NCW Libraries

"One of the most acclaimed artists of the Harlem Renaissance, Zora Neale Hurston was a gifted novelist, playwright, and essayist. Drawn from three decades of her work, this anthology showcases her development as a writer, from her early pieces expounding on the beauty and precision of African American art to some of her final published works, covering the sensational trial of Ruby McCollum, a wealthy Black woman convicted in 1952 for killing a white...

Mann brings her sharp wit to bear on suburban life, marriage, and motherhood. From the politics of joining a play group, to the thrill of mothers' night out at the gun range, nothing is sacred or off-limits.

"From the universally acclaimed, best-selling author of the National Book Award-winning The Year of Magical Thinking: ten pieces never before collected that offer an illuminating glimpse into the mind and process of a legendary writer. Here are six pieces written in 1968 from the "Points West" Saturday Evening Post column Joan Didion shared from 1964 to 1969 with her husband, John Gregory Dunne about: American newspapers; a session with Gamblers Anonymous;...

"Cubantropía (Cubanthropy) is a work of cultural criticism whose title is a neologism coined by the author to describe the energy between anthropology and entropy, the space between the street and the library, the island and the world. These collected essays, written in Iván de la Nuez's trademark ironic, erudite style, range in subject matter from the Berlin Wall to Havana's Malecón. This book examines recent clashes between the market and democracy,...

"In a collection of essays, the venerated television journalist celebrates our shared values, reminds us of what matters most in our great country, and shows us what patriotism looks like"--

"There's no right way to keep a diary, but if there's an entertaining way, David Sedaris seems to have mastered it. If it's navel-gazing you're after, you've come to the wrong place; ditto treacly self-examination. Rather, his observation turn outward: a fight between two men on a bus, a fight between two men on the street, pedestrians being whacked over the head or gathering to watch as a man considers leaping to his death. There's a dirty joke shared...

"In deeply personal essays drawn from his life, as well as his career on Broadway and in Hollywood, Rannells argues that we all pretend we are constantly succeeding--for friends, partners, parents, and others--that we are constantly succeeding in the process known as "adulting." But if this acting is leaving us unfulfilled, then we need new markers of time, new milestones, new expectations of what adulthood is and can be"--

Noah's path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of The Daily Show began with a criminal act: his birth. Born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother, at the time such a union was punishable by five years in prison. As he struggles to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to exist, his mother is determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence, and abuse that would ultimately threaten her own life. With an incisive...