A play by nineteenth-century Russian playwright Anton Chekhov in which the weaknesses and despair in the lives of a retired professor and his family are revealed.

A novel set against the three decades of Afghanistan's history shaped by Soviet occupation, civil war, and the Taliban, which tells the stories of two women, Mariam and Laila, who grow close despite their nineteen-year age difference and initial rivalry as they suffer at the hand of a common enemy: their abusive husband.

The Rainbow is about three generations of the Brangwen family of Nottinghamshire from the 1840s to the early years of the twentieth century. Within this framework Lawrence s essential concern is with the passionate lives of his characters as he explores the pressures that determine their lives, using a religious symbolism in which the rainbow of the title is his unifying motif. His primary focus is on the individual's struggle to growth and fulfillment...

A man bears witness to his grandfather's deathbed confessions, which reveal his family's long-buried history and his involvement in a mail-order novelty company, World War II, and the space program.

The Railway Children is a children's book by Edith Nesbit, originally serialised in The London Magazine during 1905 and first published in book form in 1906. It has been adapted for the screen several times, of which the 1970 film version is the best known. The story concerns a family who move to "Three Chimneys", a house near the railway, after the father, who works at the Foreign office, is imprisoned after being falsely accused of spying. The children...

From Mark Haddon, the bestselling author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, comes a dazzlingly inventive novel about modern family life.
Richard, a wealthy doctor, invites his estranged sister and her family to join his family for a week at a vacation home in the English countryside. Against the backdrop of a strange family gathering, Haddon skillfully weaves together the stories of eight very different people

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Mr. Dombey is a man obsessed with his firm. His son is groomed from birth to take his place within it, despite his visionary eccentricity and declining health. But Dombey also has a daughter, whose unfailing love for her father goes unreturned. "Girls," said Mr. Dombey, "have nothing to do with Dombey and Son." When Walter Gay, a young clerk in her father's office, rescues her from a bewildering experience in the streets of London, his unforgettable...

The author recounts his mother's life, recalling how they discussed books during the final stages of her last illness and describing how this activity furthered their appreciation for literature, and strengthened their bond.

Ramona's job is to be nice to fussy Mrs. Kemp, who watches her while her mother works

When Angel's self-absorbed mother leaves her and her younger brother with their poor great-grandmother, the eleven-year-old girl worries not only about her mother and brother, her imprisoned father, the frail old woman, but also about a mysterious man who begins sharing with her the wonder of the stars.