Adult

When a tragic car accident ends the life of Richard Glass, it also upends the lives of Evie and Nicole, and their children. There’s no love lost between the widow and the ex. But Nicole is desperate to hang on to the threads of family, no matter how frayed. Strapped for cash, Evie cautiously agrees to share living expenses --- and her home --- with Nicole and the baby. But when Evie suspects that Nicole is determined to rearrange more than her kitchen, Evie must decide who she can trust.

When is it wise to be a fool for something? What makes people want to be better than they are? The characters in Joan Silber’s new story collection tackle this question head-on. Vera, the shy, anarchist daughter of missionary parents, leaves her family for love and activism in New York. A generation later, her own doubting daughter insists on the truth of being of two minds, even in marriage. The adulterous son of a Florida hotel owner steals money from his family and departs for Paris, where he takes up with a young woman and finds himself outsmarted in turn.

Ten-year-old Helen and her summer guardian, Flora, are isolated together in Helen's decaying family house while her father is doing secret war work in Oak Ridge during the final months of World War II. Helen is desperate to keep her house intact with all its ghosts and stories. Flora, her late mother's 22-year old first cousin, is ardently determined to do her best for Helen. Their relationship and its fallout will haunt Helen for the rest of her life.

THE FAMILY MANSION tells the story of Hartley Fudges, whose personal destiny unfolds against the backdrop of 19th-century British culture, a time when English society was based upon the strictest subordination and stratification of the classes. Hartley's decision to migrate to Jamaica at the age of 23 seems sensible at first, but for all of its fabulous wealth, Jamaica was a difficult and inhospitable place for an immigrant.

Magdalena does not panic when she learns that her younger sister has disappeared. A free-spirit, Jadranka has always been prone to mysterious absences. But when weeks pass with no word, Magdalena leaves the isolated Croatian island where their family has always lived and sets off to New York to find her sister. Her search begins to unspool the dark history of their family, reaching back three generations to a country torn by war.

For more than a century, the enduring feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys has been American shorthand for passionate, unyielding, and even violent confrontation. Yet nobody has ever told the in-depth true story of this legendarily fierce and far-reaching clash in the heart of Appalachia. Drawing upon years of original research, Dean King finally gives us the complete tale, one vastly more enthralling than the myth.

Ryder White is Canadian by birth but African by choice. He is more at home in the wilds of the savannah, shooting and sleeping his way across the continent, than amongst the hedonistic colonists of Kenyan society. When a European prince hires Ryder to help him hunt an elusive leopard Ryder thinks it's just another well-paying job with yet another spoiled voyeur. But this perilous journey is full of dangers that may change Ryder forever.

THE FALL OF ARTHUR, the only venture by J.R.R. Tolkien into the legends of Arthur King of Britain, may well be regarded as his finest and most skillful achievement in the use of the Old English alliterative metre. Unhappily, it was one of several long narrative poems that he abandoned. Associated with the text of the poem, however, are many manuscript pages in which the strange evolution of the poem’s structure is revealed, together with narrative synopses and very significant notes.

While Dustin, a Navy pilot, is overseas in Africa on a year-long deployment, his wife and three young sons invite strangers into their home to fill his empty chair at Sunday dinner. Each week brings new experiences for the Smiley family. Sarah introduces her boys to role models while counting down the months and weeks until her husband returns. It is an ambitious and challenging family project filled with discoveries and surprises for both the host family and their special guests.

Acclaimed sportswriter Tom Clavin reveals the untold Great American Story of three brothers, Joltin’ Joe, Dom and Vince DiMaggio, and the Great American Game --- baseball --- that would consume their lives. A vivid portrait of a family and the ways in which their shifting fortunes and status shaped their relationships, THE DIMAGGIOS is an exploration of an era and a culture.