyslexic, my spelling was not very good. However, years later, I was lucky enough to meet the author, who assured me that spelling was not that big a problem.” — via Article
A Star Danced
by Gertrude Lawrence · 1945 · Memoir
“How fun, how exciting, and glamorous her life seemed to be, especially during the after-parties with Noel Coward and Beatrice Lillie.” — via Article
The Secret of the Old Clock
by Carolyn Keene · 1930 · Children's
“The boys were the ones who seemed to have all the fun and adventures in the books that were offered. But when I was in the sixth grade, our teacher assigned us a Nancy Drew book. Nancy was just the character I needed to read about! She taught me that girls could do the same things as boys.” — via Article
Heidi
by Johanna Spyri · 1881 · Children's
“How could I not list my very first book? I was lucky enough to have a father who read Heidi to me. Here I was, a child of maybe 4 or 5, living in a small apartment in Birmingham, Ala. But every night I was transported all the way across the world to the beautiful Swiss Alps . Thank you, Dad. You really started something: my love of stories.” — via Article