Burnham Memorial Library

""Commonwealth is the story of two broken families and the paths their lives take over the course of 40 years, through love and marriage, death and divorce, and a dark secret from childhood that lies underneath it all""-- ""The acclaimed, bestselling author--winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize--tells the enthralling story of how an unexpected romantic encounter irrevocably changes two families' lives. One Sunday afternoon in Southern...

"When Irene America discovers that her artist husband, Gil, has been reading her diary, she begins a secret Blue Notebook, stashed securely in a safe-deposit box. There she records the truth about her life and marriage, while turning her Red Diary--hidden where Gil will find it--into a manipulative charade. As Irene and Gil fight to keep up appearances for their three children, their home becomes a place of increasing violence and secrecy. And Irene...

Written by the award-winning author of Little Altars Everywhere, this is a funny tour de force of women's, and especially mother-daughter, relationships. SiddaLee Walker prides herself on having escaped her Louisiana hometown and her mother, Vivi Abbot Walker, a local beauty and town character. In her brilliant balance of intergenerational transformation, Wells has created a breathtaking tale of separation and reunion.

Publisher Annotation: Robin Benway?s beautiful interweaving story of three very different teenagers connected by blood explores the meaning of family in all its forms?how to find it, how to keep it, and how to love it.

In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is planned - from the layout of the winding roads, to the colors of the houses, to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose guiding principle is playing by the rules. Enter Mia Warren - an enigmatic artist and single mother - who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenaged daughter Pearl, and...

"An epic novel about a son, the mother who left him as a child, and how his search to uncover the secrets of her life leads him to reclaim his own"--

At the heart of this 1930 novel is the Bundren family's bizarre journey to Jefferson to bury Addie, their wife and mother. Faulkner lets each family member--including Addie--and others along the way tell their private responses to Addie's life.

Alice experiences the joys and embarrassments of seventh grade while advising her father and older brother on their love lives.

"What’s more important: Knowing the truth or keeping the peace? Seventeen-year-old Avery Anderson is convinced her senior year is ruined when she's uprooted from her life in DC and forced into the hostile home of her terminally ill grandmother, Mama Letty. The tension between Avery’s mom and Mama Letty makes for a frosty arrival and unearths past drama they refuse to talk about. Every time Avery tries to look deeper, she’s turned away, leaving...

Bull Meecham is all Marine, a fighter pilot, and absolute ruler of his family. Ben, his oldest son has to fight against a father who doesn't give in.