Helen Plum Library

An intimate exploration of the life, craft, and legacy of one of the most revered and influential writers, an artist who continues to inspire fans and creatives to cultivate practices of deep attention, rigorous interrogation and beautiful style. Joan Didion was a writer's writer; not only a groundbreaking journalist, essayist, novelist and screenwriter, but a keen observer who honed her sights on life's telling details. Her insights continue to influence...

"Geek-culture expert Ryan Britt takes us behind the pages and scenes of the science-fiction phenomenon Dune, charting the series' life from cult sci-fi novels to some of the most visionary movies of all time"-- Using original, deep-access reporting, extensive research, and insightful commentary, The Spice Must Flow brings the true popularity of Dune out into the light for the very first time. With original interviews with the beloved actors and directors...

"No one expects the police to knock on the million-dollar, two-story home of the perfect cul-de-sac housewife. But soccer mom Lara Love Hardin has been hiding a shady secret: she is funding her heroin addiction by stealing her neighbors' credit cards. Lara is convicted of thirty-two felonies and becomes inmate S32179. She learns that jail is a class system with a power structure that is somewhere between an adolescent sleepover party and Lord of the...

"The first new Artist's Way tool in more than 30 years from "the Queen of Change" (New York Times) author Julia Cameron. In the thirty years following the publication of The Artist's Way, Julia Cameron relied on an essential tool to help her through every juncture in life: writing for guidance. Now, in Living the Artist's Way, Cameron finally shares this method with the world as the fourth main Artist's Way tool. Over the course of six weeks, readers...

"Readers are invited to physically interact with the pages in this picture book of humorous before-and-after scenarios."--

"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. As Kathryn Harrison wrote in The New York Times Book Review, "Hers is a vision that allows art...

"Northern Ireland is one hundred years old. Northern Ireland does not exist. Both of these statements are true. It just depends on who you ask. How do you write about a place like this? THE STRANGERS' HOUSE asks this question of the region's greatest writers, living and dead. What have they made of Northern Ireland - and what has Northern Ireland made of them? Northern Ireland is roughly the same size as the State of Connecticut, yet has produced...

"An examination of how the romantic narrative from Pride and Prejudice was born out of Gothic horror, how it influenced pop culture since its publishing, and how it has reinforced harmful cultural concepts of real-life romance"--

"Original and illuminating."-The New York Times Book Review In her most ambitious work since In the Time of Butterflies, Julia Alvarez tells the story of a woman whose poetry inspired one Caribbean revolution and of her daughter whose dedication to teaching strengthened another. Camila Henriquez Urena is about to retire from her longtime job teaching Spanish at Vassar College. Only now as she sorts through family papers does she begin to know...

John Gardner's essential collection encompassing the fundamentals of fiction writing. In this posthumously published collection of his essays and reviews, acclaimed novelist John Gardner discusses the craft of fiction writing, taking to task some of his best-known contemporaries in the process. Gardner criticizes some for writing disingenuous fiction, and commends others who produce literature that acts as a life-affirming force. He offers insights...