Orem Library

Contains essays in which journalist Joan Didion writes about people, places, and events of the 1960s and 70s, including the Manson family, the John Paul Getty museum, and others.

When American-born Jennifer falls in love with French-born Philippe during the first intifada in Israel, she understands their relationship isn't perfect. Both 23, both Jewish, they lead very different lives: she's a secular tourist, he's an observant immigrant. Despite their opposing outlooks on two fundamental issues - country and religion - they are determined to make it work. For the next 20 years, they root and uproot their growing family, each...

In this uproarious exploration of the joys of reading, a long-time teacher, lifelong reader and The New Yorker contributor shares surprising stories from her life and the poignant ways in which books have impacted her students and shows us how literature can transform us for the better.

In her career as a science reporter, Nell Greenfieldboyce has reported from inside a space shuttle, the bottom of a coal mine, and the control room of a particle collider; she's presented news on the color of dinosaur eggs, ice worms that live on mountaintop glaciers, and signs of life on Venus. In her debut book she delivers a wholly original collection of personal essays that probe the places where science touches our lives most intimately. Expertly...

In this exquisite anthology of letters and illustrations, Cole Brown and Natalie Johnson bring together a constellation of influential Black figures to write to the people, places, and moments that mean the most to them. With a foreword from John Legend and contributions from Brontez Purnell, Morgan Jerkins, Reverend Al Sharpton, and Dr. Imani Perry, among many others, Black Love Letters is an ode to a phenomenal community: a testament to the fact...

With accumulated wisdom and sharp-eyed clarity, Everyday Something Has Tried to Kill Me And Has Failed addresses the joys and hardships of being an older Black woman in contemporary, "periracial" America. Award-winning author Kim McLarin utilizes deeply personal experiences to illuminate the pain and power of aging, Blackness and feminism, in the process capturing the endless cycle of progress and backlash that has long shaped race and gender.

Joan Acocella was "one of our finest cultural critics" (Edward Hirsch), and she had the rare ability to examine literature and unearth the lives contained within it-its authors, its subjects, and the communities from which it springs. In her hands, arts criticism was a celebration and an investigation, and her essays pulse with unadulterated enthusiasm. The Bloodied Nightgown and Other Essays gathers twenty-four essays from the final decade and a...

One of the most influential works of this century, The Myth of Sisyphus--featured here in a stand-alone edition--is a crucial exposition of existentialist thought. Influenced by works such as Don Juan and the novels of Kafka, these essays begin with a meditation on suicide--the question of living or not living in a universe devoid of order or meaning. With lyric eloquence, Albert Camus brilliantly posits a way out of despair, reaffirming the value...

Few contemporary writers ask the questions about faith, morality, and God that Christian Wiman does, and even fewer--perhaps none--do so with his urgency and eloquence. Wiman, an award-winning poet and the author of My Bright Abyss, lays the motion of his mind on the page in this genre-defying work, an indivisible blend of poetry, criticism, theology, and searing memoir.

A meditation on literary craft that muses on how and why novels communicate with readers. Shows how fiction operates, exploring the conventions of form, the novel as a house that one must build brick by brick, and the objects and characters that build out the world of the novel. The author uses his own line drawings to portray the ebb and flow of novels. He considers how writers invent or discover their characters, the importance or unimportance...