NCW Libraries

“Every man's work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself, and the more he tries to conceal himself the more clearly will his character appear in spite of him.” The Way of All Flesh is a novel by English author Samuel Butler, published in 1903, a year after his death. A semi-autobiographical work, it is a brilliant, subversive critique of Victorian-era social hypocrisy. Telling...

"An enchanting new novel from one of the most distinguished writers of our time, an altogether serious comedy that is the synthesis and culmination of his oeuvre"--

Elfrida takes refuge in a rambling house in the north of Scotland called Corrydale. Almost like a magnet, Corrydale attracts various waifs and strays, each of them escaping difficult personal pasts.

Working for the New York Port Authority in the late 1950s under the tutelage of a legendary publicist, Maggie Gleason befriends her boss's newest protégé, who goes missing amid rumors about a devastating secret from the past.

"Recollections of one of the grand masters of science fiction, on his storied career as a celebrated author and on his relationships with other luminaries in the field. This memoir is filled with all the humor and irreverence Harry Harrison's readers have come to expect from the New York Times bestselling author of the uproarious Stainless Steel Rat series. This also includes black and white photos spanning his sixty-year career"--

"Between the World Wars, the six Mitford sisters--each more beautiful, brilliant, and eccentric than the next--dominate the English scenes. Though they've weathered scandals before, the family falls into disarray when Diana divorces her wealthy husband to marry a fascist leader and Unity follows her sister's lead all the way to Munich, inciting rumors that she's become Hitler's mistress. As the Nazis rise in power, novelist Nancy Mitford grows suspicious...

A serial killer is stalking the wives of the town's firefighters, and unless Mark and Allie Branning renew their commitment to each other and to God, Allie may be next.

Set in the mid-twentieth century and told with beauty and tenderness, Robert Seethaler's A Whole Life is a story of man's relationship with an ancient landscape, of the value of solitude, of the arrival of the modern world, and above all, of the moments, great and small, that make us who we are.

"Anka Muhlstein revisits the delights of the French novel. This time she focuses on late 19th- and 20th-century writers--Balzac, Zola, Proust, Huysmans, and Maupassant--through the lens of their passionate involvement with the fine arts. She delves into the crucial role that painters play as characters in their novels, which she pairs with an exploration of the profound influence that painting exercised on the novelists' techniques, offering an intimate...

"The islanders have only three rules: don't stick your nose where it's not wanted, don't mention the war, and never let your guard down during October. Leigh Welles has not set foot in on the island in years, but when she finds herself called home from a disappointing life on the Scottish mainland by her father's unexpected death, she is determined to forget the sorrows of the past-her mother's abandonment, her brother's icy distance, the unspeakable...