Bestselling author Jeannette Walls wrote a memoir, The Glass Castle (Scribner), a triumphant account of overcoming a difficult childhood with
her dysfunctional family, that has been a New York Times bestseller for over three years. Her most recent book is Half Broke Horses (Scribner), a "true-life novel"
about her fearless and tough maternal grandmother. Walls lives in rural
Virginia with her husband, the writer John Taylor.
Here she talks about her books and the value of book clubs, at Blue Willow Bookshop in Houston, Tex. You can also view trailers for A Glass Castle and Half Broke Horses.
On your nightstand now:
At Home by Bill Bryson, In the Sanctuary of Outcasts by Neil White, The Memory Palace by Mira Bartók.
Favorite book when you were a child:
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith.
Your top five authors:
I tend to devour books by topics, and lately I've been reading a lot of books about how the brain functions. My favorites have included My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor, Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammet, Still Alice by Lisa Genova, A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar and Touched by Fire by Kay Redfield Jamison.
Book you've faked reading:
One Hundred Years of Solitude in Spanish. It was assigned in college for the third year of Spanish and I just couldn't do it. I read it in English instead.
Book you're an evangelist for:
The Rivalry by John Taylor, a truly brilliant author who also happens to be my husband.
Book you've bought for the cover:
Remarkable Trees of the World by Thomas Pakenham.
Book that changed your life:
I read The Grapes of Wrath when I was in the fifth grade and was totally nuts for it. Okay, so I was a bit of a nerd, but it really drove home to me how a book can humanize outcasts--which I felt the whole Walls family was.
Favorite line from a book:
Now, the
Star-Belly Sneetches had bellies with stars.
The Plain-Belly Sneetches had none upon thars. --The Sneetches.
I loved Dr. Suess when I was a kid and had this entire poem memorized when I was four.
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
The End of the Affair by Graham Greene.