Family Classics

Charlie and Esther Moore have been married nearly 50 years when the contented life they've built together begins to crumble. Esther has been forgetful recently, but it's rarely a problem until the day she puts her car in drive instead of reverse, flying off the end of the carport and into the backyard. Esther's accident and declining health shatter their reverie, and the couple must come to terms with all the paths their lives have not taken if they ever hope to pull their marriage out of winter.

Calamity is confronting two big transitions: the death of her beloved father and the beginning of menopause, a physical shift that has rekindled her gift for finding lost things. Suddenly, she is getting hot flashes that seem to forge objects out of thin air, most notably a four-year old boy. As Calamity takes the child into her care, she discovers that all is not as it seems. Then, Calamity must reawaken to the mysteries surrounding her own childhood and the early disappearance of her mother.

Colm Tóibín's The Heather Blazing details the life of Eamon Redmond, a judge in Ireland's high court, a man remote from his wife, his son and daughter and, at least outwardly, his own childhood. The life he has built for himself, between his work in Dublin and his family's retreat by the sea at Cush, is distinguished by order and by achievement. When, like his beloved coastline, it begins to slip away, he is pulled sharply into the present and finds himself revisiting his past.

Accordion Crimes opens in 1890 in Sicily as an accordion maker completes his finest instrument and dreams of owning a music store in America. He and his eleven-year-old son, carrying little more than the accordion, travel to New Orleans. Within a year, the accordion maker is murdered by an anti-Italian lynching mob, but his instrument carries Proulx's story as it falls into the hands of various immigrants who carry it from Iowa to Texas, from Maine to Louisiana, looking for a decent life.

Catherine Sloper, the heroine of this tragicomic tale set in mid-19th century New York, is absolutely ordinary in every way except for her exceptional capacities in love and loyalty. These latter qualities are of no interest to her father, the successful society Doctor who is constantly disappointed by his daughter's failure to be brilliant, either physically or intellectually. For this reason, he is highly suspicious when Morris Townsend begins to woo her and is convinced the handsome young man's interest is only in the fortune Catherine will eventually inherit.

En la cautivadora Ana de las Tejas Verdes, nos sumergimos en un mundo atemporal lleno de encanto, imaginación y lecciones universales. La historia sigue a Anne Shirley, una niña huérfana con una imaginación desbordante y un espíritu inquebrantable, mientras llega por error a la idílica granja Green Gables. Ambientada en la pintoresca Isla del Príncipe Eduardo a fines del siglo XIX, Ana, con su cabello pelirrojo y su corazón vibrante, conquista no solo el corazón de Marilla y Matthew Cuthbert, sino también el de todos en la comunidad.

A former English cavalry officer and committed Jacobean Highlander, who fought on opposite sides at the Battle of Culloden, unexpectedly find themselves living as neighbours in adjacent valleys in the heart of the sparsely populated Highlands of Scotland. One breeding cattle and the other, sheep. Initially, they become close friends, giving each other assistance and support when required, until an incident occurs resulting in a disturbing conflict that divides the two families. Emotions run high and as both enterprises continue to prosper, the divide and bitterness between the neighbours ...

Eleven-year-old Sport Rocque is living a happy life, keeping his father's absentmindedness under control, and managing the family budget. When Kate, Sport's new - and nice - stepmother enters the picture, things couldn't be better. Then comes the news: Sport's wealthy grandfather has just died and Sport is a multimillionaire. But millions of dollars equals millions of problems, as Sport soon discovers when his mother returns and kidnaps him to double her share of the inheritance! Life at the Plaza Hotel is no fun when you're a prisoner. Will Sport manage to return his life to normal?

"Towers - like flame. A candle in darkness. A black wind." Roland Watson wasn't expecting to see things like that when he kicked a football into a condemned church. But once inside, he is taken from the slums of Manchester to the ruins of a magical kingdom. And only he can bring back the light to Elidor.

The story of four generations of a wealthy bourgeois family in northern Germany facing the advent of modernity; in an uncertain new world, the family’s bonds and traditions begin to disintegrate. As Mann charts the Buddenbrooks’ decline from prosperity to bankruptcy, from moral and psychic soundness to sickly piety, artistic decadence, and madness, he ushers the listener into a world of stunning vitality, pieced together from births and funerals, weddings and divorces, recipes, gossip, and earthy humor.

The Radetzky March is a meditation on the Austro-Hungarian Empire through the prism of three generations of the Trotta family. The novel opens in 1859 at the Battle of Solferino, when the young Lieutenant Trotta saves the life of the Emperor and is ennobled. He owes the Empire everything, and his son also becomes a conscientious servant of the great multinational state even as it enters into its period of chaos, with competing nationalisms and ideologies tearing it apart.

Considered by Time magazine to be one of the best fantasy books of all time, Edith Nesbit's Five Children and It follows a tribe of children on their magical adventures during a summer in the English countryside. When a strange, furry creature appears in front of the children and offers a wish a day, the children take advantage of the creature's abilities and discover that their wishes have many unforeseen - and often quite funny - consequences.

Hear Dickens' gift for social commentary in this classic story of the poor orphan, Oliver. In this time-tested classic, Dickens aimed to expose the filth of the London underworld as well as attack the inhumanity of the New Poor Law of 1834. This audiobook is a stunning performance by the award-winning Miriam Margolyes, who is considered one of the most knowledgeable and brilliant actors and interpreters of Dickens.

A novel based on the emotional conflict centered around a son’s urge to sever the psychological umbilical cord which ties him to a selfish and possessive mother. Completely unsympathetic to his young experiences and inclinations, forever critical of his interests and reactions, she nevertheless appeals to his sympathies and attempts to hold him emotionally.

This is the abridged version of the trilogy The Torrents: Family, Spring, and Autumn, masterpieces of Ba Jin, one of the greatest writers of modern Chinese literature. The trilogy recounts the decline of a large feudal family following the May Fourth Movement of 1919. The abridged version of 30,000 words for each title, approximately 1/10 of each of the original, can be listened to by elementary-level students of Chinese with a 2,000-word vocabulary or can be used as an aid to reading the original.

Howards End is the story of the liberal Schlegel sisters and their struggle to come to terms with social class and their German heritage in Edwardian England. Their lives are intertwined with those of the wealthy and pragmatic Wilcox family and their country house, Howards End, as well as the lower-middle-class Basts. When Helen Schlegel and Paul Wilcox's brief romance ends badly the Schlegels hope to never see the Wilcoxes again.

The Education of Henry Adams is among the oddest and most enlightening books in American literature. Henry Adams was the grandson of a president and the great-grandson of another one. He was also the son of the American Ambassador to England, and his secretery. As such he rubbed elbows, literally, with Presidents from Abraham Lincoln to Theodore Roosevelt and with many of the great figures of his time.

A heartwarming classic tale that has been enjoyed by generations of children and adults alike, Heidi tells the story of a young orphan whose innocent and boundless love transforms the lives of all she encounters. Having to adapt to new and uncomfortable surroundings more often than most by her age, Heidi finds joy in the mundane, beauty in the outcasts, and hope in the most dismal of situations.

Andrew has decided he never needs to go pee ever again, but his parents aren’t too sure. Only one minute into the drive to his grandparents’ house, Andrew changes his mind.

Galsworthy¿s masterly portrait of the Forsyte family continues here with the fifth novel, The Silver Spoon, coming second in the second trilogy, called A Modern Comedy.