Set in the Midwest in the early twentieth century—the dawn of the automobile age—the novel begins by introducing the richest family in town, the Ambersons. Exemplifying aristocratic excess, the Ambersons have everything money can buy—and more. But George Amberson Minafer—the spoiled grandson of the family patriarch—is unable to see that great societal changes are taking place, and that business tycoons, industrialists, and real estate developers...

The week of her tenth birthday, Alice and her parents go to Sanibel Island, Florida, just as they do every year, but this time some of the people who are always there are missing and some new people have come, which unsettles Alice, who wants things to be exactly the same as they alway are.

A chorus of men who died of AIDS observes and yearns to help a cross-section of today's gay teens who navigate new love, long-term relationships, coming out, self-acceptance, and more in a society that has changed in many ways.

Third-grader Clementine tries to adjust to the news that her perfect family of four is adding a new brother or sister.

On Pinch Island, eleven-year-old Flor O'Dell experiences a series of life changes after her best friend is sent away to a private school.

How could two hardworking people do everything right in life, a woman asks, and end up destitute? Willa Knox and her husband followed all the rules as responsible parents and professionals, and have nothing to show for it but debts and an inherited brick house that is falling apart. The magazine where Willa worked has folded; the college where her husband had tenure has closed. Their dubious shelter is also the only option for a disabled father-in-law...

The career of a model ends when she is disfigured in an accident. Suspecting the accident was the work of her ex-boyfriend and his new girlfriend, she takes revenge by slipping him a drug to grow breasts.

On an island in whose strict society only useful objects are named and the unnamed are ignored or forbidden, thirteen-year-old Medford encounters an unusual and powerful creature, half-man, half-goat, and together they attempt to bring some changes to the community.

"The Shame is a novel about technology, capitalism, motherhood, and the search for meaningful art"--

As his friends Bird, Mouse, and Bear celebrate the arrival of spring, Rabbit finds more and more things to dislike about the change of seasons until, at last, he admits that spring can be full of pleasant surprises.