Johnny Cash - Favorite Books of the Man in Black

Johnny Cash and his wife June Carter were greedy readers, though many people might not guess it when taking a superficial glance at the country couple. Sure, they often acted the part of simple, countrified people. And there is some truth to that. But they were also highly literate, published authors—as are many of their children.

Can you imagine having Johnny Cash as your literature teacher? What a treat it would be to have Johnny Cash narrating your favorite literature in his gravelly baritone. If the Cash family had more money, the world might have only known J.R. Cash as an English educator.

Cash reflected in 1988 that he was “writing a lot of poems, and stories, and songs” throughout high school—but struggling with math. College was out of reach for a poor farm boy, though he later mused that studying music and literature would have been ideal.

Growing up as a sharecropper in Arkansas, the first book Cash learned to cherish was the Bible. He later studied theology in the 1970s and was ordained as a minister in 1979. This inspired his only novel, Man in White, published in 1986.

Another formative book was a novel about a Native American boy named Lone Bull. Cash remembered its moral: even after failure, there is still a goal worth reaching.

Cash admired powerful orators such as Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Roosevelt’s New Deal directly helped farmers like the Cash family.

According to Kathy Cash, Johnny Cash loved spiritual writers, Civil War history, prison books, and Roman history. His home library was expansive, and he proudly claimed to have read every book in it—some more than once.

In a 1994 interview, Cash impressed writer Nick Tosches with his knowledge of Roman engineering, praising the efficiency of ancient Roman cranes.

Cash also loved fiction. His reading ranged from James Joyce and J.D. Salinger to Stephen King and James A. Michener. Near the end of his life, his favorite novel was Aztec by Gary Jennings.

One of the most touching moments came when Cash was asked about The Grapes of Wrath. His reply: “Know that book? I was that book.”

Books by Johnny Cash

• Man in Black: His Own Story in His Own Words (1975)
• Man in White (1987)
• Cash: The Autobiography (1997)
• “The Holografik Danser” (2001, written in 1953)
• “Recollections by J.R. Cash – Childhood Memories of Johnny Cash” (2014)

Selected Books by the Cash Family

• Carrie Cash – Recipes and Memories from Mama Cash’s Kitchen (1985)
• Cindy Cash – The Cash Family Scrapbook (1997)
• John Carter Cash – House of Cash (2012)
• Rosanne Cash – Composed: A Memoir (2011)