When Edna O'Brien's first novel, The Country Girls, was published in 1960, it so scandalized the O'Briens' local parish that the book was burned by its priest. O'Brien was undeterred and has since created a body of work that bears comparison with the best writing of the twentieth century. Country Girl brings us face-to-face with a life of high drama and contemplation. Starting with O'Brien's birth in a grand but deteriorating house in Ireland, her...

The award-winning cartoonist, playwright, and author delivers a witty, illustrated rendition of his life, from his childhood as a wimpy kid in the Bronx to his legendary career in the arts.
 A gifted storyteller who has delighted readers and theater audiences for decades, Jules Feiffer now turns his talents to the tale of his own life.
 Plagued by learning problems, a controlling mother, and a debilitating sense of fear, Feiffer...

Recounts the author's experiences caring for a flock of chickens on a farm north of San Francisco, documenting her personal discovery, political commitment, and the joys of relating to animals.

Winner of the Sarton Memoir Award. “[A] marvel of storytelling, layered and rich . . . an account of one family’s grief, love, and resilience” (Maine Sunday Telegram).
 
Mexico, Maine, 1963: The Wood family is much like its close, Catholic, immigrant neighbors, all dependent on the fathers’ wages from the Oxford Paper Company. But when Dad suddenly dies on his way to work, Mum and the four deeply...

Kid Presidents, Kid Artists , and Kid Athletes now chronicles the lives of Kid Authors ! Here are true tales of famous writers, from long before they were famous-or even old enough to drive. Did you know: Sam Clemens (aka Mark Twain) loved to skip school and make mischief, with his best friend Tom, of course! A young J. R. R. Tolkien was bitten by a huge tarantula-or as he called it, "a spider?as big as a dragon." Toddler Zora Neale Hurston took...

A Wildly Funny and Shockingly True Compendium of the Bad Boys (and Girls) of Western Literature Rock stars, rappers, and actors haven't always had a monopoly on misbehaving. There was a time when authors fought with both words and fists, a time when poets were the ones living fast and dying young. This witty, insightful, and wildly entertaining narrative profiles the literary greats who wrote generation-defining classics such as The Great Gatsby...

"In middle age, Ehrenreich came across the journal she had kept during her tumultuous adolescence and set out to reconstruct that quest, which had taken her to the study of science and through a cataclysmic series of uncanny-or as she later learned to call them, "mystical"-experiences. A staunch atheist and rationalist, she is profoundly shaken by the implications of her life-long search. Part memoir, part philosophical and spiritual inquiry, LIVING...

The author reflects on her life as she turns sixty-five. Told in free verse.