Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

We Were the Mulvaneys

by Barbara Fisher, Joyce Carol Oates

The Mulvaneys, at first a close and very lucky family, drift apart over the years, until the youngest son, Judd, discovers the secret of their downfall and sets out to help reunite the family. 75,000 first printing.

A Painted House

by John Grisham

The hill people and the Mexicans arrived on the same day. It was a Wednesday, early in September 1952. The Cardinals were five games behind the Dodgers with two weeks to go, and the season looked hopeless. The cotton, however, was waist high to my father, almost over my head, and he and my grandfather could be heard before supper whispering words that were seldom heard. It could be a "good crop." Thus begins the... (more)

MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD

by Erich Segal

From Eric Segal comes an unforgettable story of love....the drama of a father and the son he never knew... And a marriage that must stand the greatest test of all. Man, Woman And Child . Bob and Sheila Beckwith had everything: rewarding careers, two wonderful daughters, and a perfect marriage... almost perfect. for what Sheila didn't know was that Bob has once been unfaithful-only once, ten years ago... (more)

The Accidental Tourist: A Novel (Ballantine Reader's Circle)

The Accidental Tourist: A Novel (Ballantine Reader's Circle)

by Anne Tyler

“POIGNANT . . . FUNNY . . . THE ACCIDENTAL TOURIST IS ONE OF HER BEST. . . . <TYLER> HAS NEVER BEEN STRONGER.” – The New York Times Macon Leary is a travel writer who hates both travel and anything out of the ordinary. He is grounded by loneliness and an unwillingness to compromise his creature comforts when he meets Muriel, a deliciously peculiar dog-obedience trainer who up-ends Macon’s insular... (more)

The Secret Life Of CeeCee Wilkes (Mira Hardbacks S.)

The Secret Life Of CeeCee Wilkes (Mira Hardbacks S.)

by Diane Chamberlain

An unsolved murder. A missing child. A lifetime of deception. In 1977, pregnant Genevieve Russell disappeared. Twenty years later, her remains are discovered and Timothy Gleason is charged with murder. But there is no sign of the unborn child. CeeCee Wilkes knows how Genevieve Russell died, because she was there. And she also knows what happened to the missing infant, because two decades ago she made the... (more)

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox

by Maggie O'Farrell

In the middle of tending to the everyday business at her vintage-clothing shop and sidestepping her married boyfriend’s attempts at commitment, Iris Lockhart receives a stunning phone call: Her great-aunt Esme, whom she never knew existed, is being released from Cauldstone Hospital—where she has been locked away for more than sixty-one years. Iris’s grandmother Kitty always claimed to be an only child. But... (more)

Amy and IsabelleElizabeth Strout

Amy and Isabelle

by Elizabeth Strout

Amy Goodrow, a shy high school student in a small mill town, falls in love with her math teacher, and together, they cross the line between fantasy and reality. When discovered, this emotional and physical trespass brings disgrace to Amy's mother, Isabelle, and intensifies the shame she feels about her own past. The two retreat into silence. This conflict is surrounded by other large and small dramas in the small... (more)

Burned

by Ellen Hopkins

I do know things really began to spin out of control after my first sex dream. It all started with a dream. Nothing exceptional, just a typical fantasy about a boy, the kind of dream that most teen girls experience. But Pattyn Von Stratten is not like most teen girls. Raised in a religious -- yet abusive -- family, a simple dream may not be exactly a sin, but it could be the first step toward hell and eternal... (more)

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle: A Novel

by David Wroblewski

Born mute, speaking only in sign, Edgar Sawtelle leads an idyllic life with his parents on their farm in remote northern Wisconsin. For generations, the Sawtelles have raised and trained a fictional breed of dog whose thoughtful companionship is epitomized by Almondine, Edgar's lifelong friend and ally. But with the unexpected return of Claude, Edgar's paternal uncle, turmoil consumes the Sawtelles' once peaceful... (more)

My Sister's Keeper

A Novel

by Jodi Picoult

New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult is widely acclaimed for her keen insights into the hearts and minds of real people. Now she tells the emotionally riveting story of a family torn apart by conflicting needs and a passionate love that triumphs over human weakness. Anna is not sick, but she might as well be. By age thirteen, she has undergone countless surgeries, transfusions, and shots so that her... (more)

Vanishing Acts: A Novel

by Jodi Picoult

How do you recover the past when it was never yours to lose? Delia Hopkins has led a charmed life. Raised in rural New Hampshire by her beloved, widowed father, she now has a young daughter, a handsome fiance, and her own search-and-rescue bloodhound, which she uses to find missing persons. But as Delia plans her wedding, she is plagued by flashbacks of a life she can't recall...until a policeman knocks on her... (more)

The Condition: A Novel

by Jennifer Haigh

The Condition tells the story of the McKotches, a proper New England family that comes apart during one fateful summer. The year is 1976, and the family, Frank McKotch, an eminent scientist; his pedigreed wife, Paulette; and their three beautiful children has embarked on its annual vacation at the Captain's House, the grand old family retreat on Cape Cod. One day on the beach, Frank is struck by an image he... (more)

The Westing Game

by Ellen Raskin

The Westing Game is a very good mystery. You will be surprised who commited what crime and why.

Before The Storm

by Diane Chamberlain

Fifteen-year-old Andy Lockwood is special. Others notice the way he blurts out anything that comes into his mind, how he cannot foresee consequences, that he's more child than teenager. But his mother sees a boy with a heart as open and wide as the ocean. Laurel Lockwood lost her son once through neglect. She's spent the rest of her life determined to make up for her mistakes, and she's succeeded in becoming a... (more)

A Wolf at the Table

A Memoir of My Father

by Augusten Burroughs

“As a little boy, I had a dream that my father had taken me to the woods where there was a dead body. He buried it and told me I must never tell. It was the only thing we’d ever done together as father and son, and I promised not to tell. But unlike most dreams, the memory of this one never left me. And sometimes…I wasn’t altogether sure about one thing: was it just a dream?” When Augusten Burroughs was small,... (more)

One Mississippi: A Novel

by Mark Childress

An uproariously funny and deeply moving novel about growing up in the South by the acclaimed author of Crazy in Alabama. When Daniel Musgrove's family moves to a small Mississippi town at the beginning of his junior year, he faces all the pain and thrills of adolescence, with extra helpings of hormones and humiliation. But then he meets Tim, a fellow outsider, and the two become fast friends. You only need one... (more)

Lighthousekeeping

by Jeanette Winterson

Lighthousekeeping tells the tale of Silver ("My mother called me Silver. I was born part precious metal, part pirate."), an orphaned girl who is taken in by blind Mr. Pew, the mysterious and miraculously old keeper of a lighthouse on the Scottish coast. Pew tells Silver stories of Babel Dark, a nineteenth-century clergyman. Dark lived two lives: a public one mired in darkness and deceit and a private one bathed in... (more)

Genevieve

by Eric Jerome Dickey

The sensational New York Times bestselling novel, now in paperback Genevieve is brilliant and beautiful. Her husband has a thriving career. Together, they have a beautiful home in Los Angeles. Together, they're crazy in love. Then one day a family tragedy brings Genevieve back to her Alabama hometown, back to a past she hoped her husband would never discover, and back to secrets shared by her sister... (more)

Raveling

by Peter Moore Smith

Psychotherapist Katherine DeQuincy is torn between two brothers: handsome, successful Eric Airie and Pilot, her haunted, schizophrenic patient. Especially when Pilot begins telling her secrets only he knows and only he can share... "I AM OMNISCIENT". Allowing herself to fall in love with Eric and trying to save Pilot, Katherine grapples with the mystery the two brothers have in common: the agonizing... (more)

Summer's Child

by Luanne Rice

THERE’S A PLACE IN OUR HEARTS RESERVED FOR MIRACLES… From Luanne Rice, the celebrated author of Beach Girls and many other New York Times bestsellers, comes this powerful novel of a mystery, a love affair, and a bond that cannot be broken set in a seaside town where miracles are made... On the first day of summer, Mara Jameson went out to water her garden–and was never seen again. Years after her... (more)

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: family drama

by Barbara Fisher, Joyce Carol Oates

by John Grisham

by Erich Segal

by Anne Tyler

by Diane Chamberlain

by Maggie O'Farrell

by Elizabeth Strout

by Ellen Hopkins

by David Wroblewski

A Novel

by Jodi Picoult

by Jodi Picoult

by Jennifer Haigh

by Ellen Raskin

by Diane Chamberlain

A Memoir of My Father

by Augusten Burroughs

by Mark Childress

by Jeanette Winterson

by Eric Jerome Dickey

by Peter Moore Smith

by Luanne Rice