"The beloved New York Times bestselling author reflects on home, family, friendships and writing in this deeply personal collection of essays"-- ""Any story that starts will also end." As a writer, Ann Patchett knows what the outcome of her fiction will be. Life, however, often takes turns we do not see coming. Patchett ponders this truth in these wise essays that afford a fresh and intimate look into her mind and heart. At the center of These Precious...

At 22, the author thought she had lost everything: her mother had died, her family was scattered, and her marriage was over. 4 years later, she made the most impulsive decision of her life: to hike the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert to Washington State, alone. She had no experience as a long-distance hiker, but it was a promise of piecing back together a life that had come undone. [From publisher's description]

In her celebrated fiction, Shirley Jackson explored the darkness lurking beneath the surface of small-town America. But in Life Among the Savages, she takes on the lighter side of small-town life. In this witty and warm memoir of her family's life in rural Vermont, she delightfully exposes a domestic side in cheerful contrast to her quietly terrifying fiction. With a novelist's gift for character, an unfailing maternal instinct, and her signature...

Chronicles the year that the author and her family lived in Paris, describing her walking tours of the city, her school-age children's attempts to navigate foreign language schools, and her thoughts on the pleasures and eccentricities of French living.

Silko combines memoir with family history and observations on the creatures and desert landscapes that command her attention and inform her vision of the world. Ambitious in scope and full of wonderfully plainspoken and evocative lyricism, The Turquoise Ledge is both an exploration of Silko's experience and a moving and deeply personal contemplation of the enormous spiritual power of the natural world.

Author's memoir of growing up black in the 1930's and 1940's.

Traces the author's experiences as a young bullied Jewish-Russian immigrant in Queens, his haphazard college pursuits, and his initial forays into a literary career.

This sequel to Garland's acclaimed autobiography, A Son of the Middle Border, continues his story as he sets out for Chicago and settles into a Bohemian encampment of artists and writers. There he meets Zulime Taft, an artist who captures his heart and eventually becomes his wife. The intensity of this romance is rivaled only by Garland's struggle between America's coastal elite and his heartland roots. A Daughter of the Middle Border won the Pulitzer...

A collection of stories, profiles, history, facts, tips, and just plain interesting information, offered by more than 60 contributors, as they observe the world around them. Some come from an agricultural perspective, others from conservation, some on past Vermont history and traditions, more still on handicrafts and a rural lifestyle.