The pure gold baby

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Gisela Bock and Pat Thane

"This important collection is the first to analyse the influence of women's movements on the emergence of Europe's welfare states and the limits to that influence. It reveals how these organizations influenced and promoted new welfare policies, particularly in relation to the needs of women and children. It not only examines these developments in the different countries, but explores state attitudes towards gender before and after the rise of the dictatorships in Germany, Italy and Spain, in comparison to democracies in Britain, France, Sweden and Norway."--BOOK JACKET. "These studies go further than revealing how European women sought to obtain more rights. By exploring how they sought to make effective use of them, they show that this widespread struggle for mothers' welfare was not a diversion from feminist goals, but intrinsic to the transformation of the gender-based distribution of resources and power in society. In emphasizing the role of women's history within a political, rather than a social context, the research throws new light on feminism, especially in the inter-war period, and makes a significant contribution to contemporary women's studies."--BOOK JACKET.

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Mary Lawson

"From "a talented writer whose lyrical, evocative writing invites comparisons to Rick Bass and Richard Ford" (Publishers Weekly, starred review) comes a deftly woven novel that examines the layered makeup of a family: the affections and resentments, obligations and sacrifices"-- "Set in a backwoods village in northern Canada, this is the story of a young woman who leaves her dysfunctional, male-dominated family to make a new life in London. With her dreamy mother abed upstairs, and her father passive in a house full of rambunctious, out of control male children from the age of 4-14, Megan has become the defacto mother, housekeeper, nurse, and lynchpin of her household. Wholly dependable, intelligent, lovely, they depend on her completely-- until one day she has had enough. She packs her bags and leaves for London knowing virtually no one. As she did in her previous two books, Mary Lawson flawlessly weaves the narration of Megan's life and love with the consequences of her departure at home, particularly for her youngest brother Adam, age 4, who has retreated into himself out of insecurity and neglect. Lawson is particularly fine in calibrating the emotional core of her characters, and the choice Megan must make, which, while poignant, in Lawson's hands is also an affirmation of what is, finally, universally important"--

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Joanna Trollope

We all need to know where we come from, where we belong. But for David and Nathalie, this need is more urgent, because they are adopted. Brought up by the same parents, but born to two different mothers, Nathalie and David have grown up as brother and sister, and share a fierce loyalty. Their decision as adults to try to find their birth mothers is no straightforward matter. It affects, acutely and often painfully, their spouses and children, the people they work with, and, most poignantly, the two women who gave them up for adoption all those years ago. Exploring her subject with inimitable imagination and humanity, the celebrated author of Marrying the Mistress and The Rector’s Wife once again works her magic.

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Charles P. Graves

A biography of the New England grandmother who began painting seriously at age seventy and kept it up until she was over a hundred years old.