In Holt, Colorado, widower Louis Waters is initially thrown when the widowed Addie Moore suggests that they spend time together, in bed, to stave off loneliness, but soon they are exchanging the confidences and memories.

"A fictional autobiography in an alternate 20th Century that chronicles one woman's unusual life, including the price she pays to survive and the cost her choices hold for the society she is trying to save."--

"A riveting new collection of short stories from the beloved, internationally acclaimed, Haruki Murakami. The eight masterful stories in this new collection are all told in the first person by a classic Murakami narrator: a lonely man. Some of them (like "With the Beatles," "Cream," and "On a Stone Pillow" ) are nostalgic looks back at youth. Others are set in adulthood--"Charlie Parker Plays Bossa Nova," "Carnaval," "Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey"...

When a persistent mutual friend and some very unpredictable weather conspire to toss Michael and Marnie together on the most epic of 10-day hikes, neither of them can think of anything worse, until, of course, they discover exactly what they've been looking for.

"In 1996, the unnamed narrator of Teddy Wayne's "Apartment" is attending the MFA writing program at Columbia on his father's dime and living in an illegal sublet of a rent-stabilized apartment. Feeling guilty about his good fortune, he offers his spare bedroom to Billy, a talented, charismatic classmate from the Midwest eking out a hand-to-mouth existence in Manhattan. The narrator's rapport with Billy develops into the friendship he's never had due...

When an old friend is killed, the senior partner at the law office where Benjamin Brooker works isn't satisfied with Bow Street's efforts. Benjamin agrees to investigate, and evidence takes him to Belle Island, a remote island on the Thames. Soon he finds himself falling for the main suspect-- a woman who claims not to have left the island in ten years. Isabelle Wilder leads a productive life, is trapped on the island by fear. The new of her trustee's...

"When Harry Westcott shipped off to fight in the Napoleonic Wars, he was near-fatally wounded. After recovering, the once cheery, light-hearted boy has become a reclusive man. Though Harry insists he enjoys the solitude, he does wonder sometimes if he is lonely. Lydia Tavernor, recently widowed, dreams of taking a lover. Her marriage to Reverend Isaiah Tavernor was one of service and obedience. Sometimes, she wonders if she is lonely. They find themselves...

Julia Greenfield is twenty-six years old and still a virgin... and something's got to change. She travels to spend the summer with her mysterious aunt Vivienne in North Carolina, and unearths a confounding secret: her 58 year old aunt is a virgin too. Julia becomes fixated on puzzling out what could have lead to Viv's appalling condition, all while trying to avoid the same fate.