In Taking Care of a Stranger, Sheila Garner details her personal journey of learning to live without a close relationship with her mother. As a child, she longed for the love and affection of her mother but never felt truly loved by her. In yearning for her mother's attention, she struggled with trying to understand why her mother's love eluded her. While her mother did her best as a single parent raising eight children, Sheila wrestled with the pain...

Memoir opens doors we could never ordinarily walk through-into the lives of Olympians, queens, victims of war and other tragedies, teenage rock stars, former streetwalkers or geishas-along with the doors to the lives of extraordinary/ordinary people. The best memoirs are maps of the heart and mind, and Marjorie Simmins invites you to explore the map of your own life. Here are the probing questions and dynamic writing ideas, coupled with inspirational...

"A moving novel" of a family's struggle with trauma written in "clear prose" that lends "a luminous quality to [a] story of thriving against the odds"(People magazine).
Sarah Laden, a young widow and mother of two, struggles to keep her family together. Since the death of her husband, her teenage son, Nate, has developed a rebellious streak. Her kindhearted younger son, Danny, struggles to pass his remedial classes. All the while,...

"An international bestseller and one of The Times's "Top 50 Novels Published in the 21st Century," Claire Keegan's piercing contemporary classic Foster is a heartbreaking story of childhood, loss, and love, now released as a standalone book for the first time ever in the US. It is a hot summer in rural Ireland. A child is taken by her father to live with relatives on a farm, not knowing when or if she will be brought home again. In the Kinsellas'...

"Sadie Montgomery has had good breaks and bad breaks in her life, but as a struggling artist, all she needs is one lucky break. Things seem to be going her way when she lands one of the coveted finalist spots in a portrait competition. It happens to coincide with a surgery she needs to have. Minor, they say. Less than a week in the hospital they say. Nothing about you will change, they say. Upon recovery, it begins to dawn on Sadie that she can see...

"From the #1 New York Times bestselling author, a novel about the power of family to harm--and to heal. Within the walls of a tasteful, perfectly kept house in North Carolina's Blue Ridge Mountains, young Zane Bigelow feels like a prisoner of war. Strangers--and even Zane's own aunt across the lake--see his parents as a successful surgeon and his stylish wife, making appearances at their children's ballet recitals and baseball games. Zane and his...

"Elegy plus comedy is the only way to express how we live in the world today, says a character in Sigrid Nunez's ninth novel. The Vulnerables offers a meditation on our contemporary era, as a solitary female narrator asks what it means to be alive at this complex moment in history and considers how our present reality affects the way a person looks back on her past. Humor, to be sure, is a priceless refuge. Equally vital is connection with others,...

The Book of Dragons (1899) is a collection of children's stories by English writer Edith Nesbit. Comprising eight stories originally published in 1899 in The Strand Magazine, The Book of Dragons is a work that explores the magic and wonder of mythical beasts for children and adults alike. In "The Book of Beasts," a young prince named Lionel is named the next king. After his coronation, he goes to the palace library for the first time, where he discovers...

"Be careful to whom you tell your darkest secrets Selena Murphy is commuting home from her job in the city when the train stalls out on the tracks. She strikes up a conversation with a beautiful stranger in the next seat, and their connection is fast and easy. The woman introduces herself as Martha and confesses that she's been stuck in an affair with her boss. Selena, in turn, confesses that she suspects her husband is sleeping with the nanny. When...

"From one of the most accomplished writers of our time comes another brilliant collection of short fiction. Artful, agile, and inventive; Lydia Davis' newest collection of stories delves into topics ranging from marriage to tiny insects. These stories are a celebration of language and careful observation that once again confirms Davis' sincere love and mastery of the form." --