Here it is, the classic epic of the Civil War South. The movie and the book together represent important literary milestones in American culture - or, as one author has said (and I'm paraphrasing): "The North may have won the war, but the South got Margaret Mitchell."

This said, I've never actually read the book or watched the entire movie. I recommend it here because romance writers looking for feisty characters who know love - both the glories of it and the pitfalls of love misplaced - need look no further than Scarlett O'Hara.

The edition I've recommended here includes a preface by Pat Conroy - this is the same edition I once checked out at the library, filled with every intention of reading the entire book. The preface alone is very much worth reading - Conroy gives an excellent writer's perspective to Margaret Mitchell's life and her writing methods, discussing both the role of the Civil War in Southern literature and the painstaking labor which eventually led to one of the most celebrated works of American literature.