Over the past decade, Simon Van Booy has been listening to people’s stories. With these personal accounts as a starting point, he has crafted a powerful collection of short fiction that takes listeners into the innermost lives of everyday people. From a family saved from ruin by a mysterious benefactor to a downtrodden boxer who shows unexpected kindness to a mugger, these tales reveal not only the precarious balance maintained between grief and happiness in our lives but also how the echoes of personal tragedy can shape us for the better.

This is the memoir written by Bella Kuligowska Zucker, the only person in her family to survive the Holocaust. In September 1939, Bella was a carefree teenager living in Poland when the German army struck. She was rounded up with her friends and family and sent to a series of grim Jewish ghettos. After loved ones were separated and lost through the war years, Bella survived by changing her identity. After finding the birth certificate of a Catholic girl five years her senior, she became Sabina Mazurek. Then she went into the eye of the storm, Germany.

Being a typewriter is not as easy as it looks. Surrounded by books (notorious attention hogs) and recently replaced by a computer, Olivetti has been forgotten by the Brindles—the family he’s lived with for years. The Brindles are busy humans, apart from twelve-year-old Ernest, who would rather be left alone with his collection of Oxford English Dictionaries. Once a collector of words, now Olivetti only collects dust. He gets a rare glimpse of action from Ernest’s mom, Beatrice—his used-to-be frequent visitor—only for her to drop him off at Heartland Pawn Shop and leave him behind.

Doctor Jack Troy was born and raised in Faha, but his responsibilities for the sick and his care for the dying mean he has always been set apart from the town. His eldest daughter, Ronnie, has grown up in her father’s shadow, and remains there, having missed one chance at love – and passed up another offer of marriage from an unsuitable man. But in the Advent season of 1962, as the town readies itself for Christmas, Ronnie and Doctor Troy’s lives are turned upside down when a baby is left in their care.

Grace Fitzgerald, a fiery-haired dreamer, longs to escape the confines of her windswept Dingle fishing village. Across the Atlantic, Richard Lewis, heir to a Savannah banking fortune, suffocates under the weight of societal expectations he can't quite understand. When their worlds collide through a twist of fate, Grace and Richard uncover a bond so profound it shakes the very foundations of their existence. As Europe inches towards chaos, they find themselves caught in a whirlwind of discovery, challenging everything they thought they knew about themselves and each other.

A Sunday Times number one bestseller in the United Kingdom, this is the intimate and revealing autobiography of Margaret Rhodes, first cousin of Queen Elizabeth II and niece of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. Margaret was born into the Scottish aristocracy, into a now almost vanished world of privilege. Royalty often came to stay, and her house was run in the style of Downton Abbey. During the Second World War, she "lodged" at Buckingham Palace while she worked for MI5.

Ruth Winters is retired, widowed, and resigned to spending the rest of her life alone in her suburban home. She likes her routine and uses it to avoid having to spend time with other people. She probably wouldn’t call herself fulfilled, but it’s too late now to go chasing happiness. Then three things happen at once: a beloved niece makes a big announcement, an old flame reaches out, and her estranged sister receives life-changing news.

In The Elements, acclaimed Irish novelist John Boyne has created an epic saga that weaves together four interconnected narratives, each representing a different perspective on crime: the enabler, the accomplice, the perpetrator, and the victim.

Most people don’t even notice them—three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world. Most people think it’s just a depiction of the sea. But Louisa, an artist herself, knows otherwise and she is determined to find out the story of these three enigmatic figures. Twenty-five years earlier, in a distant town, a group of teenagers find refuge from their difficult home lives by spending their days laughing and telling stories out on a pier.

Ruth is a woman who believes in and despairs of the curative power of love. Her daughter, Eleanor, who is addicted to drugs, has just had a baby, Lily. Ruth adjusts herself in ways large and small to give to Eleanor what she thinks she may need—nourishment, distance, affection—but all her gifts fall short. After someone dies of an overdose in Eleanor's apartment, Ruth hands her daughter an envelope of cash and takes Lily home with her, and Lily, as she grows, proves a compensation for all of Ruth's past defeats and disappointment. Love without fear is a new feeling for her.

For years, guitarist Quinn Porter has been on the road, chasing gig after gig, largely absent to his twice-ex-wife Belle and their odd, Guinness records-obsessed son. When the boy dies suddenly, Quinn seeks forgiveness for his paternal shortcomings by completing the requirements for one of his son's unfinished Boy Scout badges. For seven Saturdays Quinn does yard work for Ona Vitkus, the spry 104-year-old Lithuanian immigrant the boy had visited weekly.

Needing to escape her abusive marriage, Hadley flees with her two kids, knowing it might be her only chance. A woman who can’t even kill a spider, Hadley soon finds herself pushed to the limits as she fights to protect her family. Grace, new mother of baby Miles, desperately wants to put her rough past behind her for good, but she finds it impossible when her path crosses with Hadley’s, and her quest for a new start quickly spirals out of control and turns into a terrifying flight for survival.

A slender novel of epic power and the winner of the Booker Prize 2024, Orbital deftly snapshots one day in the lives of six women and men traveling through space. Selected for one of the last space station missions of its kind before the program is dismantled, these astronauts and cosmonauts—from America, Russia, Italy, Britain, and Japan—have left their lives behind to travel at a speed of over seventeen thousand miles an hour as the earth reels below.

Lucas knows the perfect night entails just three things: video games, wine, and pad thai. Peanuts are a must! Other people? Not so much. Why complicate things when he’s happy alone? Then one day the apartment board, a vexing trio of authority, rings his doorbell. And Lucas’s solitude takes a startling hike. They demand to see his frying pan. Someone left one next to the recycling room overnight, and instead of removing the errant object, as Lucas suggests, they insist on finding the guilty party. But their plan backfires. Colossally.

1927. Violet Mackenzie-Grant is embarking on her dream of studying at the Edinburgh School of Gardening for Women. She doesn’t yet know that it’s a journey that will take her to Kathmandu and beyond, deep into captivating landscapes and cultures that are worlds away from everything and everyone she’s left behind in Scotland.

In Kentucky, back in 1933, Carol's daddy lost his 13-year-old daughter in a game of cards. Award-winning author Simon Van Booy's spellbinding novel spans decades as he tells the story of Carol and the people in her life. Incidents intersect and lives unexpectedly change course in this masterfully interwoven story of chance and choice that leads home again to a night blessed with light.

When 12-year-old Gertie Milk washes up on the island of Skuldark, she finds that all of her memories are gone. Home to helpful Slug Lamps, delicious moonberries, and a ferocious Guard Worm, the island is full of oddities, including a cozy cottage containing artifacts from every corner of history. It is there that Gertie discovers she has been chosen as the next Keeper of Lost Things, tasked with the mission of returning objects to history's most important figures right when they need them most.

Over the past decade, Simon Van Booy has been listening to people’s stories. With these personal accounts as a starting point, he has crafted a powerful collection of short fiction that takes listeners into the innermost lives of everyday people. From a family saved from ruin by a mysterious benefactor to a downtrodden boxer who shows unexpected kindness to a mugger, these tales reveal not only the precarious balance maintained between grief and happiness in our lives but also how the echoes of personal tragedy can shape us for the better.

As a writer lies dying, he has one last story to tell: a tale of faith and devotion, a meditation on what lies beyond this life, and a prayer of gratitude that may lead to rebirth.

At the age of six, a little girl named Harvey learns that her parents have died in a car accident. As she struggles to understand, a kindly social worker named Wanda introduces her to her only living relative: her uncle Jason, a disabled felon with a violent past and a criminal record. Despite his limitations - and his resistance - Wanda follows a hunch and cajoles Jason into becoming her legal guardian, convinced that each may be the other's last chance.

It's Christmas and the well-born guests who have gathered at Applecross for a delicious weekend of relaxation are warmed by roaring fires, mistletoe, and gorgeously wrapped gifts. It's scarcely the setting for misfortune, and no one - not even that clever young aristocrat and budding sleuth Vespasia Cumming-Gould - anticipates the tragedy that is to darken this light-hearted holiday house party. But soon one young woman lies dead, a suicide, and Vespasia must uncover the heartbreaking truth behind the tragedy.

The Copperfields were once the most beloved family on Nantucket Island. Twenty-five years ago, their lives changed forever. And they never saw one another again. Not until now. In the spring of 1997, Julia watched as a judge sentenced her father, the renowned novelist, Bernard Copperfield, to twenty-five years in prison for conning, swindling, and stealing millions of dollars from his dearest Nantucket friends and fellow artists. With her family in ruins around her, seventeen-year-old Julia packed up her bags and ran away, pledging never to return to Nantucket ever again.

Being a typewriter is not as easy as it looks. Surrounded by books (notorious attention hogs) and recently replaced by a computer, Olivetti has been forgotten by the Brindles—the family he’s lived with for years. The Brindles are busy humans, apart from twelve-year-old Ernest, who would rather be left alone with his collection of Oxford English Dictionaries. Once a collector of words, now Olivetti only collects dust. He gets a rare glimpse of action from Ernest’s mom, Beatrice—his used-to-be frequent visitor—only for her to drop him off at Heartland Pawn Shop and leave him behind.

Elena MacKinnon has spent the last seven years training to become a proper English lady. When her childhood friend, Captain Theo Donovan, returns from serving in the Navy, he brings along with him Elena’s humiliation for the ill-advised and ardent love letter she wrote him before his departure, which he ignored entirely. Elena hopes to simultaneously stifle his memory of the letter and make him regret overlooking her, showing him just how fine an English lady she can be. The only problem? She is not English but a proud Scot—and her heart may be more enamored with Theo than ever.

Time doesn't always heal wounds, and no one knows that better than Angel Conrad. When she left her hometown in Oklahoma, she never expected to see it again. There was nothing there for her anymore: The love of her life had left her for someone else - not to mention the baby she'd been keeping a secret. Now she's headed back to Oklahoma to prove that she deserves to be the last one laughing.

Claire Keegan continues her outstanding work with this new collection of quietly wrenching stories of despair and desire in modern-day Ireland. A writer awarded a stay to work in Heinrich Böll's old cottage has her peace interrupted by an unwelcome intruder whose ulterior motives emerge as the night progresses. A priest waits at the altar to perform a marriage—and battles his memories of a love affair that led him to question all to which he has dedicated his life. And a man seeks solace at the bottom of a bottle as he mourns both his empty life and his lost love.

A Sunday Times number one bestseller in the United Kingdom, this is the intimate and revealing autobiography of Margaret Rhodes, first cousin of Queen Elizabeth II and niece of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. Margaret was born into the Scottish aristocracy, into a now almost vanished world of privilege. Royalty often came to stay, and her house was run in the style of Downton Abbey. During the Second World War, she "lodged" at Buckingham Palace while she worked for MI5.

On discovering her murdered husband's body, an 18th-century Irish noblewoman drinks handfuls of his blood and composes an extraordinary lament. Eibhlin Dubh Ni Chonaill's poem travels through the centuries, finding its way to a new mother who has narrowly avoided her own fatal tragedy. When she realizes that the literature dedicated to the poem reduces Eibhlin Dubh's life to flimsy sketches, she wants more: the details of the poet's girlhood and old age; her unique rages, joys, sorrows, and desires; the shape of her days and site of her final place of rest.

Seventeen-year-old Victoria Nash runs the household on her family’s peach farm in the small ranch town of Iola, Colorado—the sole surviving female in a family of troubled men. Wilson Moon is a young drifter with a mysterious past, displaced from his tribal land and determined to live as he chooses. Victoria encounters Wil by chance on a street corner, a meeting that profoundly alters both of their young lives, unknowingly igniting as much passion as danger. When tragedy strikes, Victoria leaves the only life she has ever known.

The follow-up to the best-selling What Did We Use Before Toilet Paper?, Can Holding in a Fart Kill You? has even more fun and fascinating trivia. Perfect for the ever-curious trivia lover, this book is the ultimate in truly extraordinary information. From silly to serious to outright bizarre, this expansive collection offers surprising answers and unexpected facts on everything from history and science to pop culture and nature. From the everyday to the fantastical - it's all here.