A boy recounts his annual summer trips to rural Illinois with his sister during the Great Depression to visit their larger-than-life grandmother.

The December solstice is a turning point. For some it represents a time of darkness, the shortest day of the year. But for others this event--just a few days before Christmas--is about hope, renewal, and rebirth. The author brings together five very different people, ranging in age from the teens to the mi-sixties, each of whom must confront very different challenges or losses.

Major Ernest Pettigrew (retired) leads a quiet life in the village of St. Mary, England, until his brother's death sparks an unexpected friendship with Mrs. Jasmina Ali, the Pakistani shopkeeper from the village. Drawn together by their shared love of literature and the loss of their respective spouses, the Major and Mrs. Ali soon find their friendship blossoming into something more. But will their relationship survive in a society that considers...

The author recalls his carefree life in a small midwestern town at the close of World War I and his adventures with his pet racoon, Rascal.

Tired of the winter, Jimmy wishes for a little excitement and, to his dismay, gets it.

In rural Indiana in 1904, fifteen-year-old Russell's dreams of quitting school and joining a wheat threshing crew are disrupted when his older sister takes over the teaching at his one-room schoolhouse after mean old Myrt Arbuckle "hauls off and dies."

In the summer of 1935, 13-year-old Briony Tallis wildly misinterprets the relationship between her sister Cecilia and Robbie Turner, childhood friends home from Cambridge. So when her young cousin is assaulted, Briony gives in to her hyperactive imagination and blames the atrocity on Robbie. It is a terrible decision that alters lives and fills Briony with an everlasting sense of guilt.

The second installment in the delightful, internationally acclaimed series featuring Bruno, Chief of Police: When a bevy of winemakers descend on Saint-Denis the idyllic town finds itself the center of an intense drama, with suspicious fires at the agricultural research station that is working on genetically-modified crops.
 
Two young men—Max, an environmentalist who hopes to make organic wine, and Fernando, the...