Pat Conroy

A powerful and intimate memoir by the beloved best-selling author of The Prince of Tides about his father, the inspiration for The Great Santini, and a re-affirmation that love can conquer even the meanest of men.

Yamacraw Island was haunting, nearly deserted, and beautiful. Separated from the mainland of South Carolina by a wide tidal river, it was accessible only by boat. But for the handful of families that lived on Yamacraw, America was a world away. For years these families lived proudly from the sea until waste from industry destroyed the oyster beds essential to their very existence. Already poor, they knew they would have to face an uncertain future...

Leopold Bloom King, our narrator, is the son of an amiable, loving father who teaches science at the local high school. His mother, an ex-nun, is the high school principal and a well-known Joyce scholar. After Leo's older brother commits suicide at the age of thirteen, the family struggles with the shattering effects of his death. Eventually he becomes part of a tightly knit group of high school seniors that includes friends Sheba and Trevor Poe,...

A powerful story of a man's undoing at the hands of his greatest admirer. At the South Carolina military academy the Citadel, amid the tumult of the 1960s, Cadet Peter Cates is an anomaly. He is a gifted writer, a talented basketball player, and a good student, but his outward successes do little to impress his abusive father. Instead, Cates is mentored by Lt. Colonel Courvoisie, an imposing and inspiring man whom the cadets have nicknamed "the Boo."...

After the Civil War sweeps away the genteel life to which she has been accustomed, Scarlett O'Hara sets about to salvage her plantation home.

Bestselling author Pat Conroy acknowledges the books that have shaped him and celebrates the profound effect reading has had on his life.