Melissa Joan Hart's Favorite Books

Melissa Joan Hart's Favorite Books

Bastard Out Of Carolina
by Dorothy Allison Paperback

"my favorite book"

The Catcher In the Rye by J. D. Salinger Paperback

"The way he writes is so raw and natural. I don't think I'm all that different from Holden Caulfield."

Since his debut in 1951 as The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield has been synonymous with "cynical adolescent." Holden narrates the story of a couple of days in his sixteen-year-old life, just after he's been expelled from prep school, in a slang that sounds edgy even today and keeps this novel on banned book lists. It begins:

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them.

His constant wry observations about what he encounters, from teachers to phonies (the two of course are not mutually exclusive) capture the essence of the eternal teenage experience of alienation.

Jane Austen
"I've read all of her stuff..."

The Complete Novels Hardcover

Collected together in one volume, The Complete Novels show the development of Austen as a writer and social commentator. From the early optimism and youthful energy of "Northanger Abbey" to the quiet and subtle art of "Persuasion", this collection reveals the breadth of one of the best loved novelists of all time.

Emma Paperback

Emma Woodhouse is one of Jane Austen's most memorable heroines: "handsome, clever, and rich" as well as self-assured, she believes herself immune to romance, and wreaks amusing havoc in the lives of those around her. A fascinating coming-of-age story about a woman seeking her true nature and finding true love in the process. Among the most beloved of Austen's novels, it has inspired two new and acclaimed movies, including the modern adaptation "Clueless".

Mansfield Park Paperback

"Mansfield Park" is named for the magnificent, idyllic estate that is home to the wealthy Bertram family and a powerful symbol of English tradition and stability. The novel's heroine, Fanny Price, is a "poor relation" living with the Bertrams, acutely conscious of her inferior status and yet daring to love their son Edmund - from afar. But with five marriageable young people on the premises, the peace at Mansfield cannot last. Courtships, entertainments, and intrigues throw the place into turmoil, and Fanny finds herself unwillingly competing with a dazzlingly witty and lovely rival. As Margaret Drabble points out in her incisive introduction, the house becomes "full of the energies of discord - sibling rivalry, greed, ambition, illicit sexual passion, and vanity", and the novel becomes ever more engrossing, until Mansfield's final scandal and its satisfying conclusion. Unique in its moral design and its brilliant interplay of the forces of tradition and change, Mansfield Park was the first novel of Jane Austen's maturity, and the first in which the author turned her unerring eye on the concerns of English society at a time of great upheaval.

Northanger Abbey Paperback

The first of her novels, "Northanger Abbey" is Austen's most youthful and optimistic. It is centered on the loves and friendships of Catherine Morland, an endearing young girl extremely fond of novel-reading who, during an eventful season in Bath, meets the sophisticated Henry and Eleanor Tiley who invite her to stay at their father's mysterious house, Northanger Abbey. There Catherine runs into dangers, imaginary and real, and learns how to tell the difference between books and real life, false friends and true.

Persuasion Paperback

Anne Elliot did something we can all relate to: Long ago, she let the love of her life get away. In this case, she had allowed herself to be persuaded by a trusted family friend that the young man she loved wasn't an adequate match, social stationwise, and that Anne could do better. The novel opens some seven years after Anne sent her beau packing, and she's still alone, but then the guy she never stopped loving comes back from the sea. As always, Austen's storytelling is so confident, you can't help but allow yourself to be taken on the enjoyable journey.

Pride and Prejudice Paperback

The book Melissa says most influenced her adult life: "The lead character, Elizabeth, her determination, just - she was kind of pig-headed but she was also very sensitive and vulnerable. I love the way Jane Austen writes women. They're real characters."

The romantic clash of two opinionated young people sets the stage for Austen's hilarious and classic novel of matrimonial rites and rivalries. Spirited Elizabeth Bennet is one of a family of five daughters; with no male heir, the Bennet estate must someday pass to the priggish cousin Collins. Therefore, the girls must marry well - and the arrogant bachelor Mr. Darcy is Elizabeth's elusive match. Readers will immediately understand why Austen herself called the book her "darling child".

Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau Hardcover

The Crucible: A Play In Four Acts by Arthur Miller Quality Paperback

Melissa appeared on Broadway in "The Crucible".

The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio Paperback

The Emperor's New Clothes by Hans Christian Andersen Audio

Read by Melissa, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Madonna, Geena Davis, Fran Drescher, Dan Ackroyd, Robin Williams and many other celebs to benefit the STARBRIGHT Foundation.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou Quality Paperback

In this first of five volumes of autobiography, poet Maya Angelou recounts a youth filled with disappointment, frustration, tragedy, and finally hard-won independence. Sent at a young age to live with her grandmother in Arkansas, Angelou learned a great deal from this exceptional woman and the tightly knit black community there. These very lessons carried her throughout the hardships she endured later in life, including a tragic occurrence while visiting her mother in St. Louis and her formative years spent in California - where an unwanted pregnancy changed herr life forever. Marvelously told, with Angelou's "gift for language and observation", this "remarkable autobiography by an equally remarkable black woman from Arkansas captures, indelibly, a world of which most Americans are shamefully ignorant."

James and the Giant Peach: A Children's Story
by Roald Dahl Quality Paperback

Melissa's favorite childhood book.

When poor James Henry Trotter loses his parents in a horrible rhinoceros accident, he is forced to live with his two wicked aunts, Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker. After three years he becomes "the saddest and loneliest boy you could find". Then one day, a wizened old man in a dark-green suit gives James a bag of magic crystals that promise to reverse his misery forever. When James accidentally spills the crystals on his aunts' withered peach tree, he sets the adventure in motion. From the old tree a single peach grows, and grows, and grows some more, until finally James climbs inside the giant fruit and rolls away from his despicable aunts to a whole new life. James befriends an assortment of hilarious characters, including Grasshopper, Earthworm, Miss Spider, and Centipede - each with his or her own song to sing. Roald Dahl's rich imagery and amusing characters ensure that parents will not tire of reading this classic aloud, which they will no doubt be called to do over and over again! We'll just come right out and say it ... "James and the Giant Peach" is one of the finest children's books ever written. (Ages 9 to 12)

LA Vita Nuova: Poems Of Youth by Dante Alighieri Paperback

The Little Prince by Antoine De Saint-Exupery Paperback

"I think everyone should read 'The Little Prince' at least once a year."

It is hard to think of any book so widely read and internationally loved by both children and adults as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's "The Little Prince", originally written as "Le Petit Prince" in 1943. A fable in the most classic sense, this wise story offers layer upon layer to be peeled away with each reading. Just as with the narrator's Drawing Number One, "The Little Prince" can truly be understood only by children (a classification that has nothing to do with age).

The narrator, who has spent too many years in the company of grown-ups and still doesn't care much for them, runs across the little prince while repairing his airplane in the desert. The "extraordinary small person", after demanding that the narrator draw a picture of a sheep, proceeds to tell him the story of his journey from planet to planet, a trip that has finally led him to Earth. In his galactic travels, he meets a variety of archetypal characters, each a different and equally undesirable manifestation of adulthood; along the way he encounters a king, a tippler, and a geographer, all of whom possess particular absurdities seen all too clearly through the eyes of the little prince. The bewildered prince visits Earth, which appears just as strange and alien as the other planets - until he meets a small fox who shows him what he has been looking for.

My Sergei: A Love Story by Ekaterina Gordeeva Paperback

"I just love reading autobiographies. I love the fact that they're real and that this really happened to someone. That book really got to me, really touched me. I ended up trying to get in touch with her to invite her and her daughter to come down to the set of Sabrina. I called her agent. I was so intrigued by the love story. It's so intense, it's such a Romeo and Juliet story - but it's true."

Our Bodies, Ourselves For the New Century:
A Book By and For Women
by Boston Women's Health Book Collective Quality Paperback

The book Melissa hid from her parents.

In a major update of the book that helped to launch the women's health movement, "Our Bodies, Ourselves" for the New Century updates the classic with chapters on such issues as online health resources, AIDS and managed care. At the same time, it expands its appeal by addressing the concerns of an increasingly diverse readership, from lesbians to women of color, from women with disabilities to women of all age groups.

The Shirley Temple Scrapbook by Loraine Burdick Hardcover

For obvious reasons, Melissa is a major fan of this child star.

Picasso
by Betsy Fryberger
Hardcover

MJH's favorite artist.

Melissa Joan Hart's Favorite Books

Salem's Tails
[for readers age 12 and under]

The Reading Room's Top TV Books

Online Reading:
Melissa Joan Hart On WNYC [1994]

Sabrina Goes To Rome by Mel Odom [excerpt]