A linked set of personal vignettes about Chinese immigrant mothers and their American-born daughters, arranged in distinct sections that echo a mahjong game's structure.

Three adult siblings carry different memories of their unconventional childhood with a difficult mother after their father's desertion.

A first-person life account that traces a Black lesbian’s development from childhood into adulthood, attending to family, work, lovers, and the communities that shaped her.

An academic family in the American Midwest navigates everyday routines, consumer culture, and family dynamics while an external technological/industrial threat forces questions about death, risk, and how people manage fear.

Set in a far-future, quasi-medieval city, the novel follows Severian, an apprentice in a torturers' guild, whose expulsion forces him to leave his home and travel into a decaying world.

Spanning several generations of a single family, the book traces how private lives, inherited memories, and supernatural intimations intersect with broader political upheaval. The central pressure comes from how family loyalties and personal histories respond to changing social orders and accumulating loss.

Jill Ker Conway recounts her childhood on a vast sheep station in western New South Wales and the disruptions—most notably drought and her father's death—that forced her family to leave for Sydney.

Three extended nonfiction essays look closely at distinct episodes where people tried to redirect, constrain, or rebuild around powerful natural forces: efforts on a major river system, responses to a volcanic eruption, and work against mountain debris flows.

A first-person account by an English butler who undertakes a road trip and uses the journey to recall years of service at a great house. The narrator reconstructs past events and relationships while confronting what his lifelong commitment to duty has cost him.