Family Life Classics

Sam and Henny Pollit have too many children, too little money, and too much loathing for one another. As Sam uses the children's adoration to feed his own voracious ego, Henny watches in bleak despair, knowing the bitter reality that lies just below his mad visions. A chilling novel of family life, this work is acknowledged as a contemporary classic.

Henrietta, privileged and sheltered, expected a smoothly comfortable society life in Washington when she married Sam Pollitt, a handsome self-made biologist. Ten years later, Henny is a skinny, screaming drudge with five children, a raging wreck of a woman driven by 'hate, horror, passion or contempt'. But Sam, whose impractical idealism has brought his family to near-ruin, is unchanged: still at sea in all adult affairs, an absurd hypocritical buffoon but a genius with children, except Louie, his eldest daughter.

Viaggio alle radici della nascita del clientelismo politico e della mafia. Una vicenda familiare che si snoda attraverso le generazioni e diventa il paradigma di una società.Un’opera che facilita la comprensione del presente e delle radici psicologiche dell’illegalità mafiosa.Adatto a: tutti, in particolare ai cultori delle radici dei fenomeni storici italiani; ai cercatori di chiavi di lettura delle vicende del presente.

Joe Chapin led a storybook life. A successful small-town lawyer with a beautiful wife, two over-achieving children, and aspirations to be president, he seemed to have it all. But as his daughter looks back on his life, a different man emerges: one in conflict with his ambitious and shrewish wife, terrified that the misdeeds of his children will dash his political dreams, and in love with a model half his age.

This is the story of the celebrated Pickwick Club. The members are to report to the club on their journeys, adventures, and observations of characters and manners. Dickens creates a vivid picture of England in taking his characters along the nostalgic highways and byways of this majestic isle. This remarkable first novel made Dickens famous and has remained one of the world's best-known works.

In this carefully crafted novel, Dickens reveals the complexity of London society in the enterprising 1840s as he takes the listener into the business firm and home of one of its most representative patriarchs, Paul Dombey.

A raging flood in Missouri took the lives of a married couple who barely got their three-year-old son into a cradle that carried him downstream. The parents were drowned. A kind rancher managed to pull the makeshift device to shore and wound up calling the boy Dave and raising the youngster to manhood without a known family name. The savior didn’t officially adopt the boy but they behaved as a loving father and son in adult life. A scoundrel family discovered the truth and labeled the young man a “nameless nobody.”

In this charming classic story, Harry, the little white dog with black spots, runs away before bath time and plays outside until he changes into a black dog with white spots.

B.J. Harrison reads Louisa May Alcotts famous novella "Behind a Mask", which is widely considered to be Alcotts masterpiece in sensation fiction. A wealthy Victorian-era family recruits Jean Muir as sixteen-year-old Bellas governess. But soon enough, Jean Muir appears to have everyone under her spell, and to have the power to do everything as she pleases. This novella from the late 19th century was initially published under Louisa May Alcotts pseudonym A. M. Barnard...

Young Cedric Errol lives in poverty in New York with his mother. When his father, who was disinherited for marrying an American, dies, Cedric is summoned to his grandfather's English estate. While the crotchety old Earl planned to transform the boy into a docile, traditional lording, it is Little Lord Fauntleroy who does the converting.

Mackenzie Fraser witnesses a drunk driver mow down her seven-year-old sister and her mother blames her. Then she ends up in juvie on a trumped-up drug charge. Now she’s in the fight of her life...on the inside! And she’s losing. From the ashes rises the phoenix. As a family descends into an abyss of pain, so Mackenzie fights to discover her own way out of the overwhelming circumstances of her sibling's death.

Catherine Sloper, the heroine of this tragicomic tale set in mid-19th century New York, is absolutely ordinary in every way except for her exceptional capacities in love and loyalty. These latter qualities are of no interest to her father, the successful society Doctor who is constantly disappointed by his daughter's failure to be brilliant, either physically or intellectually. For this reason, he is highly suspicious when Morris Townsend begins to woo her and is convinced the handsome young man's interest is only in the fortune Catherine will eventually inherit.

The Fields tells the story of Sayward as a wife and mother, working with her own brood on that hard frontier to create a durable home, and aspects of civilization in a region where life is still difficult and towns are just beginning to appear. It is a rich and human novel about personal conflicts and strife in the midst of a land that itself is striving. And it has an epic quality that perfectly reflects the sweeping conquest of the frontier.

Annotated. Study guide. Sound interesting? The author thinks so too! Listen to An Annotated Version of Almond-Blossom and experience the compelling world of this classical fictional story.

It starts with a simple wish, and Emma Davies hardly notices when it comes true. She’s too preoccupied with a life she isn’t happy in - the spark in her marriage has fizzled, her career is headed nowhere and her boss is a misogynist. Her teenage daughter has grown distant, and her heart breaks daily for her teenage son with cerebral palsy. But soon Emma discovers her wishes are coming true, and she realizes that she has been given the power to change her life. Either that, or she’s going insane.

À Fordham, par une nuit d'hiver, Ruth, la jeune apprentie de Mrs Mason n'a pas le temps de s'ennuyer : demain, c'est le grand bal de la ville et toutes les couturières sont mobilisées ! Choisie pour sa beauté, elle se tiendra dans le vestibule de la salle de bal afin de réparer les accrocs aux robes des danseuses et fera la connaissance de M. Bellingham. Ils sympathisent puis naît une relation qui vaut à Ruth d'être congédiée. Malgré le jugement de la société, ils passent des jours heureux dans le pays de Galles.

The novel provides insight and a bit of satire regarding the everyday humdrum in small towns. Cranford is separated into 16 chapters, opening with a snapshot of Captain Brown and his two daughters who live in the book's namesake town: Cranford. The gossipy women of the town are slow to accept Brown socially, but they eventually welcome him into their circles. Captain Brown is later injured, and the responsibility of the house falls on his younger daughter.

To all appearances, John Wilder has all the trappings of success, circa 1960: a promising career in advertising, a loving family, a beautiful apartment, even a country home. John's evenings are spent with associates at quiet Manhattan lounges and his weekends with friends at glittering cocktail parties. But something deep within this seemingly perfect life has long since gone wrong.

Mrs Gereth, a wealthy widow, is dreading the day that her son, Owen, gets married. She hopes that he will marry a woman who will appreciate their home and all of its treasures as she does. So she enlists the help of Fleda Vetch to try to corrupt the impending marriage of her son and Mona Brigstock - a philistine who is determined to marry Owen in order to inherit Mrs Gereth’s valuable possessions and home by any means. Meanwhile, Fleda hides her real feelings towards Owen. Even when he ends up feeling the same way, Fleda cannot bring herself to marry him as this would force him to break his engagement to Mona, and thus betray all of her own ideals.

Mary, unloved and selfish, finds friendship and happiness helping her neurotic, invalid cousin become strong and healthy. Nature's powerful magic touches both children as they toil to revive their secret garden. The story alludes to some very modern themes including the ability of mental beliefs to create health, the strength of group optimism, and the restorative power of nature.