"The beloved New York Times bestselling author reflects on home, family, friendships and writing in this deeply personal collection of essays."-- ""Any story that starts will also end." As a writer, Ann Patchett knows what the outcome of her fiction will be. Life, however, often takes turns we do not see coming. Patchett ponders this truth in these wise essays that afford a fresh and intimate look into her mind and heart. At the center of These Precious...

Ann Patchett, author of State of Wonder, Run, and Bel Canto, examines her deepest commitments -- to writing, family, friends, dogs, books, and her husband -- creating a resonant portrait of her life.

A memoir based on the author's one-woman show describes growing up with celebrity parents, her early success in "Star Wars," battle with addiction and mental illness, turbulent romances, role as a single mother, and struggle for recovery and healing.

"The #1 New York Times bestselling author and "king of Christmas fiction" (The New York Times) delivers a charming and inspirational collection of personal essays. Before he was the #1 New York Times bestselling author of holiday classics such as The Christmas Box, Richard Paul Evans was a young boy being raised by a suicidal mother and dealing with relentless bullying. He could not fathom what the future held for him. Now, in this intimate and heartfelt...

Aging science fiction writer Kilgore Trout, finds to his horror that a Midwest car dealer is taking his fiction as truth. The result is murderously funny satire as Vonnegut looks at war, sex, racism, success, politics, and pollution in America and reminds us how to see the truth.

"The question that hovers over anyone who dares to write personal essays, especially a woman, is 'Who the hell do you think you are?' Before you can answer, you will be told who and what you are not. You are not Nora Ephron. You are not Joan Didion. You are not Susan Sontag. You aren't all that interesting. The list goes on and on; the question is always rhetorical. I will answer the question anyway. I am: a mother, wife, daughter, sister....

"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....

Inspired by the title Dorothea Benton Frank had planned for her next book - Reunion Beach - close friends and colleagues pay tribute in stories and poems that celebrate Frank, a prolific author who had a love for the Lowcountry of her native South Carolina.

A memoir by the author of The Prince of Tides about his father--the inspiration for The Great Santini--and a reaffirmation that love can conquer even the meanest of men. While the publication of The Great Santini brought Conroy much acclaim, the rift it caused with his father brought even more attention. Their long-simmering conflict burst into the open, fracturing an already battered family. But in the final days of Don Conroy's life, the Santini...

"A writer's humorous and often-heartbreaking tale of losing his sight--and how he hid it from the world. At age sixteen, James Tate Hill was diagnosed with Leber's hereditary optic neuropathy, a condition that left him legally blind. After high school friends stopped calling and a disability counselor advised him to aim for Cs in his classes, Hill used his remaining blurry peripheral vision to pretend he could still see. Feigning eye contact, memorizing...