The author reveals how, shortly after giving birth to a child she adored, she drank herself into the same numbness that nearly devoured her charismatic but troubled mother, reaching the brink of suicide before a spiritual awakening led her to sobriety.

1922. Six months after Matthew's tragic death, his loss is still felt throughout Downton Abbey. Mary struggles to face a new future with her fatherless child, and is encouraged by the family to pick up the pieces. Accepting a new role on the estate, the now-eligible Mary also finds herself the reluctant object of attention from a number of eager suitors. With the twenties in full swing and the tides of change sweeping through Downton, Rose's continued...

The family of a successful but elderly actor find themselves on the receiving end of his wish to plan his own death, on the eve of his celebratory 90th-year birthday party.

Mr. Popper's Penguins is the story of a boy whose explorer father loves him but neglects him in favor of his career. Once the boy grows to sharkish real-estate wheeler-dealer manhood in NYC, he does the same thing to his wife, daughter, and son. Promised a partner position in his real-estate firm, he woos a reluctant seller to part with the Tavern on the Green. Life is going fine until his dad's final gift to him arrives. Then Mr. Popper's life changes...

"Decades ago, John and Elizabeth Baxter lived a love story that is still playing out in the lives of their adult children and grandchildren. But few of them know the exact details of that story or the heartbreak that brought the two together. Now in high school, Ashley Baxter Blake's oldest son, Cole, must write a family history paper for a freshman English class. He decides to interview his grandfather about that long ago love story. John is hesitant,...

When every person, all over the globe, receives a small wooden box bearing the same inscription and a single piece of string inside, the world is thrown into a collective frenzy, in this novel told through multiple perspectives that introduces an unforgettable cast of characters. It seems like any other day: You wake up, pour a cup of coffee, and head out. But today when you open your front door, waiting for you is a small wooden box. This box holds...

"Paul Auster's greatest, most heartbreaking and satisfying novel -- a sweeping and surprising story of birthright and possibility, of love and of life itself: a masterpiece. Nearly two weeks early, on March 3, 1947, in the maternity ward of Beth Israel Hospital in Newark, New Jersey, Archibald Isaac Ferguson, the one and only child of Rose and Stanley Ferguson, is born. From that single beginning, Ferguson's life will take four simultaneous and independent...

The Cuthberts of Green Gables had decided to adopt an orphan-anice sturdy boy to help matthew with the farm chores. The orphanage sent a girl instead-a mischievous, talkative redhead who'd be no use at all.

Becoming Jane : The young Jane Austen wishes to be a writer. Her mother thinks otherwise. Although she is offered many marriage proposals she accepts none until the mischevious Thomas Lefroy shows up and turns her world around. At first she finds him ignorant and self centered but as she gets to know him, they start to flirt and eventually fall in love. Thomas' relatives disagree with the match and threaten to disinherit him if he marries her. Jane's...

Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis -- that of white working-class Americans. The decline of this group, a demographic of our country that has been slowly disintegrating over forty years, has been reported on with growing frequency and alarm, but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside.