Concerns about aging, old age security, and intergenerational relations existed long before youth culture and falling fertility became such popular media topics. Lisa Dillon uses an examination of the censuses of Canada and the U.S. to break new ground by integrating statistical analyses of the historical data with a discourse analysis of ideas about age and old age. In The Shady Side of Fifty she explores the psychological, social, and economic dimensions of aging during a period of socio...

Spring 1905, England.When Helen Schlegel goes to stay at Howards End - the country home of the Wilcox family, her own life, along with that of her sister Margaret, is changed forever. This is the tale of three families at the beginning of the twentieth century: the rich Wilcoxes, the gentle, idealistic Schlegels and the lower-middle class Basts.Frequently cited as E. M. Forster's finest work, Howards End brilliantly explores class warfare, conflict...

Duty and love collide on the arid plains of central South Africa. Previously released as 'Karoo Plainsong' this is a fully revised debut novel.Cathleen Harrington leaves her home in Ireland in 1919 to travel to South Africa and marry the fiance she has not seen for five years. Isolated and estranged in a harsh landscape, she finds solace in her diary and the friendship of her housemaid's daughter, Ada. Cathleen recognises in her someone she can love and respond to in a way...

Five years ago, Tia fell into obsessive love with a man she could never have. Married, and the father of two boys, Nathan was unavailable in every way. When she became pregnant, he disappeared, and she gave up her baby for adoption.Five years ago, Caroline, a dedicated pathologist, reluctantly adopted a baby to please her husband. She prayed her misgivings would disappear; instead, she’s questioning whether she’s cut out for the role of wife and mother.Five years ago, Julie...

Grace Barnum’s life is precariously balanced on sensible choices and uncomfortable compromise. She dutifully edits textbooks that, she fears, may be more harmful than helpful to kids. She is engaged to a patent attorney who is sturdy and reliable. She has a cautious relationship with her fascinating father, a renowned New York artist. And she prefers her mom slightly drunk.Always a planner, Grace feels prepared for most eventualities. Until the responsibility-challenged Tyler Wilki...

Penguin Audio presents E.M. Forster's Where Angels Fear to Tread, adapted for listening and now available as a digital audiobook as part of the Penguin English Library series. This abridged version is read by Stephen Fry.'I had got an idea that everyone here spent their lives in making little sacrifices for objects they didn't care for, to please people they didn't love; that they never learned to be sincere - and, what's as bad, never learned how to e...

In the spirit of Loving Frank and The Paris Wife, acclaimed novelist Melanie Benjamin pulls back the curtain on the marriage of one of America’s most extraordinary couples: Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh.“The history [is] exhilarating. . . . The Aviator’s Wife soars.”—USA TodayNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERFor much of her life, Anne Morrow, the shy daughter of the...

New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Chiaverini is back with another enthralling historical novel set during the Civil War era, this time inspired by the life of “a true Union woman as true as steel” who risked everything by caring for Union prisoners of war—and stealing Confederate secrets.Born to slave-holding aristocracy in Richmond, Virginia, and educated by Northern Quakers, Elizabeth Van Lew was a paradox of her time. When her ...

Dubbed by Jane Smiley as a "quintessential American voice," Sandra Dallas has won over fans everywhere and become a frequent fixture on the New York Times best-seller list. Based on 19th-century history, True Sisters follows four women who pin their hopes for the future on a plan devised by Brigham Young to bring emigrants to Salt Lake City. Pushing two-wheeled handcarts loaded with all their life's belongings, the women set off on the 1,300-mile journey from Iowa City-and soon become fast...

A rapturous novel of star-crossed love in a time of war—from the international bestselling author of The Secret of Clouds.During the last moments of calm in prewar Prague, Lenka, a young art student, and Josef, who is studying medicine, fall in love. With the promise of a better future, they marry—only to have their dreams shattered by the imminent Nazi invasion. Like so many others, they are torn apart by the currents of war.Now a successful obstetrician in America, Josef ...

An epic story, set against the backdrop of World War I, from bestselling author Anita Shreve.When an American woman, Stella Bain, is found suffering from severe shell shock in an exclusive garden in London, surgeon August Bridge and his wife selflessly agree to take her in.A gesture of goodwill turns into something more as Bridge quickly develops a clinical interest in his houseguest. Stella had been working as a nurse's aide near the front, but she can't r...

In this provocative and starkly beautiful historical novel, a Quaker family moves from Pennsylvania to the Virginia frontier, where slaves are the only available workers and where the family' s values and beliefs are sorely tested. In 1798, Daniel Dickinson, recently widowed and shunned by his fellow Quakers when he marries his young servant girl to help with his five small children, moves his shaken family down the Wilderness Road to the Virginia/Kentucky border. Although determined to ho...