National Network for Equitable Library Service

A sensational account of the Lady Jane Douglas scandal: A penniless Frenchman claimed a title and turned eighteenth-century England upside down. In 1748, Scottish noblewoman Lady Jane Douglas gave birth to twin boys in Paris. Although she and one of the boys died in poverty five years later, her surviving son was heir to one of the greatest fortunes in England, and would become one of the most important men in the empire-if his inheritance were secure.

Edgar Award Finalist: The true story of the female Norwegian immigrant who led a secret life as a serial killer in the early twentieth-century Midwest. On the morning of April 27, 1908, the farmhand on a lonely property outside La Porte, Indiana, woke to the smell of smoke. He tried to rouse the lady of the house, the towering Belle Poulsdatter Sorenson Gunness, and he called the names of her three children'but they didn't answer, and the farmhand barely escaped alive. The house burned to the foundation, and in the rubble, firemen found the corpses of Belle, her two daughters, and her son.

The true story behind the classic TV show: A father's delightful account of raising eight free-spirited children in 1970s America. Tom Braden had a colorful career: He parachuted into Nazi-occupied France, directed the CIA's covert operations program during the early years of the Cold War, ran for public office, owned a newspaper, served as executive secretary for the Museum of Modern Art, and cohosted the CNN show Crossfire. He counted among his friends David Brinkley, Robert Frost, Kirk Douglas, and Nelson Rockefeller.

The "dazzling" and essential portrayal of 1960s America from the author of South and West and The Year of Magical Thinking (The New York Times). Capturing the tumultuous landscape of the United States, and in particular California, during a pivotal era of social change, the first work of nonfiction from one of American literature's most distinctive prose stylists is a modern classic.

In the wake of the Tour de France's fallen heroes, the story of one of history's most legendary cyclists provides a much-needed antidote. In 1907 the world's most popular athlete was not Cy Young or Ty Cobb. Rather, he was a black bicycle racer named "Major" Taylor. In his day, Taylor became a spiritual and athletic idol. He was the fastest man in America and a champion who prevailed over unspeakable cruelty. The men who aided him were among the most colorful to emerge from the era.

"Everybody has got to die, but I have always believed an exception would be made in my case." -William Saroyan, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Famous authors, like everybody else, know that one day they will die. Final Chapters tells the fascinating stories of more than one hundred writers' encounters with death-and their attitudes toward the Grim Reaper: fear, uncertainty, or acceptance. Francis Bacon wrote, "It is as natural to die as to be born," while Socrates told the judges who condemned him, "And now we go our ways, I to die and you to live.

Edgar Award Finalist: The thrilling true story of the abduction of world-class biathlete Kari Swenson and the five-month manhunt to bring her tormentors to justice. Former rodeo cowboy Johnny France had been sheriff of Madison County, Montana, for three years when Kari Swenson, a Bozeman resident training for the World Biathlon Championship, went missing near Big Sky Resort in July 1984. Her friends feared that Kari had been attacked by a grizzly bear, but the truth was far scarier: She'd been kidnapped at gunpoint by father-and-son survivalists Don and Dan Nichols.

The true story of one of Hitler's most feared and brutal killers: his life and crimes, postwar atrocities, and forty-year evasion of justice. During World War II, SS Hauptsturmfuhrer Nikolaus "Klaus" Barbie earned a reputation for sadistic cruelty unmatched by all but a handful of his contemporaries in Adolf Hitler's Gestapo. In 1942, he was dispatched to Nazi-occupied France after leaving his bloodstained mark on the Netherlands.

The inspiration for the iconic film, this memoir by the father of a prodigy reflects on chess, competition, and childhood. Fred Waitzkin fell in love with chess during the Cold War-era showdown between Russian champion Boris Spassky and young American superstar Bobby Fischer. Twelve years later, Waitzkin's own son, Joshua, discovered chess in Washington Square Park and began displaying the telltale signs of a prodigy.

The author of Searching for Bobby Fischer tackles his own childhood in this "remarkably ambitious and satisfying memoir" (The New York Times Book Review). Fred Waitzkin depicted the joys and trials of parenthood with remarkable perception in Searching for Bobby Fischer, the inspiration for the beloved major motion picture. A New York Times Notable Book, The Last Marlin is another sweeping family saga, the tale of an adolescence spent navigating between two very different parents and the discovery of a lifelong passion for deep-sea fishing.