Who hasn't peered through their old, dusty family albums and wondered about those unfashionable clothes, the “what-were-they-thinking?” hairdos, and just downright funny-looking faces staring back at them? This quirky collection is a celebration of the very best with a variety of old-time images paired with misguided family wisdom and expressions that reveal the real sentiments that lie beyond these innocent-looking, “old-fashioned” facades. With sixty black-and-white and sepia photographs paired with hilarious captions and a padded cover to emulate a real photo album, this book will have you screaming with laughter!

Inspirational stories of survivors leaving their abusive households—and drawing on the wis-dom gained from adversity to transform their lives. So many people have experienced bleak childhoods in which degradation, pain, and neglect were common. But as survivors of toxic families, their triumphs are not only powerful but inspirational. This book follows twenty-four stories about finding happiness after surviving a dysfunctional family. With enlightening honesty, humor, and apt quotes, you’ll experience the transformative effects that hope and resilience can have. Thriving means more than just letting go of the past and its hardships; it means becoming your own silver lining. Karen Casey and our narrators explore how your worst experiences can help you create meaningful skills for building a new, fulfilling life. With each narrator sharing the moment they decided to thrive instead of giving up, this self-compassion book will show you that no matter how dysfunctional life can be, you can emerge stronger than ever from it. Promises and positive affirmations to live The importance of nourishing your emotional strength Beginning your healing journey by putting your heart first Forgiving your family’s pain to avoid repeating it, and more “Explores the benefits that result from surviving in a dysfunctional family, including resiliency, perseverance, a sense of humor, forgiveness, kindness, and the ability to discern real love. Simple but authentic points are enumerated at the conclusion of each chapter. With unrelenting optimism and a solid faith in God, Casey helps readers learn to let go of judgment and embrace acceptance. New readers as well as followers of the author’s earlier works will be uplift-ed.” —Publishers Weekly “You just can’t go wrong with Karen Casey.” —Earnie Larsen, author of From Anger to Forgiveness

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY MICHIKO KAKUTANI, THE NEW YORK TIMES • NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY TIME NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY MORE THAN 45 PUBLICATIONS, INCLUDING The New York Times Book Review • The Washington Post • NPR • The New Yorker • San Francisco Chronicle • The Economist • The Atlantic • Newsday • Salon • St. Louis Post-Dispatch • The Guardian • Esquire (UK) • GQ (UK) After three acclaimed novels, Gary Shteyngart turns to memoir in a candid, witty, deeply poignant account of his life so far. Shteyngart shares his American immigrant experience, moving back and forth through time and memory with self-deprecating humor, moving insights, and literary bravado. The result is a resonant story of family and belonging that feels epic and intimate and distinctly his own. Born Igor Shteyngart in Leningrad during the twilight of the Soviet Union, the curious, diminutive, asthmatic boy grew up with a persistent sense of yearning—for food, for acceptance, for words—desires that would follow him into adulthood. At five, Igor wrote his first novel, Lenin and His Magical Goose, and his grandmother paid him a slice of cheese for every page. In the late 1970s, world events changed Igor’s life. Jimmy Carter and Leonid Brezhnev made a deal: exchange grain for the safe passage of Soviet Jews to America—a country Igor viewed as the enemy. Along the way, Igor became Gary so that he would suffer one or two fewer beatings from other kids. Coming to the United States from the Soviet Union was equivalent to stumbling off a monochromatic cliff and landing in a pool of pure Technicolor. Shteyngart’s loving but mismatched parents dreamed that he would become a lawyer or at least a “conscientious toiler” on Wall Street, something their distracted son was simply not cut out to do. Fusing English and Russian, his mother created the term Failurchka—Little Failure—which she applied to her son. With love. Mostly. As a result, Shteyngart operated on a theory that he would fail at everything he tried. At being a writer, at being a boyfriend, and, most important, at being a worthwhile human being. Swinging between a Soviet home life and American aspirations, Shteyngart found himself living in two contradictory worlds, all the while wishing that he could find a real home in one. And somebody to love him. And somebody to lend him sixty-nine cents for a McDonald’s hamburger. Provocative, hilarious, and inventive, Little Failure reveals a deeper vein of emotion in Gary Shteyngart’s prose. It is a memoir of an immigrant family coming to America, as told by a lifelong misfit who forged from his imagination an essential literary voice and, against all odds, a place in the world. Praise for Little Failure “Hilarious and moving . . . The army of readers who love Gary Shteyngart is about to get bigger.”—The New York Times Book Review “A memoir for the ages . . . brilliant and unflinching.”—Mary Karr “Dazzling . . . a rich, nuanced memoir . . . It’s an immigrant story, a coming-of-age story, a becoming-a-writer story, and a becoming-a-mensch story, and in all these ways it is, unambivalently, a success.”—Meg Wolitzer, NPR “Literary gold . . . bruisingly funny.”—Vogue “A giant success.”—Entertainment Weekly

More information to be announced soon on this forthcoming title from Penguin USA.

"In this haunting new novel, the act of forgetting is as strange and interesting as the power of remembering." —The New York Times Book Review An enjoyable read filled with memorable characters and secrets from Booker Prize winner Penelope Lively Allersmead is a big shabby Victorian suburban house. The perfect place to grow up for elegant Sandra, difficult Gina, destructive Paul, considerate Katie, clever Roger and flighty Clare. But was it? Now adults, the children return to Allersmead one by one. To their home-making mother and aloof writer father, and a house that for years has played silent witness to a family's secrets. And one devastating secret of which no one speaks . . .

This is my second book. The first one, The Book of Al, is my bio. On Rock Bottom and Know Where to Turn, my second book deals with the topic of suicide, the do-not-do of all things. I played chicken on the highway but was unsuccessful, and I thank the Lord for that.

Eleanor & Park meets Perks of Being a Wallflower in this bittersweet 1980’s story about love, loss, and a comet that only comes around every ninety-seven years. When Carrie looks through her telescope, the world makes sense. It’s life here on Earth that’s hard to decipher. Since her older sister, Ginny, died, Carrie has been floating in the orbit of Ginny’s friends, the cool kids, who are far more interested in bands and partying than science. Carrie’s reckless behavior crosses a line, and her father enrolls her in a summer work camp at a local state park. There, Carrie pulls weeds and endures pep talks about the power of hard work. Despite her best efforts to hate the job, Carrie actually feels happy out in nature. And when she meets Dean—warm, thoughtful, and perceptive—she starts to discover that her life can be like her beloved night sky, with black holes of grief for Ginny and dazzling meteors of joy from first love.

It is estimated that as many as 34 million people grew up in alcoholic homes. But what about the rest of us? What about families that had no alcoholism, but did have perfectionism, workaholism, compulsive overeating, intimacy problems, depression, problems in expressing feelings, plus all the other personality traits that can produce a family system much like an alcoholic one? Countless millions of us struggle with these kinds of dysfunctions every day, and until very recently we struggled alone. Pulling together both theory and clinical practice, John and Linda Friel provide a readable explanation of what happened to us and how we can rectify it.

Take a Plunge Into the Ocean of the Supernatural As these twenty tales swam up from the depths of the imagination into the light of day or the dark of night, they landed in places from California to Florida and points between (with short layovers in London and the Middle East). The characters that inhabit them are a motley crew: a ghost, goddess, angel, demon, serial killer, zombie, prostitute, and, well, you must read these stories to uncover the stars, their stories, and their journeys. The tales all fall into the supernatural realm, some splashing around the edges of the water, others cannonballing right in. But be forewarned, much like a roiling tsunami, many have unexpected eddies and whirlpools. So, grab your life preserver and hold on... If you don't have the time or the inclination to immerse yourself in a full-length novel, sit down and spin through these shorter versions.

Author Mary Ellen Stepanich, with tongue firmly in cheek, answers the question, How do you turn a normal, happy-go-lucky, poor, small-town girl of the Midwest into a push-me-pull-me, multi-married, mass-of-inner-conflicts schizophrenic? In her memoir, she shares the personal (and mostly true) story of her familys dysfunction. The eldest daughter of the family, she started out as an average, happy, and innocent little girl. Her voice was soon crushed, however, by disastrous value programmingthe tacit and implicit lessons taught by parents, teachers, peers, relatives, and even the geographical and cultural environment. These learned values can become immutable unless the person receiving them can finally recognize that these behaviors do not benefit their livesand then boldly choose to ignore them. All Mary Ellen has wanted out of life was someone to listen to her, and now her voice is finally heard. Her tale, one of systematic abuse and silence, is told with refreshing honesty and humor. She was one of a generation born on the cusp between the Great Depression and the New Deal, and as a result she was programmed to become anything but the confident, assertive adult she has fought to create. In her story, there is hope.