Fans pick 100 books like Again, Alabama

I absolutely love Flannery O’Connor’s short stories; they are like shining gems of literary perfection. She sees through all the meaningless masks and artifices that people put up to mislead and distract, and she describes the motivations at the heart of the conflict. 

No two of her characters are the same, and she brings a clarity of thought and vision like few other authors can. Often, the characters within her short stories make jaw-dropping pronouncements about either themselves or issues of faith or morality. For example, in A Good Man is Hard to Find, the sudden turn of events can be shocking, but there is always a great value to every word she painstakingly wrote in her short life.

A murder mystery and so much more. Set in the marshlands of North Carolina in the United States, it’s an unusual read with the emotional content tugging at my heartstrings. It describes life in the marsh and a child’s heartbreaking struggle to survive.

Nevertheless, I found the author’s description of the natural world in the marshlands brilliant and the haunting tale stayed with me long after I finished reading the book.

Southern life shines in all its quirks and beauty in this debut novel by contemporary author Laurie Beach.

The Firefly Jar is about a woman returning to her mother’s South Carolina roots only to uncover family secrets. The title becomes a thread for the plot which, like a firefly jar, will capture readers, too. And with more books planned, this fresh new voice is one to watch!

I love this book because Edna Pontellier is perhaps the original flawed yet sympathetic heroine—a character ahead of her time and a symbol of the growing stirrings of feminism.

I underlined many passages in my dog-eared copy from college (my professor was the editor), including the line, “Mrs. Pontellier was not a mother-woman,” a contrast with the other mothers summering on Grand Isle who doted on their children. She’s not what a woman and mother was supposed to be in 1899—she’s in love with a man other than her husband; she eschews the trappings of motherhood; and ultimately she escapes in the most heartbreaking way.

This book was so explosive at the time, that it was pulled from shelves and didn’t enjoy success and a rightful place in the literary cannon until it was reissued in 1966. There’s a reason it’s had a treasured place on my bookshelf for nearly… show more.

Strictly speaking, this is not a first-person account, but it includes dozens of detailed case studies drawn from interviews with white tenant farm women in North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. It was written in the 1930s by the pioneering sociologist Margaret Jarman Hagood, one of a group of practitioners at University of North Carolina who sought to produce academic studies that advanced solutions to the socio-economic problems that plagued the rural South. Although Hagood feared that “it is impossible for me to do justice to it either in observing or recording,” her study paints a vivid picture of life among white women who raised children and worked the land on the South’s hardscrabble farms.

Growing up in the South and having a penchant for writing about racial justice, genealogy, travel, truth-telling, and more, this book is among the top ones on my favorite list. The South is more complicated than many think. Along with the racists and bigots, there are plenty of really smart people who are progressive and thoughtful. Good writers sprout like the wild primroses in Alabama. I liked how Perry stirs together history with her travels and her own dear ancestors.

Perry starts her explorations with Harper’s Ferry, which brought back my vivid memories of its spectacular scenery. It still holds onto John Brown, but there is so much more, which she explains. There are plenty of nuanced stories and surprises as she travels across state after state. 

I love this book because the characters are just as odd as the author and just as interesting. Also, Capote’s rural childhood environment reminds me of aspects of my own. And, as usual, his writing is top-notch. Moving and heartfelt stories that transported me to a lost era and the sweetness and anxieties of childhood.

I grew up in the 1960s and '70s, during a time when segregation ended, but racial strife continued, particularly in the South, so this book hits somewhat close to home.

Byron Woodfin sheds a meticulous inside light on how some people of privilege believed to be above the law and speaks to a time that all should remember so as not to repeat past mistakes. I found the storyline to be captivating, from the investigation of the attempted murder car bombing to the dramatic legal proceedings that later ensued.

This book is a real page-turner for those who enjoy true crime set in what one hopes to be a bygone era of racially motivated bigotry.

A Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the New York Times, Rick Bragg’s writing is poetry.

He grew up dirt poor in Alabama. I grew up in a middle-class suburb in New Jersey. He and I have little in common but our love for our mothers. This story touched me on many levels. All mothers sacrifice to some extent in raising their children, but Rick’s mother went above and beyond while facing dire circumstances to provide for hers.

It made me appreciate my mother even more. And though I hadn’t discovered this book prior to my story, it reconfirmed my commitment to my mother. 

Lauren Denton continues leading me down a road filled with glory and unparalleled splendor. The authenticity and raw connectedness to her characters resonates on a level that transcends fiction.

Life is messy and uncertain. It’s the people we surround ourselves with and summoning the courage to open up that makes everything seem “right”. There’s no word for it, that feeling when everything settles into place because you’ve given yourself permission to be the person you truly are. But the entirety of this novel wraps around you with that message.

Find your path, with all its grooves, bumps, and ruts. There might be dusty fragments scattered in the breeze or thick mud that slows you down, but when it’s “your” road and choice, it’s undeniably the most glorious road you’ll travel.