Ruby Sisson Library

This memoir traces Maya Angelou's childhood in a small, rural community during the 1930s. Filled with images and recollections that point to the dignity and courage of black men and women, Angelou paints a sometimes disquieting, but always affecting picture of the people-and the times-that touched her life.

In this collection of essays, Patchett turns her writer's eye on her own experiences and transforms the private into the universal, providing us all a way to look at our own worlds anew.

The author explains how, as a young adult, he became a drug user and smuggler, was arrested, did time in prison, and eventually got out and went to college, all the while hoping to become a writer.

When Kendra and Seth go to stay at their grandparents' estate, they discover that it is a sanctuary for magical creatures and that a battle between good and evil is looming.

Finally, after four hit novels, Carrie Fisher comes clean with the crazy truth that is her life in her first-ever memoir. In this book, adapted from her one-woman stage show, Fisher reveals what it was really like to grow up a product of "Hollywood inbreeding," come of age on the set of a little movie called Star Wars, and become a cultural icon and bestselling action figure at the age of nineteen. The child of Hollywood royalty--Debbie Reynolds and...

In 2009, "New York Times" bestselling author Eloisa James took a leap that many people dream about: she sold her house, took a sabbatical from her job as a Shakespeare professor, and moved her family to Paris. "Paris in Love: A Memoir" chronicles her joyful year in one of the most beautiful cities in the world. With no classes to teach, no committee meetings to attend, no lawn to mow or cars to park, Eloisa revels in the ordinary pleasures of life--discovering...

The Hollywood icon best known for her role in "Star Wars" shares interconnected essays exploring her life as the child of Hollywood royalty, adventures on the sets of "Star Wars, " and struggles with biploar disorder.

After years of reckless behavior, a heroin addiction and the destruction of her marriage, Cheryl Strayed makes a rash decision. Haunted by memories of her mother Bobbi and with absolutely no experience, she sets out to hike more than a thousand miles on the Pacific Crest Trail all on her own.

Recounting the extraordinary life of author Kurt Vonnegut, and the 25-year friendship with the filmmaker who set out to document it.

In this book, Angelou details what brought her mother to send her away, and unearths the well of emotions she experienced long afterward as a result. For the first time, she reveals the triumphs and struggles of being the daughter of Vivian Baxter, an indomitable spirit whose petite size belied her larger-than-life presence, a presence absent during much of the author's early life. When her marriage began to crumble, Vivian famously sent three-year-old...