18 books like Dombey and Son
The Phantom Tollbooth
The Phantom Tollbooth is a children's fantasy adventure novel written by Norton Juster with illustrations by Jules Feiffer. It was published in 1961 by Random House (USA). It tells the story of a bored young boy named Milo who unexpectedly receives a magic tollbooth one afternoon and, having nothing better to do, drives through it in his toy car, transporting him to the Kingdom of Wisdom, once…
Shares: Community pick
Bitter Brew
"An engrossing saga of one of the wealthiest, longest-lasting, and most colorful family dynasties in the history of American commerce" (USA Today)."[An] Intoxicating reading. . . . This is a lurid, fascinating tale, which narrowly escapes the charge of being sensationalist thanks to its factual grounding and the significance of its subject—a family business that managed to dominate an industry…
Shares: Family-owned business enterprises, Businesspeople
The Faithless
Don't miss NO REGRET, the brand new novel from Martina Cole. Coming October 2025. With family, there's a dangerous line between love and hate... Reaching the darkest corners of family life, THE FAITHLESS by the 'undisputed queen of crime writing' (Guardian) and Sunday Times No.1 bestseller Martina Cole is an unputdownable novel about a deadly ambition that trumps family loyalty... Cynthia Tailor…
Shares: Dysfunctional families, Families
The Newcomes
The Newcomes is Thackeray's most essentially 'Victorian' novel, generous in its proportions, sharp in its criticism of the moral convolutions of the age, and encyclopaedic in its reference. Set in the 1830s and 1840s, a period of rapid change and of political and economic development, the novel considers the fortunes and misfortunes of a 'most respectable' extended middle-class family. The action…
Shares: Family, British and irish fiction, Families, Social life and customs
As I Lay Dying
Written in stream-of-consciousness style with multiple narrators, the story follows a journey wherein the family of a dead woman try to transport her body to her birthplace in Mississippi in accordance with her wishes. When a ford across a river is flooded they are forced to take a roundabout route and it becomes a desperate race to complete their mission before the body begins to decompose.
Shares: Problem families, Dysfunctional families, Families, Social life and customs
The silver spoon
Books for All Kinds of Readers Read HowYouWant offers the widest selection of on-demand, accessible format editions on the market today. Our 7 different sizes of EasyRead are optimized by increasing the font size and spacing between the words and the letters. We partner with leading publishers around the globe. Our goal is to have accessible editions simultaneously released with publishers' new…
Shares: Family, British and irish fiction, Families
Winter's Bone
Ree Dolly's father has skipped bail on charges that he ran a crystal meth lab, and the Dollys will lose their house if he doesn't show up for his next court date. With two young brothers depending on her, 16-year-old Ree knows she has to bring her father back, dead or alive. Living in the harsh poverty of the Ozarks, Ree learns quickly that asking questions of the rough Dolly clan can be a fatal…
Shares: Problem families, Dysfunctional families, Fathers and daughters
Rich Man, Poor Man
A novel of two brothers from the end of World War II to the 1960's. The story of Rudolph, Gretchen, and Thomas Jordache, children of an embittered German immigrant. Nurtured on traditional views of American success, each pursues the illusion of happiness in his own way, determined to achieve his "birthright."
Shares: Social conditions, Family, Families
The Man of Property
The first book of the Forsyte Saga, initially published in 1906 (the second was not published until 1921). Here the reader is introduced to the large Forsyte clan, with special attention paid to the rapacious Soames who’s urge to possess includes his beautiful wife Irene, who he eventually alienates by his jealous and grasping nature.
Shares: Family, British and irish fiction, Families, Social life and customs
Jimmy Corrigan
A graphic novel chronicles four generations of the Corrigan men, from 1893 to 1983.
"This first book from Chicago author Chris Ware is a pleasantly-decorated view at a lonely and emotionally-impaired 'everyman' (Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth), who is provided, at age 36, the opportunity to meet his father for the first time. An improvisatory romance which gingerly deports itself…
Shares: Problem families, Dysfunctional families, Family
Sail
Since the death of her husband, Anne Dunne and her three children have struggled in every way. In a last ditch effort to save the family, Anne plans an elaborate sailing vacation to bring everyone together once again. But only an hour out of port, everything is going wrong. The teenage daughter, Carrie, is planning to drown herself. The teenage son, Mark, is high on drugs and ten-year-old…
Shares: Problem families, Dysfunctional families
Irma Voth
The stifling, reclusive life of nineteen-year-old Irma Voth, recently married and more recently deserted, is turned on its head when a film crew moves in to make a movie about the strict religious community in which she and her family live.
Shares: Dysfunctional families, Fathers and daughters, Families
The uncommercial traveller
A collection of seventeen sketches which grew out of Dickens' insomnia. He took long walks through London at night and his observations resulted in these sketches.
Shares: British and irish fiction, Social life and customs, Classic Literature
The peppered moth
"It is 1912 and Bessie Bawtry is a small child living in Breaseborough, a South Yorkshire mining town. Unusually gifted, she sits quietly and studies hard, waiting for the day when she can sit the Cambridge entrance exam and escape the kind of life her ancestors have never even thought to question. Her parents are in awe of her - who is this swan-child, is she a freak? (Where did she get her…
Shares: Family, British and irish fiction, Social life and customs
The Italian Girl
Edmund has escaped from his family into a lonely life.Returning for his mother's funeral he finds himself involved in the old, awful problems together with some new ones. He also rediscovers the eternal family servant, the ever-changing Italian girl, who has always 'a second mother' This particular return to mother holds some surprises for Edmund.
Shares: Family, Families, Classic Literature
The Guilty River
During his lifetime, British fiction writer Wilkie Collins came to rival Charles Dickens in popularity and critical acclaim. Like Dickens, Collins often gravitated toward characters who overcame significant obstacles to learn important life lessons. The novella The Guilty River continues in this vein, recounting an against-all-odds love affair that blossoms between a couple that each…
Shares: British and irish fiction, Classic Literature
Fall On Your Knees:A Novel
The story of a jinxed family, a catalog of rape, incest and death. James Piper abuses his daughter, atones by sending her to New York to study singing while he goes to war, she returns pregnant, dies in childbirth when her mother opens her to save her twins. One of the twins dies, mother commits suicide, the second twin contracts polio while being baptized in a creek by an aunt, the aunt is raped…
Shares: Dysfunctional families, Family, Families
The dynamiter
All fourteen-year-old Robbie Hendrick ever wanted was a family. Yet as another Mississippi summer begins, his wayward mother has run off again fearing a breakdown and he's left to burn the days caring for his half brother, Fess. As the deep days and nights pass without her return and with older brother Lucas dangerously in their lives again, Robbie must face the fact that his dream of a family…
Shares: British and irish fiction, Classic Literature