Forest Lakes Community Library

"For more than twenty-five years, David Sedaris has been carving out a unique literary space, virtually creating his own genre. A Sedaris story may seem confessional, but is also highly attuned to the world outside. It opens our eyes to what is at absurd and moving about our daily existence. And it is almost impossible to read without laughing. Now, for the first time collected in one volume, the author brings us his funniest and most memorable work....

A mischievous youth encounters a runaway slave and together they travel down the Mississippi in search of adventure, in the classic novel accompanied by essays by Van Wyck Brooks and Carl Van Doren.

A collection of essays that focus on family, community, the natural world, and travel.

Ecologist, feminist, and mystic before these terms became popular, Mary Austin knew the desert as few human beings have known it. The Land of Little Rain, her first book, is an acknowledged classic of Southwestern literature. It describes the plant, animal, and human life of the border region of Southern California and Arizona, land of the yucca, the coyote, and the buzzard, inhabited by miners, vaqueros, and Shoshone and Paiute Indians.--From publisher...

Written by one of the founders of modern political philosophy, Thomas Hobbes, during the English civil war, Leviathan is an influential work of nonfiction. Regarded as one of the earliest examples of the social contract theory, Leviathan has both historical and philosophical importance. Social contract theory prioritizes the state over the individual, claiming that individuals have consented to the surrender of some of their freedoms by participating...

The author traces the Big Bang through the rise of civilization, documenting his work with a host of the world's most advanced scientists and mathematicians to explain why things are the way they are.

"The Prophet contains powerful words of wisdom on such essential subjects as marriage, children, friendship, work, and pleasure-words that readers from around the world have found inspirational and life-changing. A poet, artist, and mystic, Gibran was born to a poor Christian family in Lebanon and emigrated to the United States as an adolescent, where he began studying art. The twenty-eight poetic essays collected inThe Prophet are illustrated with...

"In her hit Netflix comedy special Baby Cobra, an eight-month pregnant Ali Wong resonated so heavily that she became a popular Halloween costume. Wong told the world her remarkably unfiltered thoughts on marriage, sex, Asian culture, working women, and why you never see new mom comics on stage but you sure see plenty of new dads. The sharp insights and humor are even more personal in this completely original collection. She shares the wisdom she's...

In this bestselling compilation of essays, written in the clear-eyed, uncompromising language for which he is famous, Orwell discusses with vigor such diverse subjects as his boyhood schooling, the Spanish Civil War, Henry Miller, British imperialism, and the profession of writing.

A collection of personal essays shares the writer's thoughts on such topics as Paris, Gene Kelly, and space travel, in a volume that offers insight into the events that influenced Bradbury's life and literary career.