Family Life Classics

One of Edith Wharton's most acclaimed works, The Custom of the Country is a blistering indictment of materialism, power, and misplaced values. Its heroine, Undine Spragg, is one of the most ruthless characters in all of literature, as selfishly unscrupulous as she is fiercely beautiful. As she climbs the class ladder through a series of marriages and affairs, she shows little concern for who she has to step on.

Set on the Mississippi Delta in 1923, this story captures the mind and manners of the Fairchilds, a large aristocratic family, self-contained and elusive as the wind. The vagaries of the Fairchilds are keenly observed, and sometimes harshly judged, by nine-year-old Laura McRaven, a Fairchild cousin who takes The Yellow Dog train to the Delta for Dabney Fairchild’s wedding.

Il romanzo narra la storia di una famiglia di pescatori che vive e lavora ad Aci Trezza, un piccolo paese siciliano nei pressi di Catania...

William Dorrit has been a resident of the Marshalsea debtors prison for so many years that he has gained the nickname "The Father of the Marshalsea". However, his suffering is eased by his close bond with youngest daughter Amy, or "Little Dorrit". The dashing Arthur Clennam, returning to London after many years in China, enters their lives and the Dorrits' fortunes begin to rise and fall. A biting satirical work on the shortcomings of 19th-century government and society.

It is 1919 shortly after the termination of the 1st European holocaust. Henry Earlforward, a middle aged North London Bookseller, courts and marries Violet Arb, a widow who has inherited the confectioners shop opposite his own premises in Riceyman Square. Henry and Violet engage the services of Elsie as ‘charwoman’.

Charlie and Esther Moore have been married nearly 50 years when the contented life they've built together begins to crumble. Esther has been forgetful recently, but it's rarely a problem until the day she puts her car in drive instead of reverse, flying off the end of the carport and into the backyard. Esther's accident and declining health shatter their reverie, and the couple must come to terms with all the paths their lives have not taken if they ever hope to pull their marriage out of winter.

On the far northwest coast of Tasmania at Cape Grimm lies the isolated and idiosyncratic community of Skye, which practises a religion that reveres the imagination. One clear evening in 1992 all the inhabitants enter the church hall, where they are locked in and burned alive. They have been persuaded to do this by a young man called Caleb Mean - also known as El Nino, the Christ Child.

Heidi who has been orphaned, is taken from her alpine home with her beloved grandfather by her less than loving aunt to be a companion for a crippled child of a wealthy family in Frankfurt. They become bosom friends but Heidi becomes ill and has to return home, but when her crippled friend comes to the Alps for a visit, well, we don't want to spoil the story for you.

When Simeon Simcox, a socialist clergyman, leaves his entire fortune not to his family but to the ruthless, social-climbing Tory MP Leslie Titmuss, the Rector's two sons react in very different ways. Henry, novelist and former 'angry young man' turned grumpy old reactionary, decides to fight the will and prove their father was insane. Younger brother Fred, a mild-mannered country doctor, takes a different approach, quietly digging in Simeon's past, only to uncover an entirely unexpected explanation for the legacy.

Questo romanzo, pubblicato nel 1851, viene presentato dall'autore come "romance" e non come romanzo. Così l'autore mette le mani avanti e si permette di spaziare nelle fantasie suggerite dalle novità dei suoi tempi: il mesmerismo, lo spiritismo, l'idea, insomma che potesse esistere il modo di comunicare con esseri disincarnati e che essi potessero influenzare gli eventi della nostra vita.

Primo romanzo di Lawrence, pubblicato nel 1913, in parte di ispirazione autobiografica (il personaggio di Miriam è ispirato alla migliore amica della giovinezza dello scrittore), il libro offre descrizioni dettagliate della vita dell’epoca nella zona mineraria di Nottingham. Il tema delle relazioni, sempre centrale nell’opera di Lawrence, che viene qui trattato è il rapporto madre figlio, in cui la eccessiva vicinanza emozionale voluta dalla madre rende il figlio incapace di amare.

Williston Bibb Barrett is a rather unusual and inquisitive young Southerner with a special gift for cultivating the possibilities of life. He suffers from occasional bouts of amnesia and disconcerting attacks of déjà vu. He clings to certain old-fashioned notions of behavior, and yet he finds himself constantly impelled to eavesdrop on other people’s conversations. And he lives with the secret suspicion that the great world catastrophe that everyone fears will happen has already happened.

Published in 1854, the story describes class conflict in Victorian England and serves as a powerful critique of the social injustices that plagued the Industrial Revolution. Charles Dickens (1812 - 9 June 1870) is arguably the greatest novelist England ever produced. His innate comic genius and shrewd depictions of Victorian life - along with his memorable characters - have made him beloved by readers the world over.

This audio will focus on Brad and Ashley Hanes, young newlyweds who are facing their first season of winter. Opposite work schedules, differing views on finances and when to start a family, and Brads selfish and immature habits are forcing the young couple apart, causing them to question why they ever got married in the first place. It will take a whole lot of help - mostly from their nosy but well-meaning neighbors - for Ashley and Brad to pull their marriage out of the winter blues and into a hopeful spring.

Richard Jacobi, the narrator of these reflections, invites us to revisit the crucial experiences of his youth: driving to Malibu to meet the man determined to marry his mother; on vacation in the Mohave, while his father, the famed Hollywood figure Norman Jacobi and Lotte, his mother, must deal with the terrible consequences of Norman's testimony before the House Committee on Un-American Activities; exploring how a night in a bar and brothel in Tijuana becomes linked to the spiritual growth of his brother, Bartie, who is surely destined to be one of the most memorable and endearing characters in modern literature; viewing a precarious initiation into sexuality that will mark forever the way an artist sees the world and does his work.

I Malavoglia è il romanzo più famoso di Giovanni Verga, ambientato ad Aci Trezza, alla fine del 1800. Il romanzo non ha un solo protagonista, né una sola famiglia, i Malavoglia, come protagonista, ma è il coro di tutto il paese e di un tipo di vita che segue , senza ribellarsi, i proverbi e le tradizioni, le convinzioni e i pregiudizi dell’ambiente.

This short novel follows the fate of Sissy Jupe, a warm-hearted circus child, and the family that adopts her. Deserted by her ailing father, Sissy is taken into the cold household of the Gradgrind family, which operates a school. The "eminently practical" Thomas Gradgrind believes only in facts and figures and has raised his children accordingly, thoroughly suppressing the imaginative side of their nature, and the consequences are devastating.

Il più importante romanzo verista della letteratura italiana, un capolavoro senza pari che racconta la storia di una famiglia di pescatori di Aci Trezza, paesino nei pressi di Catania, all'indomani dell'Unità d'Italia.

A Tale of Two Cities, pubblicato nel 1859 , a puntate settimanali, è l’unico romanzo storico scritto da Dickens. Con più di 200 milioni di copie, è considerato il libro più venduto di sempre. Il romanzo, ambientato a Parigi e Londra durante la Rivoluzione francese e negli anni del Regime del Terrore, unisce l’intreccio avvincente e la caratterizzazione di svariati personaggi, tipica dello scrittore, alle descrizioni dell’ambiente e degli avvenimenti, fra cui la presa della Bastiglia.

At some point in your life, you will contemplate the end and question what it is like to depart from the only thing you’ve known. Hesitation and uncertainty might consume you to the core, or a sensation of comfort and contentment will set you free. In Four Seasons, Chris Widener shares the relatable journey of Jonathan Blake and his family through a year in their life, confronted with unavoidable tragedy. After he is diagnosed with cancer, Jonathan reflects on the growth of his children, watching them take life into their own hands and create light in the darkest of times.