Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

For Kate Klein, a semi-accidental mother of three, suburbia has been full of unpleasant surprises. Her once-loving husband is hardly ever home. The supermommies on the playground routinely snub her. Her days are spent carpooling and enduring endless games of Candy Land, and at night, most of her orgasms are of the do-it-yourself variety. When a fellow mother is murdered, Kate finds that the unsolved mystery is... (more)

To Kill a Mockingbird

by Harper Lee

Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird. This is a lawyer's advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of this story - a black man charged with raping a white girl in the Deep South of the 1930s. To Kill a Mockingbird has become a staple of American literature and has been made into a feature-length film of the same name.

Hanging on to Max

by Margaret Bechard

It's Sam Pettigrew's last year of high school. And he's spending it figuring out how, at age seventeen, he is supposed to care for his baby son, Max. Max wasn't part of the plan. He wasn't even part of the backup plan. But he's here now, and Sam is attending an alternative high school with other teen parents like himself. Talk about a wake-up call. But Sam is determined to make it work, to show everyone -- his... (more)

Tell Me Lies

by Jennifer Crusie

If you think small-town life can be boring--think again. There are complex social rules: there are certain people with whom you fraternize and those you don't, and, of course, there is the all-powerful gossip. Everyone knows everything about everyone else. Don't they? That's what Maddie Farraday thinks until she finds a pair of black crotchless panties in her husband's car that don't belong to her. That's it;... (more)

I Know It's Over

by C. K. Kelly Martin

PURE. UNPLANNED. PERFECT. Those were Nick’s summer plans before Sasha stepped into the picture. With the collateral damage from his parents’ divorce still settling and Dani (his girl of the moment) up for nearly anything, complications are the last thing he needs. All that changes, though, when Nick runs into Sasha at the beach in July. Suddenly he’s neck-deep in a relationship and surprised to find he doesn’t... (more)

A Wild Ride Up the Cupboards: A Novel

by Ann Bauer

Edward is nearly four years old when he begins his slow, painful withdrawal from the world. For those who love him -- his father, Jack; his pregnant mother, Rachel; his younger brother, Matt -- the transformation of this happy, intelligent firstborn into a sleepless, feral stranger is a devastating blow, one that will send shockwaves through every nook and cranny of family life. A Wild Ride Up the Cupboards is... (more)

Slam

by Nick Hornby

Just when everything is coming together for Sam, his girlfriend Alicia drops a bombshell. Make that ex -girlfriend-- because by the time she tells him she's pregnant, they've already called it quits. Sam does not want to be a teenage dad. His mom had him at sixteen and has made it very clear how having a baby so young interrupted her life. There's only one person Sam can turn to--his hero, skating... (more)

What I Thought I Knew: A Memoir

by Alice Eve Cohen

A personal and medical odyssey beyond anything most women would believe possible At age forty-four, Alice Eve Cohen was happy for the first time in years. After a difficult divorce, she was engaged to an inspiring man, joyfully raising her adopted daughter, and her career was blossoming. Alice tells her fiancé that she’s never been happier. And then the stomach pains begin. In her unflinchingly honest and... (more)

We Need to Talk About Kevin: A Novel (P.S.)

We Need to Talk About Kevin: A Novel (P.S.)

by Lionel Shriver

In this gripping novel of motherhood gone awry, Lionel Shriver approaches the tragedy of a high-school massacre from the point of view of the killer's mother.In letters written to the boy's father, mother Eva probes the upbringing of this more-than-difficult child and reveals herself to have been the reluctant mother of an unsavory son. As the schisms in her family unfold, we draw closer to an unexpected climax... (more)

Parenting With Love And Logic (Updated and Expanded Edition)

Parenting With Love And Logic (Updated and Expanded Edition)

by Foster Cline

This parenting book shows you how to raise self-confident, motivated children who are ready for the real world. Learn how to parent effectively while teaching your children responsibility, and you'll establish healthy control without anger, threats, nagging, or power struggles. Indexed for easy reference.

Old Goriot (Penguin Classics)

by Honoré de Balzac

This fine example of the French realist novel contrasts the social progress of an impoverished but ambitious aristocrat with the tale of a father, whose obsessive love for his daughters leads to his personal and financial ruin.

The First Part Last

by Angela Johnson

Bobby's a classic urban teenager. He's restless. He's impulsive. But the thing that makes him different is this: He's going to be a father. His girlfriend, Nia, is pregnant, and their lives are about to change forever. Instead of spending time with friends, they'll be spending time with doctors, and next, diapers. They have options: keeping the baby, adoption. They want to do the right thing. If only it was clear... (more)

Four Seasons in Rome: On Twins, Insomnia, and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World

Four Seasons in Rome: On Twins, Insomnia, and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World

by Anthony Doerr

Anthony Doerr has received many awards -- from the New York Public Library, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the American Library Association. Then came the Rome Prize, one of the most prestigious awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and with it a stipend and a writing studio in Rome for a year. Doerr learned of the award the day he and his wife returned from the hospital with newborn... (more)

Bonjour Tristesse

by Francoise Sagan

Endearing, self-absorbed, seventeen-year-old Cécile is the very essence of untroubled amorality. Freed from the stifling constraints of boarding school, she joins her father—a handsome, still-young widower with a wandering eye—for a carefree, two-month summer vacation in a beautiful villa outside of Paris with his latest mistress, Elsa. Cécile cherishes the free-spirited moments she and her father share, while... (more)

The Children of Men (Vintage)

by P. D. James

Told with P. D. James's trademark suspense, insightful characterization, and riveting storytelling, The Children of Men is a story of a world with no children and no future. The human race has become infertile, and the last generation to be born is now adult. Civilization itself is crumbling as suicide and despair become commonplace. Oxford historian Theodore Faron, apathetic toward a future without a future,... (more)

Bubbles Unbound (Unabridged)

by Sarah Strohmeyer

Meet Lehigh, Pennsylvania's own Bubbles Yablonsky-a tube-top-wearing, gum-snapping hairdresser-turned-gun-toting gumshoe. From solving dark crimes to lightening dark roots, this hot sleuth in hot pants has everyone talking.

The Memory Keeper's Daughter

A Novel

by Kim Edwards

Kim Edwards’s stunning family drama evokes the spirit of Sue Miller and Alice Sebold, articulating every mother’s silent fear: what would happen if you lost your child and she grew up without you? In 1964, when a blizzard forces Dr. David Henry to deliver his own twins, he immediately recognizes that one of them has Down Syndrome and makes a split-second decision that will haunt all their lives forever. He... (more)

Daisy's Back in Town

by Rachel Gibson

Daisy Lee Monroe thought she'd brushed the dust of Lovett, Texas, off her high-heeled shoes years ago, but she's come back home only to find that little has changed. Her sister is still crazy, and her mom still has pink plastic flamingos in her front yard. And Jackson Lamott Parrish, the bad boy she'd left behind, is still so sexy it hurts. She'd like nothing better than to avoid this particular man, but she... (more)

Babyhood

by Paul Reiser

I'm going to be totally honest. This is not the kind of book that can help you. It's not a "how-to," "when-to," a "what-to-expect" book. It's not even endorsed by anyone remotely connected to the medical profession. (Although a cousin of mine who sells carpeting to doctors' offices not only found it "insightful" and "informative," but felt that, "if properly vacuumed, it should last a lifetime.") "A fine... (more)

Blame It On Chocolate (Hqn Romance)

by Jennifer Greene

Lucy Fitzhenry didn't just wake up one morning and decide to do something stupid . . . But when an experimental strain of chocolate that she'd developed needed testing, someone had to do it. Who knew that overindulging in her creation would turn an introverted plant lover into a wild nymphomaniac? Or that a celebration with Nick, her boss, would lead to a shocking kiss . . . and a whole lot more. She... (more)

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Tags: parenthood

by Jennifer Weiner