First, you have to decide if you want to read fiction or non-fiction by Conroy, even though his novels are semi-autobiographical. His two non-fiction books on this list are The Water Is Wide and My Losing Season. (I didn't count the cookbook here.) The Water Is Wide is the story of his experience as a teacher of black children on one of the small islands off the coast of South Carolina in the late 1960's, and I highly recommend it. I didn't care for My Losing Season which is about his experiences playing basketball at the Citadel.

In terms of his fiction, I'd recommend The Great Santini and The Lords of Discipline which are semi-autobiographical accounts of cadets at a military school patterned after the Citadel. (So is The Boo, but I don't think it is as good as the first two I mentioned.)

The Prince of Tides and Beach Music are also semi-autobiographical and are excellent stories as well. Many of his books have been made into movies, but the books are much better.

If you like sports, especially basketball, you'll probably like this reminiscence of Pat Conroy's basketball playing at the Citadel. It's the only book by Conroy that I did not particularly care for. It's not a novel; it might have been a better book if he had fictionalized the story and developed himself, his coaches, and his teammates as characters.

This is a true story about Conroy's experiences as a teacher on one of the islands off the coast of South Carolina in the late 1960's. Although he gained rapport with his students and was truly interested in teaching, he did not last long because of the people in charge of the island school who wanted the black children to remain ignorant and uneducated. It is a good book, but it is totally different from his novels. It is the first book by Conroy that I read.

The book was also published as Conrack. (This is what his students called him.) The book was also made into a movie.