women novelists, american

"In March 2020, Martha McPhee, her husband, and their two almost-grown children set out for her childhood home in New Jersey, where she finds herself grappling simultaneously with a mother slipping into severe dementia and a house that's been neglected of late. As Martha works to manage her mother's care and the sprawling, ramshackle property . . . she is pulled back into her childhood, almost against her will. Martha grew up at Omega Farm with her four sisters, five stepsiblings, mother, and stepfather, in a house filled with art, people, and the kind of chaos that was sometimes benevolent, sometimes more sinister. Caring for her mother and her children, struggling to mend the forest, the past relentlessly asserts itself--even as Martha's mother, the person she might share her memories with or even try to hold to account, no longer knows who Martha is"--Provided by publisher.

A family memoir in which author Mary Lee Settle reflects upon the life of her grandmother Addie, and discusses how the choices and circumstances of her ancestors affected her own life.

The author describes how she recently submitted her DNA to a genealogy website and discovered that her beloved late father was not her biological father. Details the author's investigation into her past, her search for her biological father, and the role science, ethics, memory, and history play in one's identity.

Collection of letters from 1926 to 1981 from the philosopher and author Ayn Rand to a variety of famed authors, journalists, and politicians revealing key moments in her life while offering a look into her thoughts on writing, America, the Soviet Union, politics, and most of all, objectivism, a school of thought she created out of her life's experiences.

The author describes the lifelong process through which she came to believe in God, discussing the battles she fought with alcohol, food disorders, and the loss of loved ones, and following her search for the spiritual path.

Anne Rice reflects on her life, focusing on her religious transitions which went from Catholicism to atheism and back to Catholicism, but also discussing her childhood, years in Berkeley, writing career, family, and other related topics.

A chronicle of the author's search for information about her father who died when she was seven years old, discussing how she was forced to give up the romanticized image she had held of him for so long, and in the process had to reevaluate her own life.

Traces the life of the lesbian author, recounts how she adopted a masculine identity as a child, and discusses her major works.

Chronicles the life of writer Emily Hahn from her childhood in St. Louis through her love affair in Hong Kong to her work with environmentalism.

A biography of best-selling romance novelist Danielle Steel, drawing parallels between her life and those of the characters who inhabit her fictional worlds.