National Network for Equitable Library Service

A hilarious, candid account of what life in France is actually like, from a writer for Vanity Fair and GQ Americans love to love Paris. We buy books about how the French parent, why French women don't get fat, and how to be Parisian wherever you are. While our work hours increase every year, we think longingly of the six weeks of vacation the French enjoy, imagining them at the seaside in stripes with plates of fruits de mer. John von Sothen fell in love with Paris through the stories his mother told of her year spent there as a student.

Emmy-Award winning writer and comedian Josh Gondelman's collection of personal stories of best intentions and mixed results. Josh Gondelman knows a thing or two about trying-and failing. The Emmy Award-winning stand-up comic-dubbed a "pathological sweetheart" by the New York Observer-is known throughout the industry as one of comedy's true "nice guys." Not surprisingly, he's endured his share of last-place finishes. But he keeps on bouncing back.

A Publishers Weekly Spring Preview Selection. A deeply personal collection of essays exploring Nigerian-American author Bassey Ikpi's experiences navigating Bipolar II and anxiety throughout the course of her life. Bassey Ikpi was born in Nigeria in 1976. Four years later, she and her mother joined her father in Stillwater, Oklahoma -a move that would be anxiety ridden for any child, but especially for Bassey. Her early years in America would come to be defined by tension: an assimilation further complicated by bipolar II and anxiety that would go undiagnosed for decades.

To understand why prisons are frequently overcrowded and expanding, we need to recognize the processes that populate them. How do societies decide whom to criminalize? What does it mean to accuse someone of being an offender? Entryways to Criminal Justice analyzes the thresholds that distinguish law-abiding from criminalizable individuals. Contributors to the volume adopt social, historical, cultural, and political perspectives to explore the accusatory process that place persons in contact with the law.

In an age defined by hyperconnectivity and constant stimulation, Francine Prose makes a compelling case for the solitary act of reading and the great enjoyment it brings. This book includes selections culled from Prose's previous essays, reviews, and introductions, combined with new, never-before-published pieces that focus on her favorite works of fiction and nonfiction.

Lindy West is a catalyst for a national conversation in a world where not all stories are created equal and not every body is treated with equal respect. Shrill is comprised of a series of essays that bravely shares her life, including her transition from quiet to feminist-out-loud.

Consisting of over twenty years of letters, essays, reflections, and interviews, this collection provides unique depiction of an author who embodies a consummate passion for writing.

Covering a large number of subjects, this classic collection features thirty-one of White's most memorable essays.

Based on the Windham-Campbell Lectures, delivered annually to commemorate the awarding of the Donald Windham-Sandy M. Campbell Literature Prizes at Yale University, artist and author Patti Smith explores the nature of creative invention.

In these funny and insightful essays, Roxane Gay takes us through the journey of her evolution as a woman of color while also taking listeners on a ride through culture of the last few years.