Georgia's Top 25 Reading List 
is made up of books set in Georgia or written by a resident or former resident of the state.  The Advisory Council of the Georgia Center for the Book solicited nominations from citizens across the state and selected the titles they believe represent quality Georgia literature.  The purpose of the Top 25 is to promote reading and discussion and to enhance appreciation of Georgia's rich literary traditions.

Ansa, Tina McElroy.  Baby Of The Family. 
At the moment of her birth, Lena is born with the power to see ghosts and predict the future. But only one nurse knows the spells to ensure that Lena will see good ghosts, not evil ones.

Berendt, John. Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil.  
Shots rang out in Savannah's grandest mansion in the misty, early morning hours of May 2, 1981. Was it murder or self-defense?

Bottoms, David. Armored Hearts.  
A generous collection of new poems with those selected from four previous volumes published to critical and popular acclaim.

Burns, Olive.  Cold Sassy Tree.  
A timeless, funny, resplendent novel about romance and adolescence, and how people lived and died in a small Southern town at the turn of the century.

Caldwell, Erskine. Tobacco Road.  
It is the story of the Lesters, a family of destitute white sharecroppers debased by poverty to an elemental state of ignorance and selfishness.

Carter, Jimmy. An Hour Before Daylight.  
Carter revisits his childhood in rural Georgia and considers the ways his youthful experiences have affected his adult life.

Cleage, Pearl. What Looks Like Crazy On An Ordinary Day.  
Ava Johnson was living out her dream in Atlanta: fabulous career, high living, and the promise that things could only get bigger and better. Then Ava's future crumbled -- she tested positive for HIV.

Conroy, Pat. The Prince Of Tides.  
Spanning 40 years, this is the story of turbulent Tom Wingo, his gifted and troubled twin sister Savannah, and the dark and violent past of the extraordinary family into which they were born.

Deedy, Carmen, illustrator Michael White. The Library Dragon.  
Miss Lotta Scales is a dragon who believes her job is to protect the school's library books from the children, but when she finally realizes that books are meant to be read, the dragon turns into Miss Lotty, librarian and storyteller.

Dickey, James. Deliverance.   
The setting is the Georgia wilderness, where the state's most remote white-water river awaits. In the thundering froth of that river, in its echoing stone canyons, four men on a canoe trip discover a freedom and exhilaration beyond compare.  And then, in a moment of horror, the adventure turns into a struggle for survival, as one man becomes a human hunter who is offered his own harrowing deliverance.

Greene, Melissa Fay. Praying For Sheetrock. 
Rural McIntosh County, Georgia, in the 1970s was bypassed by the civil rights movement, until one unemployed, uneducated black man changed life in McIntosh County forever.

Grimsley, Jim.  Dream Boy.  
Set in North Carolina, this novel centers on Nathan, a shy, bright high-school sophomore who falls in love with Roy, the farm boy next door.

Harris, Joel Chandler. Uncle Remus: The Complete Tales.  
Brer Rabbit is causing trouble again for his fellow creatures Brer Fox, Brer Wolf, and the rest.

Kay, Terry. To Dance With The White Dog.  
This brilliantly realized novel of life, loss, mystery and hope has garnered exceptional critical praise. An old man (whose wife of 57 years has died) and his mythic white dog teach a lasting lesson in love, hope and the importance of believing in yourself to his worried child.

Lewis, John. Walking With The Wind.  
An eloquent, epic firsthand account of the civil rights movement by a man who lived it—an American hero whose courage, vision, and dedication helped change history.

Mitchell, Margaret.  Gone With The Wind.  A monumental classic considered by many to be not only the greatest love story ever written, but also the greatest Civil War saga.

McCullers, Carson. The Member Of The Wedding.  A troubled, perceptive 12-year-old girl awaits her brother's wedding.

O’Connor, Flannery. A Good Man Is Hard To Find, And Other Stories.  
This timeless collection of nine stories, each with its climactic moment of human weakness, is set at that crossroads. At a roadside, in a stairwell, by a reddish river, O'Connor's flawed and vividly human characters grope toward mysteries they can barely comprehend.

Price, Eugenia.  Lighthouse.  
It is the story of James Gould, founder of the Southern Dynasty, whose dream is to make a life for himself in the post-Revolutionary South.

Ray, Janisse. Ecology Of A Cracker Childhood.  
Ray describes her world: a childhood spent in a junkyard; a religious background steeped in the fundamentalist tradition; and relatives as colorful as any from fiction. She also catalogs the Edenic beauty of longleaf pine forests, where orchids grow at the foot of widely spaced, lofty trees.

Sams, Ferrol.  Run With The Horsemen.  
A boy's account of growing up in the South during the depression era.

Siddons, Anne Rivers. Peachtree Road.  
Lucy Bondurant Chastain Venable is a beautiful woman of great passion and terrible need. Sheppard Gibbs Bondurant III--Lucy's cousin and lifelong confidant--is a man turned recluse by his own fatal feelings. Their mesmerizing story spans four decades--chronicling the astonishing love and hate between them and the turbulent transformation of their once-magnificent South.

Walker, Alice. The Color Purple.  
The story of Celie, a poor, barely literate Southern black woman who struggles to escape the brutality and degradation of her treatment by men.

Washington, James Melvin (Editor).  A Testament Of Hope: The Essential Writings And Speeches Of Martin Luther King, Jr.   
One-volume collection of his writings, speeches, interviews, and autobiographical reflections, is Martin Luther King, Jr. on nonviolence, social policy, integration, black nationalism, the ethics of love and hope, and more.