For some of us the best part of Thanksgiving and the holidays is not the food or visiting with the old man but a chance for merrymaking with brothers and sisters. This list might remind you of why you miss your siblings and the way they annoy you, defend you, knock you down a peg or two (right when you need it), hold your secrets, lend you money - and how they are the only ones who speak your language.


Compiled by:
Christine F.
Bastards: a memoir

Mary Anna King
921 King Kin

Born into poverty in southern New Jersey and raised in a commune of single mothers, Mary Anna King watched her mother give away one of her newborn sisters every year to another family. All told, there were seven children: Mary, her older brother, and five phantom sisters. Then one day, Mary was sent away, too. Living in Oklahoma with her maternal grandfather, Mary gets a new name and a new life. But she's haunted by the past: by the baby girls she's sure will come looking for her someday, by the mother she had to leave behind, by the father who left her. Mary is a college student when her sisters start to get back in touch. With each reunion, her family becomes closer to whole again. Moving, haunting, and at times wickedly funny, Bastards is about finding one's family and oneself.


Blended: writers on the stepfamily experience

Samantha Waltz
306.8747 Ble

Explores stepfamilies from the inside out through the perspectives of thirty writers who know what it's like first hand. Sometimes funny, often poignant, and always deeply personal, the stories in Blended capture the essence of stepfamilies in all of their weird and wonderful varieties. The journeys range from the first encounters between new step-relatives, to marriages, honeymoons, daily experiences, and divorces. The diverse voices in Blended reflect the realities of today's world, in which yesterday's ideas of family structures and types just don't cut it anymore.


The brothers Bulger: how they terrorized and corrupted Boston for a quarter century

Howie Carr
921 Bulger Car

A portrait of Boston's infamous Bulger brothers, Whitey and Billy--one as the city's most feared mobster, the other as a power in the Massachusetts State Senate.


The brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and their secret world war

Stephen Kinzer
920 Kin

A dual portrait of the powerful Cold War Secretary of State and his equally influential brother, the director of the CIA, places their lives and accomplishments against the history of their time to offer insight into how they shaped modern beliefs and America's international role.


Dimaggios: three brothers, their passion for baseball, their pursuit of the American dream

Thomas Clavin
796.3579 Cla

Journalist Tom Clavin draws on a wealth of source materials, interviews with family members and teammates, and in-depth reporting to reveal how three kids from an immigrant family found their way to the upper echelons of American sports and popular culture. This vivid portrait of a family is also an exploration of an era and a culture.


The dressmaker of Khair Khana : five sisters, one remarkable family, and the woman who risked everything to keep them safe

Gayle Tzemach Lemmon
921 Sediqi Tze

The incredible true account of Kamila Sidiqi who, when her father and brother were forced to flee Kabul, became the sole breadwinner for her five siblings. Armed only with grit and determination, she picked up a needle and thread and created a thriving business of her own and held her family together.


Honeymoon with my brother: a memoir

Franz Wisner
921 Wisner Wis

Days before they were to be married, Franz Wisner’s fiancée called it off. His family and friends decided he should have a big party and a honeymoon anyway, with his brother Kurt as his travel companion. Then he lost his dream job, so the brothers decided to leave their old lives behind them. They quit their jobs, sold all their possessions, and traveled around the world, visiting fifty-three countries for the next two years. Franz turned his heartbreak into an opportunity to learn about himself, the world, and the brother he hardly knew.


Sister mother husband dog, etc.

Delia Ephron
814.54 Eph

A collection of nonfiction essays featuring a story about the author's sister, Nora Ephron.


Sons of Wichita: how the Koch brothers became America's most powerful and private dynasty

Daniel Schulman
921 Koch Sch

Traces the complicated lives and legacies of these four tycoons – Charles, David, Bill, and Frederick - as well as their ambitions. Against a backdrop of scorched-earth legal skirmishes, Charles and David built Koch Industries into one of the largest private corporations in the world. Influenced by the sentiments of their father, who was present at the birth of the John Birch Society, Bill built a multi-billion dollar energy empire all his own, and earned notoriety as an America's Cup-winning yachtsman, a flamboyant playboy, and as a litigious collector of fine wine and Western memorabilia. Frederick lived an intensely private life as an arts patron, refurbishing a series of historic homes and estates.

 


The Wright Brothers

David McCullough
921 Wright Mcc

Far more than a couple of unschooled Dayton bicycle mechanics who happened to hit on success, the Wright Brothers were men of exceptional courage and determination, and of far-ranging intellectual interests and ceaseless curiosity, much of which they attributed to their upbringing. The house they lived in had no electricity or indoor plumbing, but there were books aplenty, supplied mainly by their preacher father, and they never stopped reading.  When they worked together, no problem seemed to be insurmountable. Wilbur was unquestionably a genius. Orville had such mechanical ingenuity as few had ever seen. That they had no more than a public high school education, little money and no contacts in high places, never stopped them in their “mission” to take to the air. Nothing did, not even the self-evident reality that every time they took off in one of their contrivances, they risked being killed.