Family Life Science

In The Reluctant Family Man, Nilima Chitgopekar uses the life and personality of Shiva - his self-awareness, his marriage, his balance, his detachment, his contentment - to derive lessons that listeners can practically apply to their own lives.

Kin Stewart is an everyday family man: working in IT, trying to keep the spark in his marriage, struggling to connect with his teenage daughter, Miranda. But his current life is a far cry from his previous career...as a time-traveling secret agent from 2142. Stranded in suburban San Francisco since the 1990s after a botched mission, Kin has kept his past hidden from everyone around him, despite the increasing blackouts and memory loss affecting his time-traveler’s brain. Until one afternoon, his “rescue” team arrives - 18 years too late.

On the morning of Gail's birthday, she watches her shadow slip under the kitchen door. She's not surprised it decided to leave. Her dad has gone for good. Her big sister, Kay, once Gail's best friend, has disappeared into sadness - and now her shadow has left, too. Determined to make things right, Gail chases after the shadows. But her adventures take her to unexpected places, and she soon discovers that where there are shadows, there's darkness, and that she's not the only one looking for something missing....

In another age, the pathways connecting Earth to the Wildworld were sealed, forever separating humans from the shimmering parallel universe where legends still live. A great sorceress, Morgana Shee, guards the solitary gate between the worlds. She alone holds the secret of Fell Andred, her mansion built directly on the Great Coastal Passage, whose mirrors are the last doorways to enchantment.

Calla knows how the lottery works. Everyone does. On the day of your first bleed, you report to the station to learn what kind of woman you will be. A white ticket grants you marriage and children. A blue ticket grants you a career and freedom. You are relieved of the terrible burden of choice. And once you've taken your ticket, there is no going back. But what if the life you're given is the wrong one? When Calla, a blue ticket woman, begins to question her fate, she must go on the run.

Henry Leach wants nothing more than for magic to be real and for his little sister, Brianna, to leave him alone. Both wishes come true, but not in the way he expects. As it turns out, Henry's family has a history with magic - a history that dates back to the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. Now his father has been caught up in an evil wizard's scheme, and the last Wandmaker, Coralis, needs Henry's help to save the world. It would be a dream come true for Henry - except that in his first act of magic, he accidentally turns his sister into a hedgehog. Oops!

Everyone in Vallen knows that ice wolves and scorch dragons are sworn enemies who live deeply separate lives. So when 12-year-old orphan Anders takes one elemental form and his twin sister, Rayna, takes another, he wonders whether they are even related. Family or not, Rayna is Anders’s only true friend. She’s nothing like the brutal, cruel dragons who claimed her as one of their own and stole her away. To rescue her, Anders must enlist at the foreboding Ulfar Academy, a school for young wolves that values loyalty to the pack above all else.

The brilliant new novel from the Orange Prize-winning author of We Need to Talk About Kevin centres on three generations of the Mandible family as a fiscal crisis hits a near-future America. It is 2029. The Mandibles have been counting on a sizable fortune filtering down when their 97-year-old patriarch dies. Yet America's soaring national debt has grown so enormous that it can never be repaid. Under siege from an upstart international currency, the dollar is in meltdown.

In the first book of the Enchanter’s Child duology, Alex discovered the truth: Not only does she possess magical powers, but her father is Hagos RavenStarr, who was once the king’s Enchanter. Alex is pursued by the fiendish Twilight Hauntings, monstrous Enchantments created because a prophecy foretold the king’s death at the hands of an Enchanter’s Child. The Twilight Hauntings are designed to rid the land of all Enchanters and their children, but Alex has other ideas. Why should she be forced to leave the place where she belongs?

After hearing scratches in the attic, Alison discovers a dinner service covered in an intriguing floral owl pattern, and a series of events are set in motion that will change her life forever. Alison, her step-brother Roger and Welsh boy Gwyn are forced into a cyclical replay of the tragic Welsh legend of Blodeuwedd, in which a woman is turned into an owl as a punishment for betraying her husband.

Are you ready for a presidential adventure? Jack and Annie are! They are whisked back to Washington, DC, in 1861. Jack can’t wait to meet Abraham Lincoln himself! But the new president is too busy to see them, as he is desperately trying to save a nation in crisis. It’s a race against time as Jack and Annie try to aid a president and a troubled nation!

Anna lives with foster parents, a misfit with no friends, always on the outside of things. Then she is sent to Norfolk to stay with old Mr. and Mrs. Pegg, where she runs wild on the sand dunes and around the water. There is a house, the Marsh House, which she feels she recognizes - and she soon meets a strange little girl called Marnie, who becomes Anna's first ever friend. Then one day, Marnie vanishes. A new family, the Lindsays, move into the Marsh House.

In this ferociously imaginative novel, abortion is once again illegal in America, in vitro fertilization is banned, and the Personhood Amendment grants rights of life, liberty, and property to every embryo. In a small Oregon fishing town, five very different women navigate these new barriers alongside age-old questions surrounding motherhood, identity, and freedom.

Ronald Blythe lives at the end of an overgrown farm track deep in the rolling countryside of the Stour Valley, on the border between Suffolk and Essex. His home is Bottengoms Farm, a sturdy yeoman's house once owned by the artist John Nash. From here, Blythe has spent almost half a century observing the slow turn of the agricultural year, the church year, and village life in a series of rich, lyrical rural diaries. Beginning with the arrival of snow on New Year's Day and ending with Christmas carols sung in church, Next to Nature invites us to witness a simple life richly lived.

Twelve-year-old Gordy Stitser is one of the few people who knows the truth about the secret society of potion masters, because not only is Gordy's mom on the Board of Ruling Elixirists Worldwide (BREW), but she has also been training Gordy in the art of potion-making. Gordy is a natural, and every day he sneaks down to the basement lab to invent new potions using exotic ingredients like fire ant eggs, porcupine quills, and Bosnian tickling juice. One afternoon, Gordy receives a mysterious package containing an extremely rare potion known as "The Eternity Elixir."

Marty's mountain means more to him than meatballs, magic, and movies. But does it matter more than Mom?

Eleven-year-old Roxie was excited to start sixth grade... until a mortifying incident at a pool party turns her into a middle school laughingstock. Roxie can't imagine enduring a full year of bullying and body shaming, so when her country music star Granny invites Roxie to join her on tour, she jumps at the chance to leave her troubles behind. But then Granny—who's been struggling with memory loss—goes missing, leaving Roxie without an escape plan... and without her best friend.

Since he was six years old, Milo has lived on board the Sesquipedalian, or “Quip”, a magical train that uses the power of imagination to travel through both stories and the real world. Aboard the Quip, Milo lives and works with his uncle Horatio, a book smuggler who trades in rare books. When Horatio takes on a dangerous new job, he needs the help of Tilly Pages, a uniquely gifted bookwanderer. But when Tilly’s grandfather and Horatio are poisoned by a mysterious copy of The Wizard of Oz and fall into a deep sleep, Milo and Tilly find themselves racing against time.

It’s the new normal at the Garber household in Connecticut: Glen, a contractor, has seen his business shaken by the housing crisis, and now his wife, Sheila, is taking a business course at night to increase her chances of landing a good-paying job. But she should have been home by now. Waiting for Sheila’s return, with their eight-year-old daughter sleeping soundly, Glen soon finds his worst fears confirmed: Sheila and two others have been killed in a car accident. Adding to the tragedy, the police claim Sheila was responsible. Glen knows it’s impossible.

In this magical companion to the National Book Award nominee A Tangle of Knots, it's summertime, and everyone is heading off to camp. For Talented kids, the place to be is Camp Atropos, where they can sing songs by the campfire, practice for the Talent show, and take some nice long dips in the lake. But what the kids don't know is that they've been gathered for a reason - one that the camp's director wants to keep hidden at all costs.