Family Life 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.

After receiving a rose covered sweater from Grandma, Harry is determined to lose it. He tries leaving it all over town, but it is always returned - until a bird catches sight of a loose thread and Harry's luck finally changes.

H.G. Wells is best known for his science fiction, but some of his greatest works were in other genres. "The Passionate Friends" is a love story. It also is a story about dreams, despair, jealousy, sex, the struggle against social convention, the future of civilization, and much much more. It is written by a father to his son, "not indeed to the child you are now, but to the man you are going to be." He writes it so that one day, perhaps when he is dead, his grown son can read it and rediscover him as a friend and equal.

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.

Her perfect date? Veronica Grant needs a man to take to her cousin’s wedding in order to keep her matchmaking mother at bay. A man like Fergus Kavanagh. He’s perfect—rich, charming and sexy. If he accompanies Veronica, her mother won’t mention marriage for weeks! Luckily, Fergus has matchmaking relatives of his own he wants to avoid, so he proposes a pact: he will be Veronica’s pretend lover if she becomes his! Now he just needs to remember it’s all an act…even though their sizzling chemistry feels oh-so-real!

Fanny is married to absent-minded Oxford don Alfred and content with her role as a plain, tweedy housewife. But overnight her life changes when Alfred is appointed English ambassador to Paris. In the blink of an eye, Fanny's mixing with royalty, Rothschilds and Dior-clad wives, throwing cocktail parties and having every indiscreet remark printed in tomorrow's papers.

When a teenager discovers a way he believes will summon the dead, driven by insanity or genius, he forces his friends down a path, he should have never chosen.

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.

A fresh, funny and accessible retelling of Jane Austen's classic story. When she was just 19, Anne Elliot followed the wishes of her father and turned down the proposal of the man she loved - a naval officer called Frederick Wentworth. Years later, Captain Wentworth returns from his time at sea, and Anne dares to hope that their paths might cross once more. But the course of true love is bumpy at best - will Anne and Frederick ever be reunited?

A Nebraska native, Claude Wheeler wants to attend the State University but instead lives a typical college life as a Temple College student. However, when his successful father decides to expand the family farm, Claude's reality is changed forever as he's forced to drop out to help realize his father's dream. Later, as war wages on in Europe, he enlists, hoping to escape his dreary fate and find purpose.

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.

O Pioneers! is one of Willa Cather's greatest novels. It is the story of a family of Swedish immigrants who take up farming in Nebraska. Young Alexandra Bergson becomes a heroine in the story when her father dies and she must take up the challenge of running the farm and taking care of her family. The portrait of Alexandra that Cather creates makes her one of the most-strong willed, intelligent and memorable characters in American literature.

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.

An older New York City couple, Mr. and Mrs. Seth Appleby, decides to leave the city for Cape Cod where they open a tea room. The tea room fails but that's just the beginning of their adventures. With no money and no prospects, they set out as hobos and roam the countryside meeting people and gaining new experiences for the first time in their lives.

When Father is taken away unexpectedly, Roberta, Peter, Phyllis and their mother have to leave their comfortable life in London to go and live in a small cottage in the country. The children seek solace in the nearby railway station and make friends with Perks the Porter and the Station Master himself. Each day, Roberta, Peter and Phyllis run down the field to the railway track and wave at the passing London train, sending their love to Father.

In book two, the intergalactic war between the Feline Empire and Robot Federation has escalated to the brink of war. Cats and robots are preparing to converge on Earth and battle it out for the Infinity Engine. And the inventors and safekeepers of that powerful weapon? The Wengrod family. Max, Min, their parents, and cousin Javi all know the stakes are higher than ever as the fate of their planet rests on their shoulders. The family creates an elite swarm of robotic fleas to attempt infiltrating both sides and halt attacks, but will peaceful persistence be enough?

Heidi es una niña que, huérfana desde muy pequeña y queda al cuidado de su joven tía Dete. Apenas la mujer encuentra una buena oportunidad de trabajo, lleva a la niña a vivir a la aldea de Dörffi en la comuna suiza de Maienfeld con su abuelo, a quien no conocía, y a quien los habitantes llamaban "El Viejo de los Alpes", por ser casi un ermitaño. Heidi es cautivada por la vida en los Alpes, donde lleva un contacto directo con la naturaleza. La niña vive feliz, pero alejada de la sociedad, por lo que su tía decide llevarla a la ciudad para una mejor educación.

Sicilia, prima metà del Settecento. Marianna Ucrìa, una bambina che appartiene a una nobile famiglia...

Lady Charlotte French-McGrath has successfully ruled over her family with a rod of iron until the arrival of Cynthia: beautiful, young, talented, selfish - and engaged to her son, Desmond. When Cynthia enters the Jazz Age, on the surface her life passes in a whirl of hunting, drinking and romance. But the ghosts of Garonlea are only biding their time: they know the source of their power, a secret handed on from one generation to the next.

First published in three volumes in 1860 it tells the story of Tom and Maggie Tulliver, a brother and sister growing up on the river Floss. Maggie is deeply attached to her brother but their conflicting temperaments and outlook produce only stress and misunderstanding until they are finally reconciled in a moment of revelation before tragedy overtakes them.