Family Fictions and Family Facts

Family Fictions and Family Facts
Author: Brian Cooper
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 310
Release: 2007-05-07
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1134747578

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.

Courage, My Love

Courage, My Love
Author: Kristin Beck
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 385
Release: 2021-04-13
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0593101561

When the Nazi occupation of Rome begins, two courageous young women are plunged deep into the Italian Resistance to fight for their freedom in this captivating debut novel. Rome, 1943 Lucia Colombo has had her doubts about fascism for years, but as a single mother in an increasingly unstable country, politics are for other people--she needs to focus on keeping herself and her son alive. Then the Italian government falls and the German occupation begins, and suddenly, Lucia finds that complacency is no longer an option. Francesca Gallo has always been aware of injustice and suffering. A polio survivor who lost her father when he was arrested for his anti-fascist politics, she came to Rome with her fiancé to start a new life. But when the Germans invade and her fiancé is taken by the Nazis, Francesca decides she has only one option: to fight back. As Lucia and Francesca are pulled deeper into the struggle against the Nazi occupation, both women learn to resist alongside the partisans to drive the Germans from Rome. But as winter sets in, the occupation tightens its grip on the city, and the resistance is in constant danger. In the darkest days, Francesca and Lucia face their pasts, find the courage to love, and maintain hope for a future that is finally free.

The Almost Legendary Morris Sisters

The Almost Legendary Morris Sisters
Author: Julie Klam
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2021-08-10
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0735216444

A Washington Post best nonfiction book pick of 2021 “It is biography as an expression of love.” – The New York Times New York Times–bestselling author Julie Klam’s funny and moving story of the Morris sisters, distant relations with mysterious pasts. Ever since she was young, Julie Klam has been fascinated by the Morris sisters, cousins of her grandmother. According to family lore, early in the twentieth century the sisters’ parents decided to move the family from Eastern Europe to Los Angeles so their father could become a movie director. On the way, their pregnant mother went into labor in St. Louis, where the baby was born and where their mother died. The father left the children in an orphanage and promised to send for them when he settled in California—a promise he never kept. One of the Morris sisters later became a successful Wall Street trader and advised Franklin Roosevelt. The sisters lived together in New York City, none of them married or had children, and one even had an affair with J. P. Morgan. The stories of these independent women intrigued Klam, but as she delved into them to learn more, she realized that the tales were almost completely untrue. The Almost Legendary Morris Sisters is the revealing account of what Klam discovered about her family—and herself—as she dug into the past. The deeper she went into the lives of the Morris sisters, the slipperier their stories became. And the more questions she had about what actually happened to them, the more her opinion of them evolved. Part memoir and part confessional, and told with the wit and honesty that are hallmarks of Klam’s books, The Almost Legendary Morris Sisters is the fascinating and funny true story of one writer’s journey into her family’s past, the truths she brings to light, and what she learns about herself along the way.

Fiction Ruined My Family

Fiction Ruined My Family
Author: Jeanne Darst
Publisher: National Geographic Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2012-11-06
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1594486174

"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.

My Family, Your Family

My Family, Your Family
Author: Lisa Bullard
Publisher: Millbrook Press ™
Total Pages: 28
Release: 2015-01-01
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1467776602

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.

The Weak Spot

The Weak Spot
Author: Lucie Elven
Publisher: Catapult
Total Pages: 177
Release: 2021-02-09
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1593766300

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.

A Family Is a Family Is a Family

A Family Is a Family Is a Family
Author: Sara O'Leary
Publisher: Groundwood Books Ltd
Total Pages: 36
Release: 2020-07-10
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1773063952

When a teacher asks her class to think about what makes their families special, the answers are all different, but the same in one important way ... When a teacher asks the children in her class to think about what makes their families special, the answers are all different in many ways — but the same in the one way that matters most of all. One child is worried that her family is just too different to explain, but listens as her classmates talk about what makes their families special. One is raised by a grandmother, and another has two dads. One has many stepsiblings, and another has a new baby in the family. As her classmates describe who they live with and who loves them — family of every shape, size and every kind of relation — the child realizes that as long as her family is full of caring people, it is special. A warm and whimsical look at many types of families, written by award-winning author Sara O’Leary, with quirky and sweet illustrations by Qin Leng. Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.1 With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about key details in a text. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.1.2 Retell stories, including key details, and demonstrate understanding of their central message or lesson. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.1.6 Identify who is telling the story at various points in a text. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.1.9 Compare and contrast the adventures and experiences of characters in stories. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.2.6 Acknowledge differences in the points of view of characters, including by speaking in a different voice for each character when reading dialogue aloud.

The Family

The Family
Author: Naomi Krupitsky
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 369
Release: 2021-11-02
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0525541993

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.

The ‘Secret’ Family Court - Fact or Fiction?

The ‘Secret’ Family Court - Fact or Fiction?
Author: Clifford Bellamy
Publisher: Bath Publishing Limited
Total Pages: 410
Release: 2020-03-31
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1739099281

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.

Family of Origin

Family of Origin
Author: CJ Hauser
Publisher: Anchor
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2020-06-16
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0525565396

A novel by the author of the viral essay sensation "The Crane Wife": When Nolan Grey receives news that his father, a once-prominent biologist, has drowned off Leap's Island, he calls on Elsa, his estranged older half-sister, to help. This, despite the fact that it was he and Elsa who broke the family in the first place. Elsa and Nolan travel to their father's field station off the Gulf Coast, where a group called the Reversalists obsessively study the undowny bufflehead, a rare duck whose loss of waterproof feathers proves, they say, that evolution is running in reverse. On an island that is always looking backward, it's impossible for the siblings to ignore their past, and years of family secrecy threaten to ruin them all over again. Yet, despite themselves, the Greys urgently trek the island to find the so-called Paradise Duck, their father's final obsession, all the while grappling with questions of nature and nurture, intimacy and betrayal, progress and forgiveness.