An early morning adventure out stealing horses leads to the tragic death of one boy and a resulting lifetime of guilt and isolation for his friend, in this moving tale about the painful loss of innocence and of traditional ways of life that are gone forever.

"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"...

Mr. Brown was lonely and didn't have any friends, until a woodpecker made a nest in his hat. More and more birds started to make nests in his hat, and the hat magically grew to accommodate all the birds. Mr. Brown finally found some friends, but one day all the birds were gone. Mr. Brown got sad and then hibernated for winter. When he woke, his hat had grown into a tree with all his bird friends there.

In a New York City made phantasmagorical by the events of 9/11, Hans -- a banker originally from the Netherlands -- finds himself marooned among the strange occupants of the Chelsea Hotel after his English wife and son return to London. Alone and untethered, feeling lost in the country he had come to regard as home, Hans stumbles upon the vibrant New York subculture of cricket, where he revisits his lost childhood and, thanks to a friendship with...

All the fruits gather together and enjoy a rhyming party, but poor Orange feels left out because he does not rhyme with anything--until Apple invents a new word.

Brothers Nathan and Bub Bright meet for the first time in months at the remote fence line separating their cattle ranches in the lonely outback. Their third brother, Cameron, lies dead at their feet. In an isolated belt of Australia, their homes a three-hour drive apart, the brothers were one another's nearest neighbors. Cameron was the middle child, the one who ran the family homestead. But something made him head out alone under the unrelenting...

"An intoxicating, compact debut novel, Tides is the story of a lost woman who walks out of her life and washes up in a seaside town by the winner of the Henfield Prize, Sara Freeman. After a sudden, devastating loss, Mara flees her family and ends up adrift in a wealthy beach town with a dead cellphone and barely any money. Mired in her grief, Mara detaches from the outside world and spends her days of self-imposed exile scrounging for food and swimming...

Zadie Smith's brilliant tragi-comic new novel follows four Londoners - Leah, Natalie, Felix and Nathan, as they try to make adult lives outside of Caldwell, the council estate of their childhood. From private houses to public parks, at work and at play, their London is a complicated place, as beautiful as it is brutal, where the thoroughfares hide the back alleys and taking the high road can sometimes lead you to a dead end.

A young guinea pig describes situations that make him miss his parents, how it feels to miss them, and what he can do to feel better.

With insight and a light touch, best-selling, Newbery Honor-winning author Gary D. Schmidt tells two poignant, linked stories: that of a grieving girl and a boy trying to escape his violent past. Following the death of her closest friend in summer 1968, Meryl Lee Kowalski goes off to St. Elene's Preparatory Academy for Girls, where she struggles to navigate the venerable boarding school's traditions and a social structure heavily weighted toward students...