Short Family

This is a mini-sequel to The Other Son, a little gift for all those listeners who have been begging to know what happens next. Alice has been lying to herself for years, holding fast to the belief that the needs of her family far outweigh her own. But her outwardly successful marriage hides dark secrets, and for much of her life, the children were the only reason she stuck around.

always wondered, How does she do it? Defying gravity is no easy trick. Neither is motherhood. Now that her mother is leaving New York for bigger skies in New Mexico, it’s a new stage in life for both of them in an ever-evolving relationship that reveals the true magic of being a mother.

A trip to the library prompts one woman to question her fate in this galvanizing short story. For a woman like Hadley, deemed not acceptable to procreate, there’s only one recourse. Unlicensed for motherhood, she can alleviate her grief and frustration at a “baby library,” where a curiously endless supply of infants is available for a two-week loan. But the borrowed life that serves as a temporary balm leads to a journey of self-discovery that will forever change the direction of Hadley’s future.

From USA Today best-selling author Nancy Warren comes a series of heartwarming contemporary romances about a family named Chance. Save when you buy the full set!

In Mules and Men, some of the rich cultural heritage of black America is revealed and preserved. In the 1930s, Zora Neale Hurston returned to her home town of Eatonville, Florida, to collect and record the oral histories, songs, and sermons, many dating back to slavery times, that she remembered hearing as a child. These highly metaphorical folktales, "big old lies", and powerful songs helped her to recover her history, and preserve an important part of American culture.

Lonely, thanklessly courteous, and without the benefit of status, Gordon Schulmeister is only tolerated in his younger, hip, and gentrified Oakland neighborhood. Now, amid the tensions of a pandemic, the cantankerousness of his landlord, and dog sitting an intimidating pit bull, Gordon has never felt the target on his back so acutely. To keep his neighbors off his heels, with some hope and a sigh, Gordon might have to finally speak up.

Ayesha Shetty lost her brother seven years ago, the same time she lost everything else important to her: her dreams, her fierce independence, and the man she loved. Not wanting to see her mother hurt anymore, she put her wild self away and became the dutiful daughter her mother needed and took on her brother’s role in the family business. Now her best friend’s big, fat Indian wedding is a chance to get away from her endless duties at the restaurant and maybe even have some fun (if she remembers how).

A man recalls his father's advice on how to save a drowning person, but struggles when the time comes to use it. A wife’s good deed leaves a couple vulnerable at the moment when they’re most in need of security—the birth of their first child. Newly in love, a man preoccupied by accounts of freak accidents is befallen by one himself. In stories about love and fear, idealisms and illusions, failures of muscle and mind and all the ways we try to care for one another, Steven Heighton’s Instructions for the Drowning is an indelible last collection by a writer working at the height of his powers.

Milly-Molly-Mandy lives in a tiny village in the heart of the countryside, where life is full of everyday adventures! Join the little girl in the candy-striped dress as she has a tea-party, looks after a baby hedgehog and helps to thatch a roof – whatever Milly-Molly-Mandy and her friends are...

The stunning novella that concludes John Updike's acclaimed Rabbit series is now available on audio. Set 10 years after Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom's death, Rabbit Remembered returns listeners to the small Pennsylvania town where Harry's widow, Janice, and his son, Nelson, still reside. They are faced with a surprise when Annabelle, Harry's 39-year-old illegitimate daughter, arrives on the scene, bringing with her ghosts from the past.

Motherhood isn’t always what’s expected. One woman may delight in navigating the unknowable, while another may look to the past to chart the course ahead. Still another may have the urge to redefine the relationship between mother and child. For each, the journey can be heartwarming and heartbreaking, ever changing and challenging. In these provocative stories, acclaimed authors probe the growing pains that can change the lives of both mother and child in ways they never imagined.

In these eight powerful, emotionally absorbing stories, a romance unexpectedly sparks between two wounded friends; a marriage ends for what seem like noble reasons, but with irreparable consequences; a young woman holds on to an impossible dream even as she fights for her survival; two lovers reunite after unimaginable tragedy, both for their country and in their lives; a baby's christening brings three generations of a family to a precarious dance between old and new; a man falls to his death in slow motion, reliving the defining moments of the life he is about to lose.

In the chaos of a maternity ward, memories of tragedy and grief come rushing back for an anxious mother-to-be as she struggles to balance her child’s needs with her own healing. Rushed into an emergency cesarean section, a woman finds herself in the same hospital where her suicidal mother died. She’s buried the trauma of her mother’s last hours--and also the dread that she might be just as vulnerable to breaking. As the new mother relives one crisis in the midst of another, prize-winning author Julie Orringer turns the joyous event of birth into a harrowing, poignant short story.

It's not just how much time you have with your kids, but how you spend that time that matters in the life and legacy of a family. No Regrets Parenting focuses on the simple truth that the long days of busy parenting race quickly by and, looking back someday, the years with kids will feel far too short. Written by renowned pediatrician, celebrated author, and distinguished parenting expert, Dr. Harley Rotbart, No Regrets Parenting, Updated and Expanded Edition helps parents readjust their perspectives and priorities.

The first ever collection of short stories from the New York Times bestselling, National Book Award-winning author of The Friend Over the course of thirty years, Sigrid Nunez has become one of contemporary fiction’s most distinctive voices, producing nine penetrating, profound novels...

Most readers are familiar with Jack London's stories of the frozen northland, such as White Fang and To Light a Fire, but many critics feel he should be equally acknowledged for his fascinating stories of the South Pacific. Here is another remote corner of the world, a background for his magnificently colorful and entertaining Tales of the South Pacific.

From the award-winning author of the national bestseller Idaho comes a stunning collection of stories that explore how unexpected intuitions forever alter the lives of ordinary people. Five years after moving into the isolated house in rural Oregon where her husband lived as a child, the...

When Jules first meets the handsome artist Kirin, she’s still mourning her husband’s death, but a fairytale romance soon sweeps her off her feet. Now she and her daughter Scout are moving out of the city and into Kirin’s once-lonely mansion. He’s thoughtfully updated and adapted the home to match their personalities. But Scout is determined to keep her father’s memory alive by rejecting the new life her mother and Kirin have spun for her.

From best-selling author D.L. Lane comes four more original stories featuring her beloved characters from the Cedar Point series that are sure to tug at your heartstrings and make you smile. So step into Cedar Point and fall in love all over again with When We Are One. This collection showcases Breckin and Mason from book one of the series in Ten Things. Gage and Danica from book two are in The Shape of You. Book three’s Alli and Cooper are Under the Aegean Sun, and Kasey and Caleb from book four are featured in Moondance.

A couple awakens in a home in the woods to find themselves rapidly aging as their toddler remains unchanged. A work-worn employee navigates conspiracy theories and the threat of violence in an abandoned office. A tour guide leads a troublesome group to an ancient structure, apparently nonhuman in origin, discovering along the way that the most mysterious creatures of all are right beside him.