"A sweeping debut novel about the generations of a family that spends summers in a seaside enclave on Maine's rocky coastline. In 1944, Maren Larsen is a blonde beauty from a small Minnesota farming town, determined to do her part to help the war effort--and to see the world beyond her family's cornfields. As a cadet nurse at Walter Reed Medical Center, she's swept off her feet by Dr. Oliver Demarest, a handsome Boston Brahmin whose family spends...

Traces the author's three-year investigation into what constitutes family, describing how, after receiving an e-mail from a stranger who claimed to be a distant cousin, he embarked on an effort to build the biggest family tree in history. "A.J. Jacobs has received some strange emails over the years, but this note was perhaps the strangest: 'You don't know me, but my wife is your eighth cousin. And we have over 80,000 relatives of yours in our database.'...

"An award-winning journalist's intimate investigation of the true scope of domestic violence, revealing how the roots of America's most pressing social crises are buried in abuse that happens behind closed doors. We call it domestic violence. We call it private violence. Sometimes we call it intimate terrorism. But whatever we call it, we generally do not believe it has anything at all to do with us, despite the World Health Organization deeming it...

In this book, the author, a domestic violence expert uses his perspective as a therapist for abusive and controlling men to help women, their children, and other family members who have been touched by abuse understand why abusers behave the way they do and what can be done about it. He teaches women how to survive and improve an abusive relationship; how to determine how dangerous an abuser is and when it is impossible to rectify a situation; and...

"The acclaimed, bestselling author--winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize--tells the enthralling story of how an unexpected romantic encounter irrevocably changes two families' lives. One Sunday afternoon in Southern California, Bert Cousins shows up at Franny Keating's christening party uninvited. Before evening falls, he has kissed Franny's mother, Beverly--thus setting in motion the dissolution of their marriages and the joining...

"A unique burden was inherited by the children of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy and his celebrated siblings Senators Robert and Ted Kennedy. Raised in a world of enormous privilege against the backdrop of American history, this third generation of Kennedys often veered between towering accomplishment and devastating defeat. In his revelatory new book, acclaimed Kennedy historian J. Randy Taraborrelli draws back the curtain on the next generation...

A humorous, tough-minded, and honest case for being and having an only child . Journalist Lauren Sandler is an only child and the mother of one. After investigating what only children are really like and whether stopping at one child is an answer to reconciling motherhood and modernity, she learned a lot about herself--and a lot about our culture's assumptions. She brings a passion and a laser-sharp intelligence to the subject that cuts through the...

Moving from steerage on an immigrant vessel to the slums of Boston, from the Court of St James's to the White House and beyond.

Here, Kathleen Berger explores the role of grandmothers in the lives of their grandchildren. She uses real life examples to illustrate how grandmothers can best integrate themselves into the lives of their children's families without overstepping. She explores the particular needs of each stage of childhood as they relate to grandmother involvement and input. Before a child is born, grandmothers need to attend to building a strong relationship with...