""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...

"In the wake of a shocking tragedy, Natalie Harper inherits her mother's charming but financially strapped bookshop in San Francisco. She also becomes caretaker for her ailing grandfather Andrew, her only living relative--not counting her scoundrel father. But the gruff, deeply kind Andrew has begun displaying signs of decline. Natalie thinks it's best to move him to an assisted living facility to ensure the care he needs. To pay for it, she plans...

Abandoned by their father and living in poverty with their heartless stepmother in Louisiana, two sisters from the Philippines, twelve-year-old Sol and six-year-old Ming, learn the true meaning of family.

Reconnecting on one of Charleston's most beautiful barrier islands, a pair of former sweethearts rediscover their feelings for one another while their jealous spouses pursue an unexpected attraction of their own over more than 20 years. Also marked by financial catastrophes, family tragedies and devastating heartbreaks.

In this novel the author takes us to Telegraph Avenue. It is a story that explores the profoundly intertwined lives of two Oakland, California families, one black and one white. Here he creates a world grounded in pop culture: Kung Fu, 1970s Blaxploitation films, vinyl LPs, jazz and soul music, and an epic of friendship, race, and secret histories. Longtime band mates Archy and Nat preside over Brokeland Records, a used-record emporium. All is well...

Macon Dead, Jr., known as Milkman, grows up in "his father's money-haunted, death-haunted house with his silent sisters and strangely passive mother" and with his friend Guitar who is connected to the secret avengers called the Seven Days, falls in love with his cousin Hagar, learns from bootlegging Aunt Pilate, and then heads south, lured by the promise of buried gold and the mysteries of his heritage.

Seventh-grader Zoey Albro focuses on caring for three younger siblings and avoiding rich classmates at school until her fascination with octopuses gets her on the debate team and she begins to speak out.

The family routine is upset during Ramona's year in second grade when her father unexpectedly loses his job.

Share with the Robinsons--a minister, his wife, and four sons--as they survive a shipwreck and then adapt to life on an island populated by exotic birds and animals. Through small successes and disappointments, not only does this courageous family survive, but comes to find a happiness that eluded them in their civilized homeland.

Beatrice Quimby's biggest problem was her little sister, Ramona. Beatrice was very patient with Ramona, but eventually she got so exasperated that she decided she did not like Ramona at all.