Central Kansas Library System

"Fifty years ago, Norman Mailer asserted, "William Burroughs is the only American novelist living today who may conceivably be possessed by genius." Few since have taken such literary risks, developed such individual political or spiritual ideas, or spanned such a wide range of media. Burroughs wrote novels, memoirs, technical manuals, and poetry. He painted, made collages, took thousands of photographs, produced hundreds of hours of experimental...

In January 2003, Nick Sparks and his brother Micah set off on a three-week trip around the world. It was to mark a milestone in their lives, for at 35 and 36, respectively, they were now the only surviving members of their family. As Nick and Micah travel the globe, the intimate story of their tragic family legacy unfolds in the details of the untimely deaths of their parents and only sister. Against the backdrop of the wonders of the world the Sparks...

Brown shares the lessons she's learned from a parrot, a courageous Doberman, a horse, a tough tiger cat, and other marvelous creatures-- as well as her deep appreciation for them.

""Love is our only hope," Anne Lamott writes in this perceptive new book. "It is not always the easiest choice, but it is always the right one, the noble path, the way home to safety, no matter how bleak the future looks." In Somehow: Thoughts on Love, Lamott explores the transformative power that love has in our lives: how it surprises us, forces us to confront uncomfortable truths, reminds us of our humanity, and guides us forward. "Love just won't...

In a memoir of growing up in the Bronx during the Depression, the author recalls her father's death in 1939, her family's financial woes, and her mother's creation of a rooming house, bringing in tenants who would change their lives.

This is the true story of a boy whose mother (a poet with delusions of Anne Sexton) gave him away to be raised by her psychiatrist, a dead-ringer for Santa and a lunatic in the bargain. Suddenly, at age twelve, the author found himself living in a dilapidated Victorian in perfect squalor. The doctor's bizarre family, a few patients, and a pedophile living in the backyard shed completed the tableau. Here, there were no rules, there was no school. The...

Deceptively simple in style, stunning in its implication, this gem of an autobiography, Again Calls the Owl, carries readers back to the beginning of the century when Margaret Craven - one of a handful of women at Stanford and a groundbreaking woman journalist - made the audacious decision not only to work for a living, but to work as a writer.