Washoe County Library System

A collection of transcendent, lyrical essays on life in the American West, the classic companion to Gretel Ehrlich’s new book, Unsolaced
“Wyoming has found its Whitman.” —Annie Dillard
Poet and filmmaker Gretel Ehrlich went to Wyoming in 1975 to make the first in a series of documentaries when her partner died. Ehrlich stayed on and found she couldn’t leave. The Solace of Open Spaces is...

"A transfixing novel about two unforgettable characters seeking to free themselves-one from the expectations of women in early 20th century Punjab, and the other from the weight of life in the contemporary Indian diaspora Mehar, a young bride in rural 1929 Punjab, is trying to discover the identity of her new husband. Married to three brothers in a single ceremony, she and her now-sisters spend their days hard at work in the family's "china room,"...

Three very close-knit upper middle-class couples periodically take vacations together. These gatherings turn into a bittersweet exploration of not only their friendship, but divorce and its consequences, after one of the men leaves his wife for a much younger woman.

Key West, 1936. Headstrong, accomplished journalist Martha Gellhorn is confident with words but less so with men when she meets disheveled literary titan Ernest Hemingway in a dive bar. Their friendshipforged over writing, talk, and family dinnersflourishes into something undeniable in Madrid while theyre covering the Spanish Civil War. Martha reveres him. The very married Hemingway is taken with Marthaher beauty, her ambition, and her fearless spirit....

"Born into a posh family, ten-year old Lizzie Vogel has lived a charmed life thus far, with a big sister who knows everything, a cute baby brother, and a full-time housekeeper who bakes jam tarts. But when, in 1970, Lizzie's father abandons her mother and packs his ex-family off to the tiny village of Flatstone, life for the Vogels veers catastrophically off-course. The new neighbors disapprove of divorcees and fatherless children, and Lizzie's theatrical...

The life story of an aristocratic Scottish trans man—whose secret 1968 legal case had a profound impact on trans rights for decades. Ewan Forbes was born to a wealthy, landowning family, holders of a baronetcy, in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, in 1912. Assigned female at birth, his true identity was nevertheless clear even in childhood'and so, with the support of his mother, he was taken to European specialists and eventually treated with early...

Trapped in an unhappy marriage, a small-town waitress finds her life forever changed by an unplanned pregnancy. Transforming her misery into delicious desserts, she sets out to win a pie contest and free herself from her abusive husband.

Professor Peter Saccio of Dartmouth College presents lectures on the major works of William Shakespeare.

The Connie Francis Story is an American story. Born into a blue-collar Italian family at the end of the Great Depression, she went on to unimaginable heights of success. Along this extraordinary journey of her life she experienced the highest of peaks and the deepest of valleysthe stuff of both dreams and nightmares. Through her eyes, readers have a front row seat to many of the greatest public and private moments in American history and popular culture....