Flannery O'Connor Books

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O'Connor Must-Reads

There are many excellent books by and about Flannery O'Connor. Below, you'll find a short list of books with which everyone interested in O'Connor should be familiar.

All of these books should be available through your library, but if you're like me you'll want your own copy. If you have an interest in buying any of these books you can click on the title of the book, and you will be taken to a corresponding amazon.com web page where you can order it. (when I can, I've linked to editions that can be shipped within 24 hrs so you can get them right away.)

If you want to see EVERYTHING that Amazon offers on O'Connor, you can test drive this new connection I'm working on. It automatically searches for anything tagged "Flannery O'Connor".

By the way, I wouldn't advertise for Amazon if I didn't use their services. I order from them fairly regularly so I don't have to run all over creation looking for something no one carries. Amazon sends it right to my mailbox.

Flannery O'Connor's Work Fiction, criticism, and correspondence written by O'Connor
Flannery O'Connor Collected Works (Library of America) Collected Works is the O'Connor omnibus. If you want to get all of O'Connor's fiction and a good chunk of her non-fiction, this has what you need and then some. I would recommend this book to true O'Connor fans, a dedicated scholars, and even to the readers who are only interested in tasting a bit of her fiction. You simply get so much for your money. Well worth the price, in my opinion.
The Complete Stories This is the complete collection of O'Connor's short stories. This book doesn't include her novels, although most of the chapters of Wise Blood are in here, as O'Connor wrote it in several parts. It's interesting to see how the novel evolved from these vignettes. The stories are in chronological order according to the date they were written. Be prepared to spend several days/evenings with this book. Once you start, it's hard to stop. If you know you like O'Connor, and want to read all of her short fiction, then this is the book to get.
Wise Blood In my opinion, Wise Blood is O'Connor's best novel. Her celestial imagery really takes flight here, and the book is brimming full of other symbolism. It's one of those books you can read a hundred times, and it's different each time. Her characters are as fascinating as in her short stories, but with more room for development they become even more enigmatic.
The Violent Bear It Away The story of Francis Tarwater who faces the prophecy of his dead uncle--that Tarwater is to be the mouth of God and wake the sleeping sinners in the city. Tarwater struggles with his innate faith and the voices calling him to be a prophet. O'connor weaves irony and compassion, humor and pathos into a novel that delves into the schism between faith and reality.
Everything that Rises Must Converge In this collection O'Connor explores themes of race, faith, and morality with both comic and tragic stories that embrace the beautiful and the grotesque. Contains: Everything that Rises Must Converge, "Greenleaf", "A View of the Woods", "The Enduring Chill", "The Comforts of Home", "The Lame Shall Enter First", "Revelation", "Parker's Back", and "Judgement Day".
A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories This collection of stories tinged with foreboding established O'Connor on the literary scene. Contains: A Good Man is Hard to Find, The River, The Life You Save May be Your Own, A Stroke of Good Fortune, A Temple of the Holy Ghost, The Artificial Nigger, A Circle in the Fire, A Late Encounter with the Enemy, Good Country People, and The Displaced Person.
The Habit of Being This collection of O'Connor's correspondence offers insight into her personal views on writing, religion, peacocks, and everything else she felt was important. If you want to understand O'Connor the person, then you'll want to read this book.
Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose Mystery and Manners collects all of O'Connor's non-fiction. She was quite a prolific writer, even outside of the fiction arena. This book reveals her critical approach to literature as well as her views on writers and writing.

Biography
Works about Flannery O'Connor

Flannery O'Connor: A Life

A factual biography that methodically details O'Connor's life: her childhood in Savannah, her years at the University of Iowa, and her return to Milledgeville, Ga. Some reviewers have criticized this biography for focusing too much on facts and offering no interpretations, but some readers can come to their own conclusions from the information given here.

The Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage

This fantastic and ambitious work looks at the lives of "the School of the Holy Ghost"--Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, Flannery O’Connor, and Walker Percy--four Catholic writers who grappled with common questions of religious faith.

Flannery O'Connor: A Biography

This school-oriented biography gives a straightforward, just-the-facts style view of O'Connor's life without straying too far into speculative territory.

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