'I seem to have a life only for other people.' Lambert Strether, a mild middle-aged American of no particular achievements, is dispatched to Paris from the manufacturing empire of Woollett, Massachusetts. The mission conferred on him by his august patron, Mrs. Newsome, is to discover what, or who, is keeping her son Chad in the notorious city of pleasure, and to bring him home. But Strether finds Chad transformed by the influence of a remarkable woman;...

Late October. After midnight. You’re waiting up for your eighteen-year-old son. He’s past curfew. As you watch from the window, he emerges, and you realize he isn’t alone: he’s walking toward a man, and he’s armed. You can’t believe it when you see him do it: your funny, happy teenage son, he kills a stranger, right there on the street outside your house. You don’t know who. You don’t know why. You only know your son is now in custody,...

Ignatius J. Reilly of New Orleans--selfish, domineering, deluded, tragic and larger than life--is a noble crusader against a world of dunces. He is a modern-day Quixote beset by giants of the modern age. In magnificent revolt against the twentieth century, Ignatius propels his monstrous bulk among the flesh pots of the fallen city, documenting life on his Big Chief tablets as he goes, until his maroon-haired mother decrees that Ignatius must work....

"The powerful forces of science and family collide when Paige Robson, a genetic scientist whose life's work examines why some fathers can't bond with their children, finds her world in upheaval: her eight-year-old son Miles is struggling to fit in at his new school and begins asking questions about his biological father that Paige can't answer--until fate thrusts the anonymous donor she used into their lives. Paige's carefully constructed life begins...

"For young widow Ellen Wood, her Victorian home is a refuge--a place to feel safe with her eleven-year-old son, Charlie. But when money grows so tight that Ellen could lose the house, her sister, Hannah, makes a radical suggestion...rent out some of the rooms. Soon Ellen has three lodgers: Sabine, a German coworker of Hannah's, recently separated from her husband; Allegra, an eccentric but wise novelist; and Matt, an up-and-coming young journalist...

"A letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family's history that began before he was born--a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam--and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is...

Jack tries to have a perfect picnic with his mother, but things do not turn out as they expected.

Patrick Edward's fierce monster mother helps him deal with some obnoxious bullies.

Young Milo and his mother go for the same walk around their neighborhood every morning, but with Milo's imagination, there are always new things to see, old things to see in new ways, and the possibilities of what they will see tomorrow.

Mommy Fox and Little Fox walk through the woods and search for the top of the sky.