"When Poppy met Alex, there was no spark, no chemistry, and no reason to think they'd ever talk again. Alex is quiet, studious, and destined for a future in academia. Poppy is a wild child who only came to U of Chicago to escape small-town life. But after sharing a ride home for the summer, the two form a surprising friendship. After all, who better to confide in than someone you could never, ever date? Over the years, Alex and Poppy's lives take...

"Covers a vast landscape of human experience while enfolding a search for origins: a grandson tries to make sense of his Polish grandfather's past and the story behind his numbered tattoo; a Serbian classical pianist longs for his forbidden heritage; a Mayan poet is torn between his studies and filial obligations; a striking young Israeli woman seeks answers in Central America; a university professor yearns for knowledge that he can't find in books...

"A dealer of rare books, Dr. Deen Datta is used to a quiet life spent indoors, but as his once-solid beliefs begin to shift, he is forced to set out on an extraordinary journey; one that takes him from India to Los Angeles and Venice via a tangled route through the memories and experiences of those he meets along the way. There is Piya, a fellow Bengali-American who sets his journey in motion; Tipu, an entrepreneurial young man who opens Deen's eyes...

Adam Gordon is a brilliant, if highly unreliable, young American poet on a prestigious fellowship in Madrid, struggling to establish his sense of self and his relationship to art. What is actual when our experiences are mediated by language, technology, medication, and the arts? Is poetry an essential art form, or merely a screen for the reader's projections? Instead of following the dictates of his fellowship, Adam's "research" becomes a meditation...

"Avery is an exceptional child. Everything he does is precise, from the way he washes his face in the morning to the way he completes his homework - without complaint, without fuss, without prompt. Zib is also an exceptional child, because all children are, in their own way. But where everything Avery does and is can be measured, nothing Zib does can possibly be predicted, except for the fact that she can always be relied upon to be unpredictable....

"[A] tale of a man's journey from impoverished rural boy to corporate tycoon, [stealing] its shape from the business self-help books devoured by ambitious youths all over 'rising Asia'"--Dust jacket flap.

"A beautifully realized city inhabited by musical instruments. A search for one's place in the world provides the storyline: The narrator, a drum, feels like an outcast because he alone--unlike his family and friends--cannot play a melody. Like all kids growing up, he must find out where he fits. The narrator, a drum, wanders the streets of Coelho's vividly realized city of musical instruments--where even the birds sprout miniature trumpets from their...

Steven is a typical eighth grader, until his younger brother, Jeffrey, is diagnosed with leukemia, and life begins to unravel.

"Mikey Callahan is suffering from the clouded vision of macular degeneration. He struggles to establish human connections, and is reconnecting with 'The Gunners, ' his group of childhood friends, after one of their members has committed suicide. Sally had distanced herself from all of them before ending her life, and she died harboring secrets about the group and its individuals. Mikey hopes that confronting secrets about his own past-- and his father's--...

The love between two teenage brothers helps to alleviate the harshness of their usually parentless life as they struggle to grow up.