Jeannette Walls books

Discover all books by Jeannette Walls, the bestselling author of The Glass Castle memoir about her unconventional childhood growing up with nomadic, anti-establishment parents.

Jeannette Walls Non-Fiction Reading Order

Title Published Buy on Amazon
Dish 2000 Buy
The Glass Castle 2005 Buy

Non-Fiction

Title Published Buy on Amazon
Dish 2000 Buy
The Glass Castle 2005 Buy

Standalone Novels

Title Published Buy on Amazon
Half Broke Horses 2008 Buy
The Silver Star 2013 Buy
Hang the Moon 2023 Buy

Jeannette Walls is an American author and former gossip columnist whose memoir The Glass Castle became one of the bestselling non-fiction books of the 2000s. The book describes her childhood with parents who were charismatic and intelligent but unable or unwilling to provide basic stability. The family moved constantly, often living in poverty, while her father made grand promises about building a glass castle that never materialized.

Before writing The Glass Castle, Walls worked as a gossip columnist in New York, a career that sat uneasily with the poverty she had grown up in. Her later books include Half Broke Horses, a fictionalized account of her grandmother’s life in the American West, and Hang the Moon, a novel set during Prohibition-era Virginia. Her writing returns to themes of family loyalty, self-reliance, and the complicated love people feel for parents who fail them.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many books has Jeannette Walls written?

Jeannette Walls has written seven books across three series.

What was Jeannette Walls's first book?

Jeannette Walls’s first book is Dish, published in 2000.

What is Jeannette Walls best known for?

Walls is best known for The Glass Castle (2005), a memoir about growing up with parents who were brilliant but deeply dysfunctional. The book spent years on the New York Times bestseller list and was adapted into a 2017 film starring Brie Larson. It has sold over six million copies.

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