NCW Libraries

On a train trip from Manchester to London in 1990, a young single mother named Joanne Rowling conceived the idea of a children's book about a boy wizard named Harry Potter. Five years later, that idea became the basis for the most successful book franchise in the history of publishing. Here is the rags-to-riches story of J.K. Rowling, who overcame numerous hardships to rise seemingly overnight from a destitute welfare mother in England to one of the...

Agatha Christie becomes involved in solving the murder of a woman bludgeoned on a train; in the winter of 1928, Agatha Christie travels to Iraq, where she falls in love with an attractive archaeologist and has to unravel a series of murders; in the midst of personal turmoil, Agatha Christie decides to kill off her famous character, Hercule Poirot, and sell the manuscript to a wealthy businessman, but the businessman mysteriously dies and the manuscript...

Ordinary, Extraordinary Jane Austen is a gorgeous and inspiring picture book biography of one of the most beloved writers of all time. It is a truth universally acknowledged that Jane Austen is one of our greatest writers. But before that, she was just an ordinary girl.

"Part of the bestselling Little People, Big Dreams series, Agatha Christie tells the story of the most famous crime writer of all time." -- Provided by publisher.

An esteemed memoirist and one of the great editors in British publishing examines aging with the grace of Elegy for Iris and the wry irreverence of I Feel Bad About My Neck.

"A luminous, wise, and joyful insight into what really matters at the end of a long life, from the beloved author of the award-winning Somewhere Towards the End. What will you remember if you live to be 100? Diana Athill charmed readers with her prize-winning memoir Somewhere Towards the End, which transformed her into an unexpected literary star. Now, on the eve of her ninety-eighth birthday, Athill has written a sequel every bit as unsentimental,...

After exploring the world of Jane Austen, Reef now turns her attention to the tragically short but utterly fascinating lives of the Bront sistersNCharlotte (author of "Jane Eyre"), Emily ("Wuthering Heights"), and Anne ("Agnes Grey"). Illustrations.

"In 1994, director Peter Jackson released the movie Heavenly Creatures, based on a famous 1950s matricide committed in New Zealand by two teenage girls embroiled in an obsessive relationship. The movie launched Jackson's international career. It also forever changed the life of Anne Perry, an award-winning, bestselling crime writer, who at the time of the movie's release was publicly outed at Juliet Hulme, one of the murderers. A new light was now...

"The eldest was a razor-sharp novelist of upper-class manners; the second was loved by John Betjeman; the third was a fascist who married Oswald Mosley; the fourth idolized Hitler and shot herself in the head when Britain declared war on Germany; the fifth was a member of the American Communist Party; the sixth became Duchess of Devonshire. They were the Mitford sisters: Nancy, Pamela, Diana, Unity, Jessica, and Deborah. Born into country-house privilege...