Books like The scoundrel and the optimist by Maceo Montoya

A Jewish American teen travels to Ukraine with a tattered photograph, seeking the woman who saved his grandfather during the Holocaust, guided by a quirky translator, a blind veteran, and an oddly named guide dog.

A young Patrick Melrose, five, faces the harshness of his father and the strain of his mother while awaiting guests on a single day, setting the stage for the family's dark unraveling.

David Duchovny’s comedy‑drama explores a father‑son reunion amid baseball lore, with a dying father whose health swings with his beloved Red Sox and a son who orchestrates a mythic winning streak to honor his heritage.

A scoundrel's surrender: A tale of love and redemption in 18th-century London

A sharply humorous debut that follows Ben Jewell as he navigates single fatherhood, a tribunal for his profoundly autistic son Jonah, and the tense dynamics with his cantankerous father, all set in a small north London home.

There is a simple concept in each of our lives that has the power to transform our future. It's nothing new, but it is often overlooked when searching for the "magic formula" of triumph or survival or success. It's the power of thought, and it is crucial in controlling the daily choices we make on our way to success or failure. As a 22 year old US Marine, Bryan Donahue considered himself extremely healthy and physically fit. Then he was told he had less than six months to live. To put things in perspective, in February of 1999, just eight months after Bryan was diagnosed, Super Bowl-winning running back Walter Payton--one of the top five-ranked football players in the history of the sport--was diagnosed with the same disease. He was dead by that Thanksgiving. If this disease could put a superman like Walter Payton in the grave in just months...what chance did Bryan have? A riveting account by Bryan Donahue and M. Rutledge McCall

At thirteen, Eli McCullough is taken captive by the Comanche, rises to the chief’s adopted son, and later struggles alone as frontier tensions and disease strip his people—an epic of survival and identity.

Maeve Binchy’s collection of witty, heart‑warming vignettes brings the residents of Chestnut Street to life, revealing the joys, sorrows, and quiet drama of everyday Dublin neighbourhoods.