Family Science

In spring 2011, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad turned to his friend and army commander, Manaf Tlass, for advice about how to respond to Arab Spring-inspired protests. Tlass pushed for conciliation but Assad decided to crush the uprising - an act which would catapult the country into an eight-year long war, killing almost half a million and fueling terrorism and a global refugee crisis. Assad or We Burn the Country examines Syria's tragedy through the generational saga of the Assad and Tlass families, once deeply intertwined and now estranged....

Just hours after finding Andromeda and crossing paths with her mother, Sienna Nealon finds herself back at the Directorate and up against a bigger threat than ever before. Omega, the organization that unleashed Wolfe and others upon her, has declared war on the Directorate and the first strikes have already landed. Facing the seemingly unstoppable forces of Omega and Sienna's own mother, the Directorate seems poised for defeat when a new threat rears its ugly head.

Peter Schweizer explains how a new corruption has taken hold, involving larger sums of money than ever before. Stuffing tens of thousands of dollars into a freezer has morphed into multibillion-dollar equity deals done in the dark corners of the world. President Donald Trump’s children have made front pages for their dicey transactions. However, the media has barely looked into questionable deals made by those close to Barack Obama, Joe Biden, John Kerry, Mitch McConnell, and lesser-known politicians who have been in the game longer.

Miranda's disbelief turns to fear in a split second when a meteor knocks the Moon closer to the Earth. How should her family prepare for the future when worldwide tsunamis wipe out the coasts, earthquakes rock the continents, and volcanic ash blocks out the sun?

Eleven-year-old Daisy Thistledown is on the run. Her mother has been keeping big, glittering secrets, and now she has vanished. Daisy knows it’s up to her to find Ma—but someone is hunting her across London. Someone determined to stop her from discovering the truth. So when Daisy flees to safety through a mysterious hidden doorway, she can barely believe her eyes—she has stepped out of the city and into another world. This is the Greenwild. Bursting with magic and full of amazing natural wonders, it seems too astonishing to be true.

In Raising Trump, Ivana Trump reflects on her extraordinary life and the raising of her three children - Donald Jr., Eric, and Ivanka - and recounts the lessons she taught her children as they were growing up. As her former husband takes his place as the 45th president of the United States, his children have also been thrust into the media spotlight - but it is Ivana who raised them and proudly instilled in them what she believes to be the most important life lessons: loyalty, honesty, integrity, and drive.

Tuesdays at Castle Glower are Princess Celie's favorite days. That's because on Tuesdays, the castle adds a new room, a turret, or sometimes even an entire wing. No one ever knows what the castle will do next, and no one - other than Celie, that is - takes the time to map out the new additions. But when King and Queen Glower are ambushed and their fate is unknown, it's up to Celie, with her secret knowledge of the castle's never-ending twists and turns, to protect their home and save their kingdom.

In a reunified Korea of the near future, the sun beats down on a junkyard filled with abandoned robots, broken down for parts. Eleven-year-old Ruijie sifts through the scraps, searching for a piece that might support her failing body. There among the piles of trash, something catches her eye: a robot boy—so lifelike and strange, unlike anything she’s ever seen before.

Lucy’s brother, Mikey, is dead. Two years ago, when he left their small Eastern Colorado town and moved west to Denver, he’d intended to bring Lucy along. But Lucy has only just arrived, and too late. She arrives in search of Helen, a woman Mikey loved. But when Lucy moves in across the hall, she finds nothing is as she expected.

Ella's one wish is to become a fairy like her mom. She dreams of the day she will have her sparkly crown and Computwand. Ella even imagines what her first spell would be: a glittery unicorn of her very own. But Ella knows that spells are often harder than they look, even with the special fairy apps available...and being a fairy in waiting is not all rainbows and butterflies. Will Ella learn more magic to help her become a fairy someday? Or will she learn she doesn't need to be a fairy yet for all her wishes to come true?

When Hisham Matar was a 19-year-old university student in England, his father was kidnapped. One of the Qaddafi regime's most prominent opponents in exile, he was held in a secret prison in Libya. Hisham would never see him again. But he never gave up hope that his father might still be alive. "Hope," as he writes, "is cunning and persistent." Twenty-two years later, after the fall of Qaddafi, the prison cells were empty, and there was no sign of Jaballa Matar. Hisham returned with his mother and wife to the homeland he never thought he'd go back to again.

The Radleys is a moving, thrilling, and radiant domestic novel that explores with daring the lengths a parent will go to protect a child, what it costs you to deny your identity, the undeniable appeal of sin, and the everlasting, iridescent bonds of family love. Read it and ask what we grow into when we grow up, and what we gain - and lose - when we deny our appetites.

What are we going to do with those 20 or 30 years we didn’t expect? Due to unfounded fears of unhappiness and regret, many intelligent, otherwise rational people, even into their 40s and 50s, are so convinced that old age is a time of misery that they simply deny any other outcome and refuse to plan their own destiny. This optimistic and highly informative guide to smart aging will detail for listeners the steps they need to take to ensure that long life becomes synonymous with good life.

Magic has been banished in the land of Syhl Shallow for as long as best friends Jax and Callyn can remember. They once loved the stories of the powerful magesmiths and mythical scravers who could conjure fire or control ice, but now they’ve learned that magic only leads to danger: magic is what killed Callyn’s parents, leaving her alone to raise her younger sister. Magic never helped Jax, whose leg was crushed in an accident that his father has been punishing him for ever since.

For Titus and his friends, it started out like any ordinary trip to the moon - a chance to party during spring break and play with some stupid low-grav at the Ricochet Lounge. But that was before the crazy hacker caused all their feeds to malfunction, sending them to the hospital to lie around with nothing inside their heads for days. And it was before Titus met Violet, a beautiful, brainy teenage girl who has decided to fight the feed and its omnipresent ability to categorize human thoughts and desires.

The five children have grown up, and World War I has begun in earnest. The sand fairy has become a creature of stories...until, for the first time in 10 years, he suddenly reappears. Before this last adventure ends, all will be changed; the two younger children will have seen the Great War from every possible viewpoint, and the war's impact will be felt right at the heart of their family.

There's trouble at the Castle, and it's all because Merrin Meredith has returned with Darke plans for Septimus. More trouble awaits Septimus and Jenna in the form of Tertius Fume, the ghost of the very first Chief Hermetic Scribe, who is determined to send Septimus on a deadly Queste. But Septimus and Jenna have other plans - they are headed for the mysterious House of Foryx.

Realistic advice from Zoë Kim, author of the popular minimalism blog The Minimalist Plate, offers guidance and support based on her continued experience of incorporating the principles of minimalism into her family life. With Minimalism for Families you’ll find everything you need to begin incorporating the principles of minimalism today.

In his final days, beloved and ailing patriarch Miguel Angel de La Cruz, affectionately called Big Angel, has summoned his entire clan for one last legendary birthday party. But as the party approaches, his mother, nearly 100, dies herself, leading to a farewell doubleheader in a single weekend. Among the guests is Big Angel's half-brother, known as Little Angel, who must reckon with the truth that although he shares a father with his siblings, he has not, as a half gringo, shared a life. Across two bittersweet days in their San Diego neighborhood, the revelers mingle.

High in the Transylvanian woods, at the castle Piscul Draculi, live five daughters and their doting father. It's an idyllic life for Jena, the second eldest, who spends her time exploring the mysterious forest with her constant companion, a most unusual frog. But best by far is the castle's hidden portal, known only to the sisters. Every Full Moon, they alone can pass through it into the enchanted world of the Other Kingdom. There they dance through the night with the fey creatures of this magical realm.