A Year of Alabama Books

Expanded List for Adults and Older Teens

January

• Save Me The Waltz, Zelda Fitzgerald (New Year parties)
• Why We Can't Wait, Martin Luther King, Jr. (Martin Luther King, Jr., Day)

Other Suggestions for January

• Lovesick Blues: The Life of Hank Williams, Paul Hemphill (New Year's Day, anniversary of Hank Williams' death)

February

• Train Whistle Guitar, Albert Murray (Black History Month)
• Queen of Broken Hearts, Cassandra King (Valentine's Day)

Other Suggestions for February

• Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison (Black History Month)

March

• The Story of My Life, Helen Keller (Women's History Month)
• Back Home: Journeys Through Mobile, Roy Hoffman (Mardi Gras in Mobile)

Other Suggestions for March

• Milking the Moon, Eugene Walter (Mardi Gras in Mobile)

April

• Native Guard, Natasha Trethewey (National Poetry Month)
• Naturalist, Edward O. Wilson (Earth Day)

Other Suggestions for April

• Chicken Dreaming Corn, Roy Hoffman (Passover)
• He Slew the Dreamer: My Search for the Truth about James Earl Ray and the Murder of Martin Luther King, William Bradford Huie (anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination)

May

• Mother Was a Rebel, Helen F. Blackshear (Mother's Day)
• With the Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa, E. B. Sledge (Memorial Day)

Other Suggestions for May

• All Over But the Shoutin', Rick Bragg (Mother's Day)
• Mother & Me: An Intimate Memoir of Her Last Years, Virginia Pounds Brown (Mother's Day)
• A Mother and Two Daughters, Gail Godwin (Mother's Day)
• Company K, William March (Memorial Day)
• The Short-Timers, Gustav Hasford (Memorial Day)

June

• Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston (summer/weddings)
• Big Fish, Daniel Wallace (summer/fishing)

Other Suggestions for June

• The Prince of Frogtown, Rick Bragg (Father's Day)
• In My Father's House: Tales of an Unconformable Man, Nancy Huddleston Packer (Father's Day)
• Jubilee, Margaret Walker (Juneteenth)

July

• Long Gone, Paul Hemphill (summer/baseball)
• A Salty Piece of Land, Jimmy Buffett (summer/beach)

Other Suggestions for July

• An Abundance of Katherines, John Green (summer/road trips)

August

• Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, Fannie Flagg(summer/barbeque)
• Alabama, One Big Front Porch, Kathryn Tucker Windham (summer/porches)

Other Suggestions for August

• Last Days of the Dog-Men: Stories, Brad Watson (summer/"dog days")

September

• One More River to Cross, John Beecher (Labor Day)
• Old School, Tobias Wolff (back to school)

Other Suggestions for September

• Ava's Man, Rick Bragg (National Grandparents Day)

October

• Rocket Boys, Homer Hickam (anniversary of Sputnik launch)
• Speaks the Nightbird, Robert McCammon (Halloween)

Other Suggestions for October

• Hauntings: And Other Tales of Danger, Love, and Sometimes Loss, Betsy Hearne (Halloween)

November

• Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer, Warren St. John (fall/football)
• Company K, William March (Armistice Day)

Other Suggestions for November

• Unsung Valor: A GI's Story of World War II, A. Cleveland Harrison (Veterans Day)
• Stateside Soldier: Life in the Women's Army Corps, 1944-1945, Aileen Kilgore Henderson (Veterans Day)
• In Pharaoh's Army: Memories of the Lost War, Tobias Wolff (Veterans Day)
• The Thanksgiving Visitor, Truman Capote (Thanksgiving)

December

• Stars Fell on Alabama, Carl Carmer (anniversary of Alabama statehood)
• In Cold Blood, Truman Capote (winter)

Other Suggestions for December

• It's Christmas!, Kathryn Tucker Windham (Christmas)
• A Christmas Memory, Truman Capote (Chistmas)

Last updated on 2008-09-04.