A self-anointed spinster at 51, Myra Lipinski is reasonably content with her quiet life, her dog, Frank, and her career as a visiting nurse. But everything changes when Chip Reardon, the golden boy she adored in high school, is assigned as her new patient. Choosing to forgo treatment for an incurable illness, Chip has returned to his New England hometown to spend what time he has left. Now, Myra and Chip find themselves engaged in a poignant redefinition of roles, and a complicated dance of memory, ambivalence, and longing.

Nola McCollum is the most desirable girl in Arthur’s class, and he is thrilled when they become friends. But Arthur wants far more than friendship. Unfortunately, Nola has a crush on the wrong Moses—Arthur’s older brother, Frank, who is busy pursuing his own love interest and avoiding the boys’ father, a war veteran with a drinking problem and a penchant for starting fights. When a sudden tragedy rocks the family’s world, Arthur struggles to come to terms with his grief. In the end, it is nature that helps him to understand how to go on. But what can he do about Nola?

It is the summer of 1964. In Mississippi, tensions are mounting over civil-rights demonstrations occurring ever more frequently - and violently - across the state. But in Paige Dunn's small house, there are more immediate concerns. Challenged by the effects of the polio she contracted during her last month of pregnancy, Paige is determined to live as normal a life as possible and to raise her daughter, Diana, with the support of her tough-talking black caregiver, Peacie.

Three people find their way back from loss and loneliness to a different kind of belonging in this deeply moving novel. Arthur, an old widower struggling to overcome his grief, meets Maddy, a troubled teenage girl who avoids school by hiding out where Arthur goes every day for lunch. The two strike up a friendship that draws them out of isolation.

In this superb collection of short stories, Elizabeth Berg takes us into pivotal moments in the lives of women, when memories and events come together to create a sense of coherence, understanding, and change. In “Ordinary Life,” Mavis McPherson locks herself in the bathroom for a week, shutting out her husband and the realities of their life together — and, no, she isn’t contemplating a divorce. She just needs some time to think, to take stock of her life, and to arrive, finally, at a surprising conclusion.

Cecilia Ross is looking for a change. She has decided to take time off from her job as a successful motivational speaker and sell her home. She moves in to a beautiful old house in St. Paul, Minnesota, complete with a big front porch, a wild garden, a chef's kitchen - and three roommates. The four women are different ages, but all are feeling restless, and want to take a roadtrip to find the people and things they miss.

Ginny Young is on a plane en route to see her mother, whom she hasn't seen or spoken to for 35 years. She thinks back to the summer of 1958, when she and her sister, Sharla, were young girls. Moving back and forth in time between the girl she once was and the woman she's become, Ginny at last confronts painful choices that occur in almost any woman's life and learns surprising truths about the people she thought she knew best.

As soon as she arrives at her family's annual reunion, Laura Bartone realizes that something is not right with her sister. Wrapped up in past events, Caroline is the family's black sheep. When she confronts Laura and their brother with devastating allegations about their mother, the three have a difficult time reconciling their varying experiences in the same house. But a sudden misfortune will lead them all to face the past, their own culpability, and their common need for love and forgiveness.

Betta Nolan moves to a small town after the death of her husband to try to begin life anew. Though still dealing with her sorrow, Betta nonetheless is determined to find pleasure in her simple daily routines. Among those who help her in both expected and unexpected ways are the ten-year-old boy next door, three wild women friends from her college days with whom she reconnects, a young man who is struggling to find his place in the world, and a handsome widower who is ready for love.

On the hot Texas army base she calls home, Katie spends the lazy days of her summer waiting: waiting to grow up; waiting for Dickie Mack to fall in love with her; waiting for her breasts to blossom; waiting for the beatings to stop. Since their mother died, Katie and her older sister, Diane, have struggled to understand their increasingly distant, often violent father. While Diane escapes into the arms of her boyfriend, Katie hides in her room or escapes to her best friend’s house - until Katie’s admiration for her strong-willed sister leads her on an adventure that transforms her life.

Sam and Clementine have a wonderful, albeit, busy life: they have two little girls, Sam has just started a new dream job, and Clementine, a cellist, is busy preparing for the audition of a lifetime. If there’s anything they can count on, it’s each other. Clementine and Erika are each other’s oldest friends. A single look between them can convey an entire conversation. But theirs is a complicated relationship, so when Erika mentions a last minute invitation to a barbecue with her neighbors, Tiffany and Vid, Clementine and Sam don’t hesitate.

In a novel as warm and embracing as a family kitchen, Barbara O’Neal explores the poignant, sometimes complex relationships between mothers and daughters - and the healing magic of homemade bread. Professional baker Ramona Gallagher is a master of an art that has sustained her through the most turbulent times, including a baby at 15 and an endless family feud. But now Ramona’s bakery threatens to crumble around her. Literally. She’s one water-heater disaster away from losing her grandmother’s rambling Victorian and everything she’s worked so hard to build.

From the outside, the Davenports look like any other family living a completely ordinary life - until that devastating day when five-year-old Jonah is killed, and the family is torn apart. As the fury of guilt engulfs them, the Davenports slowly start to unravel, one by one. Losing her son forces Rachel to withdraw into a frayed, fuzzy reality. Her husband, Sam, tries to remain stoic, but he's consumed by regret with the choices he's made. Eden mourns her brother, while desperately fighting to regain a sense of normalcy.

It is 1950. London is still reeling from World War II, and Margery Benson, a schoolteacher and spinster, is trying to get through life, surviving on scraps. One day, she reaches her breaking point, abandoning her job and small existence to set out on an expedition to the other side of the world in search of her childhood obsession: an insect that may or may not exist - the golden beetle of New Caledonia. When she advertises for an assistant to accompany her, the woman she ends up with is the last person she had in mind.

Seventeen-year-old Noel Crowe is idling in the unexpected sunshine when Christy makes his first entrance into Faha, bringing secrets he needs to atone for. Though he can't explain it, Noel knows right then: something has changed. As the people of Faha anticipate the endlessly procrastinated advent of the electricity, and Noel navigates his own coming-of-age and his fallings in and out of love, Christy's past gradually comes to light, casting a new glow on a small world.

A self-anointed spinster at 51, Myra Lipinski is reasonably content with her quiet life, her dog, Frank, and her career as a visiting nurse. But everything changes when Chip Reardon, the golden boy she adored in high school, is assigned as her new patient. Choosing to forgo treatment for an incurable illness, Chip has returned to his New England hometown to spend what time he has left. Now, Myra and Chip find themselves engaged in a poignant redefinition of roles, and a complicated dance of memory, ambivalence, and longing.

Three people find their way back from loss and loneliness to a different kind of belonging in this deeply moving novel. Arthur, an old widower struggling to overcome his grief, meets Maddy, a troubled teenage girl who avoids school by hiding out where Arthur goes every day for lunch. The two strike up a friendship that draws them out of isolation.

By the time of his early death in 1988, Raymond Carver had established himself as one of the great practitioners of the American short story. Where I'm Calling From, his last collection, encompasses classic stories from Cathedral, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, and earlier Carver volumes, along with seven new works previously unpublished in book form.

Jonathan and Rosie have been together so long they finish each other's sentences - so when he (finally) proposes and asks her to move across the country with him, everyone is happily surprised. But when things suddenly unravel, Rosie sends Jonathan packing and moves back home with Soapie, the irascible, opinionated grandmother who raised her.

What if the one person you can't bear to be with is also the one person you can't bear to be without? Jamie McClintock is a free-spirited artist and single mother who has at last found peace and freedom sharing a farmhouse with an elderly man and his young grandson. But when the old man dies suddenly her idyllic country life comes to a halt as the old man's estranged son, Nate, returns to claim the house and his child.

When a gay Los Angeles magician named Parsifal dies suddenly, he leaves behind his heartbroken assistant, Sabine, and a secret past that leads her to Nebraska and a father she never knew he had.

Clare and Henry have known each other since Clare was six and Henry was 36. They were married when Clare was 23 and Henry was 31. Impossible but true, because Henry is one of the first people diagnosed with Chrono-Displacement Disorder: periodically his genetic clock resets and he finds himself misplaced in time, pulled to moments of emotional gravity from his life, past and future. His disappearances are spontaneous, his experiences unpredictable, alternately harrowing and amusing.

A young woman sits in jail, accused of the mercy killing of her dying mother. She didn't do it, but she thinks she knows who did. In the last months of her life, Ellen Gulden's mother revealed startling secrets that challenged everything Ellen believed about her family. Now, in jail, Ellen believes those secrets will tell her who had the courage to end her mother's suffering.

In a novel as warm and embracing as a family kitchen, Barbara O’Neal explores the poignant, sometimes complex relationships between mothers and daughters - and the healing magic of homemade bread. Professional baker Ramona Gallagher is a master of an art that has sustained her through the most turbulent times, including a baby at 15 and an endless family feud. But now Ramona’s bakery threatens to crumble around her. Literally. She’s one water-heater disaster away from losing her grandmother’s rambling Victorian and everything she’s worked so hard to build.

Lucille seems to have nothing going for her. With the bills piling in, the house falling apart around her, and her sister's growing distress, it is precisely the worst possible moment for Lucille to fall recklessly in love with her best friend's twin brother, Digby, who is practically engaged.

The Center of Everything is the fictional story of 10-year-old math prodigy Evelyn Bucknow. Living in Kansas with her single mother and deeply religious grandmother, Evelyn believes she is destined to marry Travis, the boy next door. But as she grows up, she experiences the heartbreak of a love not meant to be. Author Laura Moriarty was a recipient of the George Bennet Fellowship for Creative Writing at Phillips Exeter Academy.

Rebecca Rothstein Rabinowitz is a plump, sexy chef who has a wonderful husband, a restaurant that's received citywide acclaim, a beautiful baby girl and the mother-in-law from hell. Kelly Day's life looks picture-perfect. But behind the doors, she's struggling to balance work, motherhood, and marriage, while dealing with an unemployed husband who seems content to channel-surf for eight hours a day....

With this, his first collection of stories, Raymond Carver breathed new life into the American short story and instantly became both the recognized master of the form and one of our best-loved fiction writers. Carver shows us the humor and tragedy that dwell in the hearts of ordinary people; his stories are the classics of our time.

Award-winning poet Marisa de los Santos crafts an irresistibly touching debut novel. Love Walked In is a contemporary tale, steeped in nostalgic, cinematic charm, of love in all its forms. Unapologetically idealistic about love, Cornelia Brown appears to catch the break of a lifetime when the dashing Martin Grace, her own personal Cary Grant, comes strolling into her life. But it is Martin's connection to 11-year-old Clare Hobbes that touches Cornelia's heart in ways she never imagined.

Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules is a collection of short stories, some classic, others impending, selected and introduced by David Sedaris.

As soon as she arrives at her family's annual reunion, Laura Bartone realizes that something is not right with her sister. Wrapped up in past events, Caroline is the family's black sheep. When she confronts Laura and their brother with devastating allegations about their mother, the three have a difficult time reconciling their varying experiences in the same house. But a sudden misfortune will lead them all to face the past, their own culpability, and their common need for love and forgiveness.

Betta Nolan moves to a small town after the death of her husband to try to begin life anew. Though still dealing with her sorrow, Betta nonetheless is determined to find pleasure in her simple daily routines. Among those who help her in both expected and unexpected ways are the ten-year-old boy next door, three wild women friends from her college days with whom she reconnects, a young man who is struggling to find his place in the world, and a handsome widower who is ready for love.

Nola McCollum is the most desirable girl in Arthur’s class, and he is thrilled when they become friends. But Arthur wants far more than friendship. Unfortunately, Nola has a crush on the wrong Moses—Arthur’s older brother, Frank, who is busy pursuing his own love interest and avoiding the boys’ father, a war veteran with a drinking problem and a penchant for starting fights. When a sudden tragedy rocks the family’s world, Arthur struggles to come to terms with his grief. In the end, it is nature that helps him to understand how to go on. But what can he do about Nola?

Ginny Young is on a plane en route to see her mother, whom she hasn't seen or spoken to for 35 years. She thinks back to the summer of 1958, when she and her sister, Sharla, were young girls. Moving back and forth in time between the girl she once was and the woman she's become, Ginny at last confronts painful choices that occur in almost any woman's life and learns surprising truths about the people she thought she knew best.

What do you say when you know you don’t have forever? Ruth has been Ann’s closest friend for years - her confidante, her solace, her comic relief, her tutor in life’s mysterious ways. So when Ruth becomes ill, Ann is there for her without question. After all, it is Ruth who encouraged Ann to become who she is, Ruth whose rebellious, eccentric spirit provided the perfect counterpoint to Ann’s conventional, safe outlook. And so the friends go on as they always have…gossiping, consoling, and sharing intimate secrets.