A BBC TWO BETWEEN THE COVERS BOOK CLUB PICK (BOOKER PRIZE GEMS) 'Molly Keane is a mistress of wicked comedy' Vogue 'I really wish I had written this book. It's a tragi-comedy set in Ireland after the First World War. A real work of craftsmanship' Hilary Mantel I do know how to behave - believe me, because I know. I have always known . . . Behind the gates of Temple Alice, the aristocratic Anglo-Irish St Charles family sinks into a state of decaying grace. To Aroon St Charles, large and unlovely daughter of the house, the fierce forces of sex, money, jealousy and love seem locked out by the ritual patterns of good behaviour. But crumbling codes of conduct cannot hope to save the members of the St Charles family from their own unruly and inadmissible desires. This elegant and allusive novel established Molly Keane as the natural successor to Jean Rhys. 'I have read and re-read Molly Keane more, I think, than any other writer. Nobody else can touch her as a satirist, tragedian and dissector of human behaviour. I love all her books, but Good Behaviour and Loving and Giving are the ones I return to most' Maggie O'Farrell

Dortmunder agrees to do a dangerous favor for a gang of nuns It was supposed to be a simple caviar heist. Dortmunder is almost in the building when the alarm sounds, forcing him up the fire escape and onto the roof. He leaps onto the next building, smashing his ankle and landing in the den of the worst kind of creature he can imagine: nuns. Although decades removed from his Catholic orphanage, Dortmunder still trembles before the sisters’ habits. But these nuns are kinder than the ones he grew up with. They bandage his wound, let him rest, and don’t call the cops—for a price. The father of the youngest member of their order, disgusted by their vow of silence, has kidnapped his daughter, locked her in a tightly guarded penthouse apartment, and is attempting to convince her to renounce her faith. The nuns ask Dortmunder to rescue the girl. It’s an impossible assignment—but one he cannot refuse.

Jailed at age sixteen for armed robbery, Nathan Henry was the kind of teenager most parents and teachers have nightmares about. His crime was the culmination of a life lived on the edge: guns and drugs, sex and violence, all set against the ordinary backdrop of a one-stop light town in rural Indiana. Nate's personal history is both disturbing and fascinating. A rough childhood becomes an adolescence full of half-realized violent fantasies that slowly build to the breaking point. But these scenes alternate with chapters about Nate's time in jail, where through reading and reflection he comes to see that his life can be different from all he's known up to this point. Nathan's story of his year in jail and the life that led him there combine to create a powerful portrait of an American youth gone bad-and a moving story of redemption.

Have you ever fantasized about taking time away from your overworked life? Nights uninterrupted by email? Days to pursue set-aside dreams? Do you promise yourself that “someday” you will get a break? Mary Lou Quinlan had those “someday” thoughts. But her hard-earned job as CEO of a New York advertising agency claimed most of her waking hours. Exhausted and losing motivation, she was so desperate she perversely imagined breaking her leg to get some time alone. Then, she declared a brief timeout. During her time off, she slept late, took walks, danced the salsa, kept a journal and ultimately, uncovered the roots of a new business. In the process, she rediscovered herself. Time Off for Good Behavior is the result of listening to women like her, who realized enough was enough. Quinlan tells no-holds-barred stories of dozens of women who sacrificed their health, relationships, their good humor and a good night’s sleep until they found the courage to ask themselves if they were happy with the life they were living and made the decisions to take life-saving breaks. Mary Lou Quinlan explores the factors that compel you to work so hard and examines how to take back control of your life. She explores our unwillingness to give ourselves permission to rest so that we can re-imagine our futures. And she shows the powerful, self-fulfilling changes that can occur when we do decide to take that rest. Whether you contemplate leaving a career that took years to build or just need a long vacation to assess what you want next, you’ll find practical tools and bolstering advice throughout. Each chapter ends with provocative questions to help you plan your good behavior reprieve. Specific exercises on financial planning, advice for negotiating time off, and tools to uncover your passions make this a must-read for women who are ready for “someday.” Time off for Good Behavior ultimately shows that stepping away from everything—even for a short while—often means ending up with so much more.

Inspired by the rise of environmental psychology and increasing support for behavioral research after the Second World War, new initiatives at the federal, state, and local levels looked to influence the human psyche through form, or elicit desired behaviors with environmental incentives, implementing what Joy Knoblauch calls “psychological functionalism.” Recruited by federal construction and research programs for institutional reform and expansion—which included hospitals, mental health centers, prisons, and public housing—architects theorized new ways to control behavior and make it more functional by exercising soft power, or power through persuasion, with their designs. In the 1960s –1970s era of anti-institutional sentiment, they hoped to offer an enlightened, palatable, more humane solution to larger social problems related to health, mental health, justice, and security of the population by applying psychological expertise to institutional design. In turn, Knoblauch argues, architects gained new roles as researchers, organizers, and writers while theories of confinement, territory, and surveillance proliferated. The Architecture of Good Behavior explores psychological functionalism as a political tool and the architectural projects funded by a postwar nation in its efforts to govern, exert control over, and ultimately pacify its patients, prisoners, and residents.

An invaluable child care reference that contains over 1,200 sensible solutions to every conceivable childhood problem from birth through age 12.