Berthoud Community Library District

"A warm, funny and keenly perceptive novel about the lifecycle of one family -- as the kids become parents, grandchildren become teenagers, and a matriarch confronts the legacy of her mistakes. When Astrid Strick witnesses a school bus accident in the center of town, it jostles loose a repressed memory from her young parenting days, decades years earlier. Suddenly, Astrid realizes she was not quite the parent she thought she'd been to her three, now-grown...

From the New York Times columnist, a portrait of a family and the cycles of joy and grief that mark the natural world: "Has the makings of an American classic." —Ann Patchett
Growing up in Alabama, Margaret Renkl was a devoted reader, an explorer of riverbeds and red-dirt roads, and a fiercely loved daughter. Here, in brief essays, she traces a tender and honest portrait of her complicated parents—her exuberant, creative mother;...

"Lisa Hudson feels more alive than she has in a long time after hiring hunky carpenter Mack Whitney to renovate her old Nantucket home. There's no denying the spark growing between them--despite the fact that Mack is ten years her junior. But her twentysomething children, Juliet and Theo, on the island for the summer, worry that the new relationship will only lead to Lisa's heartbreak. Yet Juliet and Theo are in for tangled love stories all their...

In her first memoir, Roz Chast brings her signature wit to the topic of aging parents. Spanning the last several years of their lives and told through a mixture of cartoons, family photos, documents, and a narrative as rife with laughs as it is with tears, Chast's memoir is both comfort and comic relief for anyone experiencing the life-altering loss of elderly parents. When it came to her elderly mother and father, Roz held to the practices of denial,...

"A woman hires a housekeeper to care for her aging parents-only to watch as she takes over their lives in this riveting novel of suspense from the New York Times bestselling author called "an ingenious master of domestic suspense" (Samantha M. Bailey). In the end, I have only myself to blame. I'm the one who let her in. Jodi Bishop knows success. She's the breadwinner, a top-notch real estate agent. Her husband, Harrison . . . not so much. Once, he...

The Caregiving Trap provides recommendations for exhausted and frustrated caregivers. Advocate, care navigator, and caregiving educator Pamela D. Wilson shares stories from her personal and professional experience that will help you navigate the challenges of caring for a loved one and help you replace feelings of guilt, sadness, and fatigue with calm and certainty. In The Caregiving Trap, you'll get step-by-step exercises to help you through common...

In telling the story of her own struggle to learn how to care for her aging and ailing mother, a journalist offers helpful insights and advice to other caregivers who feel overwhelmed.

"Family caregiving has its challenges: emotional overload, time constraints, anxiety, burnout, missed work, adult sibling conflicts, and marital issues. But caregivers also grow personally and spiritually by ensuring the well-being of a loved one. In AARP Meditations for Caregivers, clinical psychologists Barry J. Jacobs and Julia L. Mayer blend emotional and spiritual motivation to maximize the gains of caregiving while minimizing the strains. The...

Paul is the dutiful son of aging, upper-middle-class parents living in Florida, and a homosexual man plunged deliriously into the world of New York City's bars, baths, and one-night stands. Reveals the tragedy and comedy of one man's struggle to come to terms with middle age, homosexuality, truth, love, and life itself.

A guide for someday-caregivers to discuss end-of-life decisions with loved ones before the time comes to transition to the final move.