NCW Libraries

"'In the beginning I was so young and such a stranger to myself I hardly existed. I had to go out into the world and see it and hear it and react to it, before I knew at all who I was, what I was, what I wanted to be.' So begins Upstream, a collection of essays in which beloved poet Mary Oliver reflects on her willingness, as a young child and as an adult, to lose herself within the beauty and mysteries of both the natural world and the world of...

"The beloved New York Times bestselling author reflects on home, family, friendships and writing in this deeply personal collection of essays"-- ""Any story that starts will also end." As a writer, Ann Patchett knows what the outcome of her fiction will be. Life, however, often takes turns we do not see coming. Patchett ponders this truth in these wise essays that afford a fresh and intimate look into her mind and heart. At the center of These Precious...

"A charming, poignant, unfiltered, laugh-out-loud memoir in essays from beloved actor and natural-born storyteller Minnie Driver, chronicling the way life works out even when it doesn't"--

From literary icon Margaret Atwood comes a brilliant collection of nonfiction -- funny, erudite, intimate, impassioned, and always startlingly prescient -- which grapples with such wide-ranging topics as: Why do people everywhere, in all cultures, tell stories? How do we get rid of the immense amount of plastic that's littering our seas and lands? How much of yourself can you give away without evaporating? Is science fiction now writing us? So what...

Amy Merrick is a rare and special kind of artist who uses flowers to help us see the familiar in a completely new way. Her gift is to revel in the unexpected--like a sunny spring arrangement housed in a paper coffee cup--and to overturn preconceptions, whether she's transforming a bouquet of supermarket carnations into a breathtaking centerpiece or elevating wild and weedy blooms foraged from city sidewalks. She uses the beauty that is waiting to...

"The bestselling author of American Housewife and Southern Lady Code returns with a viciously funny collection of literary essays on love, family, and friendship among grown-ass women"--

"An anthology of short, intimate second-person essays by a diverse range of writers, each honoring a fleeting encounter with a stranger met while traveling that left a profound and lasting impact; with a foreword by bestselling author Leslie Jamison"--

"A collection of articles and excerpts from Barbara Ehrenreich's long-ranging career that highlight her social consciousness and wry wit." --

"The #1 New York Times bestselling author and "king of Christmas fiction" (The New York Times) delivers a charming and inspirational collection of personal essays.Before he was the #1 New York Times bestselling author of holiday classics such as The Christmas Box, Richard Paul Evans was a young boy being raised by a suicidal mother and dealing with relentless bullying. He could not fathom what the future held for him. Now, in this intimate and heartfelt...

"In Black and Female, Tsitsi Dangarembga examines the legacy of imperialism on her own life and on every aspect of black embodied African life. This paradigm-shifting essay collection weaves the personal and political in an illuminating exploration of race and gender. Dangarembga recounts a painful separation from her parents as a toddler, connecting this experience to the ruptures caused in Africa by human trafficking and enslavement. She argues...