NCW Libraries

In the Dream House is Carmen Maria Machado's engrossing and wildly innovative account of a relationship gone bad, and a bold dissection of the mechanisms and cultural representations of psychological abuse. Tracing the full arc of a harrowing relationship with a charismatic but volatile woman, Machado struggles to make sense of how what happened to her shaped the person she was becoming. And it's that struggle that gives the book its original structure:...

Looks at a complex meditation on the trauma and possibility of searching for connection in a world that relentlessly enforces bland norms of gender, sexual, and social conformity while claiming to celebrate diversity.

An autobiographical work written for the stage explores such topics as love and loss, beauty and terror, and the intricacies of family love and hatred, while illuminating the rural poverty of the South.

"There is a voice of longing inside every woman. We strive so mightily to be good: good mothers, daughters, partners, employees, citizens, and friends. We believe all this striving will make us feel alive. Instead, it leaves us feeling weary, stuck, overwhelmed, and underwhelmed. We look at our lives, relationships, and world, and wonder: Wasn't it all supposed to be more beautiful than this? We quickly silence that question, telling ourselves to...

Eighteen months before Kathryn Schulz's beloved father died, she met the woman she would marry. Here, she weaves the stories of those relationships into a brilliant exploration of how all our lives are shaped by loss and discovery, from the maddening disappearance of everyday objects to the sweeping devastations of war, pandemic, and natural disaster; from finding new planets to falling in love.

"In this spirited account, Billie Jean King details her life's journey to find her true self. She recounts her groundbreaking tennis career--six years as the top-ranked woman in the world, twenty Wimbledon championships, thirty-nine grand-slam titles, and her watershed defeat of Bobby Riggs in the famous 'Battle of the Sexes.' She poignantly recalls the cultural backdrop of those years and the profound impact on her worldview from the women's movement,...

Actress and playwright Tina Alexis Allen's audacious memoir unravels her privileged suburban Catholic upbringing that was shaped by her formidable father--a man whose strict religious devotion and dedication to his large family hid his true nature and a life defined by deep secrets and dangerous lies. "Two lives, forever bound together by secrets. Tina Alexis Allen, the youngest of thirteen in a devout Catholic family, had what appeared to be a privileged...

"Martha Shelley didn't start out in life wanting to become a gay activist, or an activist of any kind. The daughter of Jewish refugees and undocumented immigrants in New York City, she grew up during the Red Scare of the late 1940s and 1950s, was inspired by the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements that followed, and struggled with coming out as a lesbian at a time when being gay made her a criminal. Shelley rose to become a public speaker...

One spring morning, Kathryn Schulz went to lunch with a stranger and fell in love. Having spent years looking for the right relationship, she was dazzled by how swiftly everything changed when she finally met her future wife. But as the two of them began building a life together, Schulz's beloved father - a charming, brilliant, absentminded Jewish refugee - went into the hospital with a minor heart condition and never came out. Newly in love yet also...

"Eighteen months before her beloved father died, Kathryn Schulz met Casey, the woman who would become her wife. Lost & Found weaves together their love story with the story of losing Kathryn's father in a brilliant exploration of the way families are lost and found and the way life dispenses wretchedness and suffering, beauty and grandeur all at once. Schulz writes with painful clarity about the vicissitudes of grieving her father, but she also writes...