Anne Rivers Siddons Popular Books

Anne Rivers Siddons Biography & Facts

Anne Rivers Siddons (born Sybil Anne Rivers, January 9, 1936 – September 11, 2019) was an American novelist who wrote stories set in the southern United States. Early years The only child of Marvin and Katherine Rivers, she was born in Atlanta, Georgia, was raised in Fairburn, Georgia, and attended Auburn University, where she majored in illustration after initially studying architecture. She was named Loveliest of the Plains and was a member of the Delta Delta Delta sorority. While at Auburn she wrote a column for the student newspaper, The Auburn Plainsman, that favored integration. The university administration attempted to suppress the column (when she refused to reconsider what she wrote, the piece ran with a disclaimer), and ultimately fired her, and the column garnered national attention. Career Following her college graduation, Siddons worked in advertising, but her desire to write led her to journalism, and in 1963 she became a writer for Atlanta magazine, where she eventually became a senior editor. Siddons' debut novel was Heartbreak Hotel (1976). Peachtree Road, set in Atlanta, was a bestselling novel described as "the Southern novel for our generation" by Pat Conroy. More than a million copies are in print. In 1989 her book Heartbreak Hotel became a movie titled Heart of Dixie, which starred Ally Sheedy, Virginia Madsen, Phoebe Cates, Treat Williams, Kyle Secor, and Peter Berg. Siddons's book The House Next Door was adapted for a made-for-television movie that aired in 2006 on Lifetime Television, starring Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Colin Ferguson, and Lara Flynn Boyle. The film tells the story of a woman who is drawn to a home filled with an evil presence that preys on its inhabitants’ weaknesses. In 1994, Siddons signed with HarperCollins to write four books for $13 million. She signed a three-book contract with Warner Books and her novel titled Off Season was released in 2008. Her novel "Burnt Mountain" made many best books of the year lists in 2011. Reception Stephen King, in his non-fiction review of the horror medium, Danse Macabre, listed The House Next Door as one of the finest horror novels of the 20th Century, and provides a lengthy review of the novel in its "Horror Fiction" section. Personal life At the age of thirty, she married Heyward Siddons, who died April 8, 2014. She struggled with four years of depression in the early 1980s, essentially stopping her writing. In 1991, she received an honorary degree in Doctor of Letters from Oglethorpe University. She lived in Charleston, South Carolina, and spent summers in Maine. Siddons died on September 11, 2019, at the age of 83 in Charleston. Selected works Novels Heartbreak Hotel (1976) The House Next Door (1978) Fox's Earth (1981) Homeplace (1987) Peachtree Road (1988) Kings Oak (1990) Outer Banks (1991) Colony (1992) Hill Towns (1993) Downtown (1994) Fault Lines (1995) Up Island (1997) Low Country (1998) Nora, Nora (2000) Islands (2004) Sweetwater Creek (2005) Off Season (2008) Burnt Mountain (7/2010) The Girls of August (2014)Non-fiction John Chancellor Makes Me Cry (1975)Filmography Heart of Dixie (1989), based on Heartbreak Hotel The House Next Door (TV) (2006)References External links Anne Rivers Siddons at IMDb. Discover the Anne Rivers Siddons popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Anne Rivers Siddons books.

Best Seller Anne Rivers Siddons Books of 2024

  • Islands synopsis, comments

    Islands

    Anne Rivers Siddons

    “Anne Rivers Siddons’s novels are women’s stories in the best sense, pulling you into the internal landscape of her characters’ lives and holding you there.” – PeopleA poignant nov...

  • House Next Door synopsis, comments

    House Next Door

    Anne Rivers Siddons

    An unparalleled picture of that vibrant but dark intersection where the Old and the New South collide.Thirtysomething Colquitt and Walter Kennedy live in a charming, peaceful subur...

  • Hill Towns synopsis, comments

    Hill Towns

    Anne Rivers Siddons

    Hill Towns is a classic novel of remarkable emotional power, insight, and sensitivity from Anne Rivers Siddons, whose books live on the New York Times bestseller list and in the he...

  • Nora, Nora synopsis, comments

    Nora, Nora

    Anne Rivers Siddons

    “A treat to be savored.” Houston ChronicleA classic from New York Times bestselling author Anne Rivers Siddons, Nora, Nora tells the story of freethinking Cousin Nora Findlay who t...

  • Sweetwater Creek synopsis, comments

    Sweetwater Creek

    Anne Rivers Siddons

    From New York Times bestselling author Anne Rivers Siddons comes a bittersweet and finely wrought story of friendship, family, and Charleston society.At twelve, Emily Parmente...

  • Fault Lines synopsis, comments

    Fault Lines

    Anne Rivers Siddons

    “A literary meteor shower....One great read.” Detroit NewsA classic from New York Times bestselling author Anne Rivers Siddons, Fault Lines is the powerful and deeply moving story ...

  • Homeplace synopsis, comments

    Homeplace

    Anne Rivers Siddons

    "Anne Rivers Siddons...writes with such astonishing lyrical beauty that you will want to read it aloud to everyone you ever loved."   Pat ConroyAfter twentyone years Mica...

  • Downtown synopsis, comments

    Downtown

    Anne Rivers Siddons

    The year is 1966, a time of innocence, possibility,and freedom. And for Atlanta, the country, and one woman making her way in a changing world, nothing will be the same . . .After ...

  • Up Island synopsis, comments

    Up Island

    Anne Rivers Siddons

    “A wonderful story. . . .Siddons has returned to what she does best: gives us a book full of laughter and adventure that has enough soul to leave us with something to think about a...

  • The Girls of August synopsis, comments

    The Girls of August

    Anne Rivers Siddons

    Anne Rivers Siddons's New York Times bestselling novel about four friends whose lives are forever changed by the events of one summer. For fifteen years, four "girls of August" wou...

  • Pat Conroy synopsis, comments

    Pat Conroy

    Bernie Schein

    “Bernie Schein is the funniest man alive, or so he has dogmatically maintained during the burdensome decades I have known him. . . . [He is] by turns hysterically funny, wildly neu...

  • Peachtree Road synopsis, comments

    Peachtree Road

    Anne Rivers Siddons

    “A blockbuster of a novel. . . . Peachtree Road is the meaty and absorbing story of a city turned on to power and of the privileged inhabitants who led it to its current station as...

  • Low Country synopsis, comments

    Low Country

    Anne Rivers Siddons

    Caroline Venable has everything her Southern heritage promised: money, prestige, a powerful husbandand a predictable routine of countryclub luncheons, cocktail parties, and dinners...