For a group of four New York friends, the past decade has been largely defined by marriage and motherhood. Educated and reared to believe that they would conquer the world, they then left prestigious jobs to stay home with their babies. What was meant to be a temporary leave of absence has lasted a decade. Now, at age forty, with the halcyon days of young motherhood behind them and without professions to define them, Amy, Jill, Roberta, and Karen

...

"The family routine is upset during Ramona's year in second grade when her father unexpectedly loses his job."--

"Benny Catspaw's perpetually sunny disposition is tested when he loses his job, his reputation, his fiancée, and his favorite chair. He's not paranoid. Someone is out to get him. He just doesn't know who or why. Then Benny receives an inheritance from an uncle he's never heard of: a giant crate and a video message. All will be well in time. How strange--though it's a blessing, his uncle promises. Stranger yet is what's inside the crate. He's a seven-foot-tall...

When he suddenly finds himself without his long-standing blue-collar job, Larry Crowne enrolls at his local college to start over. There, he becomes part of an eclectic community of students and develops a crush on his teacher. Now this simple guy will discover that when you think everything worth having has passed you by, you just might find your reason to live.

"A down-and-out so-and-so gets more than he bargained for when a wave of automation sweeps him and his kind out to an oil-black, petroleum-stink sea of indolent excess and the promise of A WORLD WITHOUT WORK"--

While helping his family make ends meet during the Depression by selling newspapers, a boy meets Babe Ruth.

A manager unexpectedly loses his job, leaving him $70,000 in debt. He and his wife team up to rob drug stores to keep up their lifestyle.

"Reluctant to leave her cherished New England hometown after her sister's winter wedding, former journalist Vera Sterling makes a sudden decision. She takes what's left of her severance pay and invests it in a drafty colonial home and old timber barn set upon the pretty banks of Addison Cove. In that rough-hewn barn, she discovers a secret treasure left behind by the previous owner, the proprietor of the long-forgotten Christmas Barn gift shop."--Cover...

Drawing from advice and inspiration from respected experts, celebrities, and business leaders, presents a self-help career book that shows how to navigate the world of unemployment without breaking down.

"A deep and troubling examination of the dark corners of working-class America, where unemployment and the loss of traditional jobs have produced an epidemic of drug abuse, bigotry, and even suicide, coupled with an urgent plea to rearrange our priorities to address the ills of middle America and emphasize the common good"-- "Is America in a state of irrevocable decline? In this provocative and disturbing examination of our country, Pulitzer Prize-winning...