Here Brian Cooper explores the role of economic theory in 'normalizing' the family in the first half of the nineteenth century. Drawing on a wide range of sources, the book examines the impacts of these different forms on contemporary debate.

"Beautifully paced . . . heartbreaking and hilarious."—USA Today Augusten Burroughs meets Mary Karr: a deeply funny and wickedly entertaining family memoir. The youngest of four daughters in an old, celebrated St. Louis family-- of prominent journalists and politicians on one side, debutantes and equestrians on the other-- Jeanne Darst grew up hearing stories of past grandeur. And the message she internalized as a young girl was clear: While things might be a bit tight for us right now, it’s only temporary. Soon her father would sell the Great American Novel and reclaim the family’s former glory. The Darsts move from St. Louis to New York, and Jeanne’s father writes one novel, then another, which don’t find publishers. This, combined with her mother’s burgeoning alcoholism, lead to financial disaster and divorce. And as Jeanne becomes an adult, she is horrified to discover that she is not only a drinker like her mother, but a writer like her father. At first, and for years, she embraces both activities— and until she can stop putting drinking and writing ahead of everything else, it’s a questionable choice. Ultimately, Darst sets out to discover whether a person can have the writing without the ruin, whether it’s possible to be both sober and creative, ambitious and happy, a professional author and a parent. Filled with brilliantly flawed, idiosyncratic characters and punctuated by Darst’s irreverent eye for absurdity, Fiction Ruined My Family is a lovingly told, wickedly funny portrait of an unconventional life.

Different can be great! Makayla is visiting friends in her neighborhood. She sees how each family is different. Some families have lots of children, but others have none. Some friends live with grandparents or have two dads or have parents who are divorced. How is her own family like the others? What makes each one great? This diverse cast allows readers to compare and contrast families in multiple ways.

"This is Claude. He's five years old, the youngest of five brothers. He also loves peanut butter sandwiches. He also loves wearing a dress, and dreams of being a princess.When he grows up, Claude says, he wants to be a girl. Rosie and Penn want Claude to be whoever Claude wants to be. They're just not sure they're ready to share that with the world. Soon the entire family is keeping Claude's secret. Until one day it explodes."--

Following the death of her worthy liberal parents, Corlis McCrea moves back into her family's grand Reconstruction mansion in North Carolina, willed to all three siblings. Her timid younger brother has never left home. When her bullying black-sheep older brother moves into "his" house as well, it's war. Each heir wants the house. Yet to buy the other out, two siblings must team against one. Just as in girlhood, Corlis is torn between allying with the decent but fearful youngest and the iconoclastic eldest, who covets his legacy to destroy it. A Perfectly Good Family is a stunning examination of inheritance, literal and psychological: what we take from our parents, what we discard, and what we are stuck with, like it or not.

The Instant New York Times bestseller A TODAY Show Read with Jenna Book Club Pick A captivating debut novel about the tangled fates of two best friends and daughters of the Italian mafia, and a coming-of-age story of twentieth-century Brooklyn itself. Two daughters. Two families. One inescapable fate. Sofia Colicchio is a free spirit, loud and untamed. Antonia Russo is thoughtful, ever observing the world around her. Best friends since birth, they live in the shadow of their fathers’ unspoken community: the Family. Sunday dinners gather them each week to feast, discuss business, and renew the intoxicating bond borne of blood and love. But the disappearance of Antonia’s father drives a whisper-thin wedge between the girls as they grow into women, wives, mothers, and leaders. Their hearts expand in tandem with Red Hook and Brooklyn around them, as they push against the boundaries of society’s expectations and fight to preserve their complex but life-sustaining friendship. One fateful night their loyalty to each other and the Family will be tested. Only one of them can pull the trigger before it’s too late.

When a mysterious man claims to be her long-missing brother, a woman must confront her family’s closely guarded secrets in this “delicious hybrid of mystery, drama, and elegance” (Jodi Picoult, #1 New York Times bestselling author). Washington, DC, 2019: Laura Preston is a reclusive artist at odds with her older sister Beatrice as their elegant, formidable mother slowly slides into dementia. When a stranger contacts Laura claiming to be her brother who disappeared forty years earlier when the family lived in Bangkok, Laura ignores Bea’s warnings of a scam and flies to Thailand to see if it can be true. But meeting him in person leads to more questions than answers. Bangkok, 1972: Genevieve and Robert Preston live in a beautiful house behind a high wall, raising their three children with the help of a cadre of servants. In these exotic surroundings, Genevieve strives to create a semblance of the life they would have had at home in the US—ballet and riding classes for the children, impeccable dinner parties, a meticulously kept home. But in truth, Robert works for American intelligence, Genevieve finds herself drawn into a passionate affair with her husband’s boss, and their serene household is vulnerable to unseen dangers in a rapidly changing world and a country they don’t really understand. Alternating between past and present as all of the secrets are revealed, What Could Be Saved is an unforgettable novel about a family broken by loss and betrayal, and “a richly imagined page-turner that delivers twists alongside thought-provoking commentary” (Kirkus Reviews).

For approaching two decades, family courts have been accused of making life changing decisions about children and who they live with made in secret, away from the scrutiny of the public gaze. Recognising the force of these accusations, senior family courts judges have, over that time, implemented a raft of rule changes, pilot projects and judicial guidance aimed at making the family justice more accountable and transparent. But has any progress been made? Are there still suspicions that family judges make irrevocable, unaccountable decisions in private hearings? And if so, are those suspicions justified and what can be done to dispel them? In this important and timely new book, Clifford Bellamy, a recently retired family judge who has been at the sharp end of family justice during all these changes, attempts to answer those questions and more. He has spoken to leading journalists, judges and academic researchers to find out what the obstacles to open reporting are – be they legal, economic or cultural - and interweaves their insights with informed analysis on how the laws regulating family court reporting operate. Along the way he provides a comprehensive review of the raft of initiatives he has seen come and go, summarises the position now and uses this experience to suggest how this fundamental aspect of our justice system could adapt in the face of this criticism. Every professional working in the family justice system – lawyers, social workers, court staff and judges - as well as those who job it is to report on legal affairs, should read this informative, nuanced exposition of what open justice means and why it matters so much to those whose lives are upended by the family justice system.

A woman discovers something toxic at work in the isolated village where she is apprenticing as a pharmacist, in this fable-like novel about power, surveillance, prescriptions, and cures by a captivating debut voice. On a remote mountaintop somewhere in Europe, accessible only by an ancient funicular, a small pharmacy sits on a square. As if attending confession, townspeople carry their ailments and worries through its doors, in search of healing, reassurance, and a witness to their bodies and their lives. One day, a young woman arrives in the town to apprentice under its charismatic pharmacist, August Malone. She slowly begins to lose herself in her work, lulled by stories and secrets shared by customers and colleagues. But despite her best efforts to avoid thinking and feeling altogether, as her new boss rises to the position of mayor, she begins to realize that something sinister is going on around her. The Weak Spot is a fable about our longing for cures, answers, and an audience--and the ways it will be exploited by those who silently hold power in our world.

This is a true story of a family's attempt at working together to care for aging parents. It involves four adult siblings, two parents, some anger, resentment, love and joy. There are tears, astonishment, sleepless nights, laughter and a whole lot of conflict, quiet and otherwise. Mary L. Currier shares her insight, beliefs and professional experiences to normalize conflict between adult siblings. She explains that families are often no strangers to conflict. Rather, they may be strangers to managing that conflict. Or perhaps it's more of an unwillingness to slip into the deeper crevices of those sticky issues that form the patterns of communication, therefore creating conflict. Either way, there is often a deeply imbedded cycle of poor communication that courses through family veins. You'd think that blood relatives would have a comparatively easy time sorting out issues of conflict. You'd think that four siblings would share similarities in problem solving techniques. That is not the case in this family. What first appeared as a moderate challenge evolved into a lifelong lesson requiring patience, self-understanding, unconditional love and an unending supply of forgiveness. As anxiety, Alzheimer's, depression, and cancer, come out from behind the shadows, each family member acts, or reacts, as only they can - with the skills they have cultivated. Does that work for them? Not always. This is a wonderful tool for adult siblings thinking about how they will sustain their relationships with one another as they venture into the care giving process. Mary even offers troubleshooting guidance in an effort to improve skills in communications and conflict resolution in hopes of sustaining adult sibling relationships.