Family Life Classics

It starts with a simple wish, and Emma Davies hardly notices when it comes true. She’s too preoccupied with a life she isn’t happy in - the spark in her marriage has fizzled, her career is headed nowhere and her boss is a misogynist. Her teenage daughter has grown distant, and her heart breaks daily for her teenage son with cerebral palsy. But soon Emma discovers her wishes are coming true, and she realizes that she has been given the power to change her life. Either that, or she’s going insane.

Virginia Woolf's 1925 novel takes place over the course of a single June day in the lives of some very different Londoners: wealthy society hostess Clarissa Dalloway, who is preparing for a party; her old friend Peter Walsh, recently returned from India, whose proposal of marriage Clarissa rejected years ago; Septimus Warren Smith, a WWI veteran suffering from shell shock; and his Italian-born wife, Rezia, who is trying to care for him as best she can. Woolf's beautiful prose captures the minds and souls of these vivid characters.

Lida Fisher knows that her beloved husband, Quincy, will die soon as the result of a rare and terrible brain rejection syndrome. But there is one hope. If Quincy consents to switch brains with one of the alien beings that have arrived from the other side of the galaxy, he will live on - albeit in the body of a starfish. And that means Lida must agree to let a new man into her life and her bed, one with the face and body of her adored husband but with the mind of an alien stranger.

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.

One of the great novels of 19th-century France, Flaubert draws a deeply-felt but sympathetic portrait of a woman who, having warned a country doctor and found herself unhappy with a rural, genteel existence, longs for love and excitement. Her aspirations and her desires lead her into a tragic spiral downwards.

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.

Il più importante romanzo verista della letteratura italiana, un capolavoro senza pari che racconta la storia di una famiglia di pescatori di Aci Trezza, paesino nei pressi di Catania, all'indomani dell'Unità d'Italia.

Vor dem Hintergrund des aufkommenden Faschismus in Italien entfaltet Franz Werfel die Familiengeschichte eines Witwers mit 6 Kindern. Die Diktatur des "pater familias" altrömischer Schule lässt den Kindern kaum die Luft zum Atmen. Doch das Schicksal erbarmt sich. Die dramatischen Ereignisse überschlagen sich und bringen den Patriarchen durch schwere Schicksalsschläge zu später Einsicht. Neapolitanisches Lokalkolorit und liebevoll gezeichnete Charaktere machen diesen Roman, bei dem auch eine Prise Humor nicht fehlt, zu einem ungetrübten Hörvergnügen.

When Jada Jinks finds a box of magic tricks in her granny’s flat, she uncovers her granny’s secret dream of becoming a magician. Jada soon decides that she’s going to help Granny Jinks fulfil her dreams, but one thing stands in her way - her dad, Jonny Jinks, who hates magic! Will Jada be able to help Granny Jinks pass the auditions for Dalton Green Magic Society, and will she learn some tricks of her own along the way?

The story of a man who does not want to leave his old study for a new house.

Uno dei grandi romanzi di Dickens, scritto tra il 1855 e il 1857, pubblicato in fascicoli mensili Esso è diviso in due libri: Povertà, in cui si parla delle misere condizioni della famiglia Dorrit, la cui madre è morta e il padre è in carcere per debiti, e della bontà della piccola Amy; compare inoltre tutta una folla di piccoli personaggi, seconda la tradizione di Dickens, che si ritroveranno poi nel corso di tutto il libro.

Martine prend ses premières leçons de natation : la planche, la brasse, le plongeon... Un vrai petit poisson dans l’eau ! La pétillante Mélodie Le Blay s’empare avec bonheur des histoires de Martine, pour le plus grand plaisir des petits curieux !

When Cyril, Anthea, Robert, Jane and their baby brother go digging in the gravel pit, the last thing they expect to find is a Psammead - an ancient Sand-fairy! Having a Sand-fairy for a pet means having one wish granted each day. But the children don't realize all the trouble wishes can cause... The five children find a cantankerous sand fairy, a psammead, in a gravel pit. Every day 'It' will grant each of them a wish that lasts until sunset, often with disastrous consequences.

It is wartime and Carrie and her little brother Nick have been evacuated from their London home to the Welsh hills. In an unfamiliar place, among strangers, the children feel alone and find little comfort with the family they are billeted with: Mr Evans, a bullying shopkeeper and Auntie Lou, his kind but timid sister. When Carrie and Nick visit Albert, another evacuee, they are welcomed into Hepzibah Green's warm kitchen. Hepzibah is rumoured to be a witch, but her cooking is delicious, her stories are enthralling and the children cannot keep away.

Set at the outbreak of World War II, Lady Sophia Garfield dreams of becoming a beautiful spy but manages not to notice a nest of German agents right under her nose. Until the murder of her maid and the kidnapping of her beloved bulldog force them on her attention, with heroic and absurd results. One of Mitford's earliest novels and written before Christmas 1939, Pigeon Pie is delivered with a touch lighter than that of her later masterpieces but no less entertaining. This comedy combines glamour, wit and a fiendishly absurd plot into an irresistible literary confection.

"Alle glücklichen Familien ähneln einander, jede unglückliche Familie ist auf ihre Weise unglücklich." Dieser Anfangssatz aus "Anna Karenina" ist eines der bekanntesten Zitate von Tolstoi und lässt schon erahnen, dass die Ehe zwischen Mann und Frau eines seiner Lebensthemen war. In "Familienglück", gelesen von Gustl Halenke, heiratet ein Gutsbesitzer die weitaus jüngere Mascha. Eine leidenschaftliche Liebe entwickelt sich. Doch als das Landleben Mascha zu langweilen beginnt, stürzt sie sich in die dekadente Welt des russischen Adels.

The novel provides insight and a bit of satire regarding the everyday humdrum in small towns. Cranford is separated into 16 chapters, opening with a snapshot of Captain Brown and his two daughters who live in the book's namesake town: Cranford. The gossipy women of the town are slow to accept Brown socially, but they eventually welcome him into their circles. Captain Brown is later injured, and the responsibility of the house falls on his younger daughter.

Heidi, a five-year-old orphan girl, is sent to live with her grandfather up in the mountains of Dorfli after her Aunt Dete receives a job offer in the city. Enchanted by the old man and his jaded attitude towards the villagers and God, Heidi wins him over with her enthusiasm and love. When her aunt returns, she insists Heidi go to live with a wealthy family in Frankfurt. Disappointed to leave her grandfather and her friend, Peter, Heidi reluctantly agrees.

Paul Morel, caught between the suffocating love of his mother and the tumultuous relationships with the women in his life, struggles to define himself. As he grows, he is torn between devotion to his mother and his own desire for independence and passion. A raw, emotional exploration of human desires, repression, and the painful journey of becoming one's own person, Sons and Lovers reveals the complexities of the ties that bind us—and the cost of breaking free.

Pubblicato a Zurigo nel 1880, Heidi è un tipico romanzo di formazione la cui protagonista, rimasta orfana in tenera età, viene affidata da una zia alle cure del nonno paterno, il burbero e misantropo Zio dell'Alpe che si è ritirato a vivere in una baita alpina. Tra le alpi svizzere la bambina cresce libera e spensierata fino al giorno in cui la zia viene a riprenderla per affidarla ad una ricca famiglia di Francoforte la cui figlia, Clara, è immobilizzata su di una sedia a rotelle. Le bambine diventano subito molto amiche.