I’ve been thinking about families this week. I just finished an excellent book called This Beautiful Life by Helen Schulman that tells the story of one family’s struggles after their teenage son makes a huge mistake (I’ll write more about the book later). I started thinking about how much I love reading about family dynamics and about how fascinating and unique each family is, not only real-life families, but fictional families as well. Some of my most memorable and thought-provoking reads have been novels about families. This week’s Pryday question is:
What are your favorite family sagas?
My most recent favorite novels that center on families are Shanghai Girls by Lisa See, a novel that explores the relationship between two Chinese immigrant sisters, Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese, a tale of twin brothers growing up in Ethiopia and Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson about two sisters and their shifting family loyalties.
How about you? What are your favorite family sagas?
A Certain Fondness 
marquez 100 years I really like ,all the best stu
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Oh too many! Laura Ingalls Wilder’s family, and the Finch family (To Kill a Mockingbird), and the Emerson family (Elizabeth Peters), and the Vorkosigan family (Lois Bujold), and the Palliser family (Trollope), and the family Duncan & Gemma are building in Deborah Crombie’s books. I love family sagas stretching over multiple books (obviously!)
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I enjoyed Cutting for Stone too and I also have a copy of Shanghai Girls from the library at the moment, so I’m glad to hear you liked that one! My favourite author of family sagas is Susan Howatch – I loved her books Penmarric and The Wheel of Fortune and keep meaning to re-read them sometime.
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I loved John Galsworhy’s Forsyte Saga and Rosamunde Pilcher’s family sagas. Also Winston Graham’s Poldark books, set in Cornwall.
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