NCW Libraries

An intimate exploration of the life, craft, and legacy of one of the most revered and influential writers, an artist who continues to inspire fans and creatives to cultivate practices of deep attention, rigorous interrogation and beautiful style. Joan Didion was a writer's writer; not only a groundbreaking journalist, essayist, novelist and screenwriter, but a keen observer who honed her sights on life's telling details. Her insights continue to influence...

"The beloved bestselling author of Here for It presents a collection of heartening, thoughtful, and laugh-out-loud funny essays about the lifelong search for community and returning home. After going viral "reading" the chaotic political news, having one-too-many awkward social encounters, and coming to terms with his intersecting identities, R. Eric Thomas is ready to live his best life. Or, if not, at least his best-ish life. Now, in this collection...

After New York City emptied out in March 2020, Glynnis MacNicol, aged forty-six, unmarried with no children, spent sixteen months alone in her tiny Manhattan apartment. The isolation was punishing. A year without touch. Women are warned of invisibility as they age, but this was an extreme loneliness no one can prepare you for. When the opportunity to sublet a friend's apartment in Paris arose, MacNicol jumped on it. Leaving felt less like a risk than...

"In 2012, after the overthrow of Qaddafi, the acclaimed novelist Hisham Matar journeys to his native Libya after an absence of thirty years. When he was twelve, Matar and his family went into political exile. Eight years later Matar's father, a former diplomat and military man turned brave political dissident, was kidnapped from the streets of Cairo by the Libyan government and is believed to have been held in the regime's most notorious prison. Now,...

"Over the last forty years, Stuart Woods has written more than ninety novels of suspense and intrigue, beginning with the award-winning Chiefs. Featuring iconic crime-fighting and jet-setting leads, the plots are masterfully conceived and wonderfully escapist. What many readers don't know is that Woods's very own life was filled with similar stories of adventure. Born in Georgia, Woods worked in advertising in New York, served in the US Air Force,...

"The definitive biography of Edward Gorey, the eccentric master of macabre nonsense. From The Gashlycrumb Tinies to The Doubtful Guest, Edward Gorey's wickedly funny, deliciously sinister little books have influenced our culture in countless ways, from Tim Burton's movies to Anna Sui's fashion to Neil Gaiman's Coraline to Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. Some call him the Grandfather of Goth (which would've given him the fantods)....

"Seminal moments, rites of passage, crystalline vignettes--a memoir about growing up brown at the U.S./Mexico border"--

NATIONAL BESTSELLER Acclaimed essayist and bookseller Mary Laura Philpott presents a charmingly relatable and wise memoir-in-essays about what happened after she checked off all the boxes on her successful life's to-do list and realized she might need to reinvent the list-and herself. Mary Laura Philpott thought she'd cracked the code: Always be right, and you'll always be happy. But once she'd completed her life's to-do list (job, spouse, house,...

At every stage of her life, journalist and author Kati Marton found beauty and excitement in Paris, and now, after the sudden death of husband Richard Holbrooke, the city offers a chance for a new beginning. With intimate and nuanced portraits of Peter Jennings, with whom she had two children in their fifteen-year marriage, and Holbrooke, with whom she found enduring love, Marton offers a vivid account of an adventuresome life in the stream of history....

The story of one of the most dynamic figures in American history. Includes expert commentary, archival material, and Franklin's own writings.