The White Bookshelf is in the study of an Oxford Professor of Anthropology. It plays a significant role in the life of the whole family, but especially for his daughter Alice. The family is loving and supportive through all the trials of life. Alice moves with her husband, another anthropologist, to Australia. They enjoy great happiness as their family grows, and they learn to adjust to living in both Oxford and Queensland. They meet many interesting people and form close and lifelong friendships with their foreign colleagues. They travel to Canada, Australia, and England together and suffer illnesses and tragedies. Her friendships offer support throughout all the difficulties. The children of the three families are dubbed the 'anthropological cousins'. They intermarry and live on three different continents. The final part of the book deals with Alice as a widow and tells how, unexpectedly, she meets a man through her university colleagues who offers her another chance of happiness and a new life following her father's example of running charities.