Swann's Way is one of the preeminent novels of childhood: a sensitive boy's impressions of his family and neighbors, all brought dazzlingly back to life years later by a taste of a madeleine. It also enfolds the short novel "Swann in Love," an incomparable study of sexual jealousy that becomes a crucial part of the vast, unfolding structure in In Search of Lost Time. The first volume of the work that established Proust as one of the finest voices...

"A Village Life, Louise Glück's eleventh collection of poems, begins in the topography of a village, a Mediterranean world of no definite moment or place...Around the fountain are concentric circles of figures, organized by age and in degrees of distance: fields, a river, and, like the fountain's opposite, a mountain. Human time superimposed on geologic time, all taken in at a glance, without any undue sensation of speed. Glück has been known as...

Londoners Paul and Tricia Feenan move to the isolated Holiwell village where Tricia has inherited a property. In the village, there are centuries-old stones used during the Great Plague as boundary markers. No plague-sufferer was allowed to pass the stones and enter the village. The plague diminished, and the village survived unscathed. An ancient ceremony is performed each year to renew the village boundaries. A miguided act by the Feenans' son then...

"Vācikkumpōtu itil varum kaṇṇatācaṉaippōl yārēṉum irukkakkūṭumā? Eṉṟa yōcaṉaiyum eḻalām... Iruntārkaḷ... Irukkiṟārkaḷ... Appaṭip pārtta oru cila maṉitarkaḷiṉ kalavaitāṉ eṉakkuḷ kaṇṇatācaṉāy uruveṭuttatu eṉpatutāṉ uṇmai. Intakkataiyil varum ovvoru katāppāttiramum nāṉ pārttu vaḷarnta eṉ kirāmattu makkaḷiṉ piratipalipputāṉ. Katāppāttiraṅkaḷiṉ cila kuṇātiyacaṅkaḷ...

"Rose Cottage, a tiny thatched dwelling in an idyllic English country setting, would appear the picture of tranquility to any passerby. But when Kate Herrick returns to her childhood home, she uncovers a web of intrigue as tangled as the rambling roses in its garden. It is the summer of 1947. Kate, widowed in the war and comfortably settled in London, travels to Rose Cottage to retrieve some family papers for her grandmother. Curious as to the changes...

"In a remote Polish village, Janina devotes the dark winter days to studying astrology, translating the poetry of William Blake, and taking care of the summer homes of wealthy Warsaw residents. Her reputation as a crank and a recluse is amplified by her not-so-secret preference for the company of animals over humans. Then a neighbor, Big Foot, turns up dead. Soon other bodies are discovered, in increasingly strange circumstances. As suspicions mount,...

"For Alice and her partner Joe, moving to the sleepy village of Penton is a chance to embrace country life and prepare for the birth of their first child. He can take up woodwork; maybe she’ll learn to make jam? But the rural idyll they’d hoped for doesn’t quite pan out when a dead body is discovered at their local prenatal class, and they find themselves suspects in a murder investigation. With a cloud of suspicion hanging over the heads of...

"The magical adventure begun in The Bear and the Nightingale continues as brave Vasya, now a young woman, is forced to choose between marriage or life in a convent and instead flees her home--but soon finds herself called upon to help defend the city of Moscow when it comes under siege"--Provided by publisher.

Life is a challenge for any priest in a small mountain town, and Father Peter struggles to save his parishioners' souls without falling himself for the local barkeep, Assumpta. Series Three is the dramatic conclusion of Peter and Assumpta's story.

A highly unusual tale set in a highly unusual Irish village full of dark secrets. "Having been abandoned on the steps of an orphanage as an infant, lovable car thief and Dublin charmer Mahony assumed all his life that his mother had simply given him up. But when he receives an anonymous note suggesting that foul play may have led to his mother's disappearance, he sees only one option: to return to the rural Irish village where he was born and find...