NCW Libraries

When dystopian futures don't feel so future at all…Four decades before George Orwell wrote 1984, The Napoleon of Notting Hill defined the dystopian genre. One of the first dystopian comedies, instead of a dark vision of jackboots and surveillance states, G.K. Chesterton explores the question of what a society would look like if no one could take a joke.In this future England, each new king is decided by lottery. When Auberon Quin, a man who cares...

American Indian Stories (1921) is a collection of stories and essays from Yankton Dakota writer Zitkála-Šá. Published while Zitkála-Šá was at the height of her career as an artist and activist, American Indian Stories collects the author's personal experiences, the legends and stories passed down through Sioux oral tradition, and her own reflections on the mistreatment of American Indians nationwide. In "My Mother," Zitkála-Šá remembers...

Phillis Wheatley was the very first African American woman to have a book published. Readers will learn about her fascinating life as a slave, poet, and author in this engaging biography. Featuring detailed images, photos of Phillis's published poems, and easy to read text, children will learn also learn about slavery, the difference of treatment of slaves in the North and South, and Phillis's relationship with the Countess of Huntingdon. A glossary...

This should be the story of Hercules: his twelve labors, his endless adventures--everyone's favorite hero, right? Well, it's not. This is the story of everyone else: Alcmene: Herc's mother; Hylas: Herc's first friend; Megara: Princess of Thebes; Eurystheus: oversaw Herc's labors; and his friends, enemies, wives, children, lovers, rivals, gods, and victims. It's time to hear their stories.

In London, the Metropolitan Police have set up a new Unsolved Murders Unit - a cold case squad - to catch the criminals nobody else can. Four victims. Four cases. All killers poised to strike again. In Geneva, millionaire art collector Miles Faulkner, convicted of forgery and theft, was pronounced dead two months ago. So why is his unscrupulous lawyer still representing a dead client? And who is the mysterious man his widow is planning to marry? On...

"It is difficult to think of two twentieth century books by one author that have had as much influence on American culture when they were published as Alex Haley's monumental bestsellers, The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965), and Roots (1976). They changed the way white and black America viewed each other and the country's history. This first biography of Haley follows him from his childhood in relative privilege in deeply segregated small town Tennessee...

Intimate portraits of great poets in old age, giving new insight into their work and their lives, and context to the often-flawless art created by flawed human beings. The best of themselves endure, and the old poets' existence and endurance gives readers courage to pursue their own vision. Donald Hall (Essays After Eighty and A Carnival of Losses: Notes Nearing Ninety) knew a great deal about work, about poetry, and about age. Each of those things...

A provocative collection of essays by one of the foremost thinkers of second-wave feminism In a career spanning four decades, Alix Kates Shulman has written on issues ranging from marriage, sex, and divorce to religious identity, age, and family devotion. Throughout her diverse body of work runs a staunch advocacy of equal rights and social justice. Beginning with her provocative essay "A Marriage Agreement," written in 1969, and continuing through...

The Bible is interpreted in a variety of ways and through a myriad of lenses. But how we interpret Scripture depends first of all on how we read it. This handbook focuses on the process of reading itself, taking a cognitive-stylistic approach grounded in recent research on language and the mind. Through accessible explanations of twelve key stylistic elements, How We Read the Bible provides all who study Scripture with the tools to understand what...

Love for Sale is the first study to examine the ubiquity of commercial sex in Russian literary and artistic production from the nineteenth century through the fin de siècle. Colleen Lucey offers a compelling account of how the figure of the sex worker captivated the public's imagination through depictions in fiction and fine art, bringing to light how imperial Russians grappled with the issue of sexual commerce. Studying a wide range of media-from...