A Literary Prescription for

Family

For the family you were given and the family you find, in all its tangle and its love.

Family is the most tangled love most of us ever know, and it is not always a matter of blood. For some it is the deepest belonging there is. For others it is the first place we learn what belonging is not, and home turns out to be the family we go and find for ourselves. Wherever you fall, these books and poems are for the whole of it, the family you were given and the family you gather along the way.

Books Poetry Quotes & Prose

Books

Prescribed reading

Some of these are wise, forgiving guides to the relationships that shape us, and some are great novels of families in all their loyalty and difficulty. Non-fiction and fiction together, they share one consoling truth: that a complicated family is not a failing but the ordinary human condition, and that understanding is where its tangles begin to loosen.

Little Women

Louisa May Alcott · 1868

Alcott’s beloved chronicle of the four March sisters and their mother remains, more than a century and a half on, the great novel of family warmth, quarrels, grief and devotion. Its portrait of ordinary domestic love has comforted generations. A timeless, tender read for anyone who wants to be reminded what a family, at its best, can be.

East of Eden

John Steinbeck · 1952

Steinbeck’s sweeping epic of two families across generations wrestles with inheritance, rivalry and the possibility of choosing goodness over the patterns we are handed. Ambitious and deeply humane, it is one of the great novels about what families pass down, and what we can refuse. A profound read for anyone thinking about the shadows and gifts of their own line.

The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read

Philippa Perry · 2019

Perry’s wise, compassionate guide is really about all family relationships: how we repeat what we knew, how to repair ruptures, and how to break unhelpful patterns. Warm and refreshingly non-judgemental, it helps you understand yourself as well as your family. Genuinely useful for anyone wanting to parent, or simply relate, a little better.

This Is Where I Leave You

Jonathan Tropper · 2009

When their father dies, four grown siblings are forced to sit together for a week, and all the old wounds, jokes and love come flooding back. Tropper’s novel is very funny and unexpectedly moving, capturing the particular chaos of adult siblings under one roof. A cathartic, warm-hearted read for anyone with a complicated family they still love.

Hamnet

Maggie O’Farrell · 2020

O’Farrell imagines the family behind Shakespeare, and the death of his young son, in prose of extraordinary tenderness. It is a novel about marriage, motherhood and grief, and the way a family holds and is broken by love. Luminous and heartbreaking, it lingers long after the final page. One of the most beautiful family novels of recent years.

The Corrections

Jonathan Franzen · 2001

Franzen’s acclaimed novel gathers a scattered Midwestern family for one last Christmas, exposing all their disappointments, secrets and stubborn love. Sharp, funny and enormous in scope, it captures the modern family with unnerving accuracy. A big, absorbing read for anyone who recognises the push and pull of trying to go home again.

Poems about family

For the ties that bind

from “My Mother”

Jane Taylor, 1804

Who fed me from her gentle breast,
And hush’d me in her arms to rest,
And on my cheek sweet kisses prest?
My Mother.
…And can I ever cease to be
Affectionate and kind to thee,
My Mother?

Taylor’s much-loved poem, once known by heart in countless homes, is a child’s simple, grateful tribute to a mother’s constant care. Its plain, repeating tenderness still lands straight in the chest. A poem to read for, or to, the mother who did the quiet, endless work of raising you.

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from “Rock Me to Sleep”

Elizabeth Akers Allen, 1860

Backward, turn backward, O Time, in your flight,
Make me a child again just for to-night!
Mother, come back from the echoless shore,
Take me again to your heart as of yore…

Allen catches a longing almost every grown child eventually knows: to be small again for one night, held by a mother now gone. It is grief and love and homesickness for childhood all at once. A tender, aching poem for anyone who misses the family home, or the people who made it home.

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from “The Toys”

Coventry Patmore, 1877

My little Son, who look’d from thoughtful eyes,
…I struck him, and dismiss’d
With hard words and unkiss’d,
…Then, fearing lest his grief should hinder sleep,
I visited his bed,
…Kissing away his tears, left others of my own.

Patmore’s poem tells of a widowed father who scolds his motherless boy, then finds him asleep and is overcome with remorse and love. It is one of the most honest poems ever written about the guilt and tenderness of imperfect family love. Deeply moving for any parent who has been too hard, and known it.

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Quotes & Prose

Quotes about family to keep

Family is not an important thing. It’s everything.

Michael J. Fox

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Other things may change us, but we start and end with the family.

Anthony Brandt

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The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other’s life.

Richard Bach

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In family life, love is the oil that eases friction.

Friedrich Nietzsche

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If the family you were born into never quite felt like home, you are allowed to go and build one that does.

Georgia Clare

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From Georgia

Holding it gently

A practice for gently tending the child within and easing old family hurts, and an essay on setting down the wounds we have carried too long.

Inner Child Healing for Peace & Safety

Guided meditation by Georgia Clare

A gentle practice for comforting the child you once were and easing the old hurts family can leave, so you can meet your people with more peace.

Listen Now For Free

How to Let Go of the Past

Personal essay by Georgia Clare · The Library

On gently setting down the old family wounds we have carried for years, and freeing ourselves to love, and be loved, more lightly.

Read the Essay →

The 21-Day Meditation Course

Guided Meditation Course · Georgia Clare

Three weeks of short, guided meditations to help you build a calm, steady daily practice, one day at a time.

Start the 21-Day Course →

Questions people ask

Reading for Family

Where should I start?

Start with This Is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper, a funny, moving novel about a dysfunctional family forced back under one roof, that gets the whole business exactly right. And for something warmer and timeless, Little Women remains the great novel of family love. The poems below are worth keeping for the tender days and the hard ones alike.

What can I read about family?

Whatever kind of family you are thinking about. The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read is a wise, forgiving guide to family relationships of every sort, and the novels here, from East of Eden to Hamnet, show families in all their difficulty, loyalty and love. Or begin with the poems and the lines to keep further down the page. Family is complicated for almost everyone; you are in good company.

Which quotes about family are worth keeping?

Quotes worth keeping include “The family is one of nature’s masterpieces.” (George Santayana), “Family is not an important thing. It’s everything.” (Michael J. Fox) and “Other things may change us, but we start and end with the family.” (Anthony Brandt). You will find these and more in the quotes section above.

Can reading really help me with my family?

It genuinely can. Family is the most tangled love most of us ever know, and reading offers both understanding and company: the wise books help you see your own family with more compassion, and the great family novels remind you that yours is far from the only complicated one. These pages will not smooth every difficulty. But they can soften how you hold it, and that is often where healing begins.

Family

Prescribed reading

For the ties that bind

Quotes about family to keep

Holding it gently

Reading for Family

Where should I start?

What can I read about family?

Which quotes about family are worth keeping?

Can reading really help me with my family?

More prescriptions await.