Akron Public Library

From his decision to leave school at fifteen to roam the world, to his recollections of life as a hobo on the Southern Pacific Railroad, as a cattle skinner in Texas, as a merchant seaman in Singapore and the West Indies, and as an itinerant bare-knuckled prizefighter across small-town America, here is Louis L'Amour's memoir of his lifelong love affair with learning--from books, from yondering, and from some remarkable men and women--that shaped him...

Dan Sheridan, Vietnam veteran and writer of Westerns and history, had come to Arizona to research the Toomey brothers, who had vanished there 90 years earlier with 4,000 head of cattle and 27 hands. He was about to give up and go home when someone was killed. Then someone tried to kill him, which, naturally, got his attention and riled his curiosity. Now he wouldn't go until he found the truth... Ninety years ago the Toomey brothers, along with...

From the Publisher: Kurt Vonnegut's absurdist classic Slaughterhouse-Five introduces us to Billy Pilgrim, a man who becomes 'unstuck in time' after he is abducted by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore. In a plot-scrambling display of virtuosity, we follow Pilgrim simultaneously through all phases of his life, concentrating on his (and Vonnegut's) shattering experience as an American prisoner of war who witnesses the firebombing of Dresden. Slaughterhouse-Five...

Shares the author's frank observations about her daughter as well as her own thoughts and fears about having children and growing old, in a personal account that discusses her daughter's wedding and her feelings of failure as a parent.

In the spring of 2011, Jon Katz received a life-changing phone call. An animal control officer had found a neglected donkey on a farm in upstate New York, and she hoped that Jon and his wife, Maria, would be willing to adopt him. Jon wasn't planning to add another animal to his home on Bedlam Farm, but the moment he saw Simon, Jon decided to take him in. Simon needed near constant care, but Jon was determined to help him heal. As Simon's health improved,...

An autobiographical portrait of marriage and motherhood by the acclaimed author details the critical illness of her daughter, Quintana Roo, followed by the fatal coronary of her husband, John Gregory Dunne, her daughter's second bout with a life-threatening ailment, and her struggle to come to terms with life and death, illness, sanity, personal upheaval, and grief.

"Novelist Aaron Holland Broussard is shattered when his daughter Fannie Mae dies suddenly. As he tries to honor her memory by saving two young men from a life of crime amid their opioid-ravaged community, he is drawn into a network of villainy that includes a violent former Klansman, a far-from-holy minister, a biker club posing as evangelicals, and a murderer who has been hiding in plain sight. Aaron's only ally is state police officer Ruby Spotted...

In January 2003, Nicholas Sparks and his brother Micah set off on a three-week-trip around the world. It was to mark a milestone in their lives, for at 37 and 38 respectively, they were now the only surviving members of their family. As they travel the globe, the intimate story of their family unfolds in the details of the untimely deaths of their parents and only sister. Against the backdrop of the wonders of the world, the Sparks brothers band together...

The author recounts his paternal relationships, as well as his own experiences of parenthood, in a memoir that describes his father's abandonment, the abuse of his stepfather, and his fostering of a troubled Native American boy.

"A biography of one of America's most popular and misunderstood authors, John Steinbeck. This first full-length biography of the Nobel Laureate to appear in a quarter century explores John Steinbeck's long apprenticeship as a writer struggling through the depths of the Great Depression, and his rise to greatness with masterpieces such as The Red Pony, Of Mice and Men, and The Grapes of Wrath. His most poignant and evocative writing emerged in his...