"Best-selling author Tim O'Brien shares wisdom from a life in letters, lessons learned in wartime, and the challenges, humor, and rewards of raising two sons"--

In January 2003, Nicholas Sparks and his brother Micah set off on a three-week-trip around the world. It was to mark a milestone in their lives, for at 37 and 38 respectively, they were now the only surviving members of their family. As they travel the globe, the intimate story of their family unfolds in the details of the untimely deaths of their parents and only sister. Against the backdrop of the wonders of the world, the Sparks brothers band together...

Beth is a spirited woman with mental retardation who spends nearly every day riding the buses in her pennsylvania city. The drivers, a lively group, are her mentors; her fellow passengers are her community. Beth, who lives independently and has a boyfriend, is a joyful, endearing, and feisty individual. Her single sister Rache;, a writer and professor, masks her emotional isolation and loneliness behind her hyperbusy schedule. When Beth asks Rachel...

In this memoir, Isabel Allende reconstructs the painful reality of her own life in the wake of tragic loss--the death of her daughter, Paula. Recalling the past thirteen years from the daily letters the author and her mother, who lives in Chile, wrote to each other, Allende ... recounts the stories of the wildly eccentric, strong-minded, and eclectic tribe she gathers around her that becomes a new kind of family. Throughout, Allende shares her thoughts...

An account of the 1963 death of the author's father describes how her mother, three sisters, and she were financially dependent on her father's wages and how their loss and Catholic faith resonated the experiences of the nation.

In this book, the author recounts her difficult childhood as the daughter of an army sergeant, her love affair at age fifteen with an older man, the legacy of alcoholism, the troubled history of her adopted daughters, and her own physical struggles since a recent horse accident. She shows how historic and emotional pain are passed down through generations, blending personal history with stories of important Indian figures of the past such as Lozen,...

Joyce Carol Oates shares her struggle to comprehend a life absent of the partnership that had sustained and defined her for nearly half a century.

Bestselling author Buckley's most personal and transcendent work--the tragicomic true story of the year in which he lost both of his parents. The author offers consolation, wit, and warmth to those coping with the death of a mother or father.

Suzanne Somers tells her story of hope and courage as her family is ravaged by the disease of alcoholism, and how they overcome the almost impossible odds to get well.

Describes growing up in his own home by Jon Sciestka based on experiences with his brother, a teaching nun, and using his father's ties to deal with sibling rivalry. Sums up interesting times in a Catholic school from first grade through ninth.