Author and broadcaster Nigel Farrel escapes the frustrations of the city and sets off in an old Morris Minor in search of the perfect village. His journey takes him to Bosham in Sussex, Lacock in Wiltshire, Drewsteignton in Devon, Finchingfield in Essex, and Coneysthorpe in North Yorkshire.

"In a village at the edge of the wilderness of northern Russia, where the winds blow cold and the snow falls many months of the year, a stranger with piercing blue eyes presents a new father with a gift - a precious jewel on a delicate chain, intended forhis young daughter. Uncertain of its meaning, Pytor hides the gift away and Vasya grows up a wild, willful girl, to the chagrin of her family. But when mysterious forces threaten the happiness of...

A grandmother explains to her listeners why in their village on the side of a volcano the men live in square houses and the women in round ones.

Strange things have been brewing in the village of Ashlaw in 1923: the once-prosperous drapers' shop has gone bankrupt and three separate families' lives have each, it seems, been hexed. In a bigger town, such news might happen every day, but in tiny, remote Ashlaw, even one of these curses can set the whole village off-kilter. So what could be responsible for the stir? Margot, a local, precocious schoolgirl, has been trying to figure this out, especially...

"The mayor of the noisy city of La Paz institutes new laws forbidding all singing, but a brave little rooster decides he must sing, despite the progressively severe punishments he receives for continuing to crow. The silenced populace, invigorated by therooster's bravery, ousts the tyrannical mayor and returns their city to its free and clamorous state"-- Provided by publisher.

Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and his team of investigators are called in to investigate a suspicious death in a rural village south of Montreal, and discover that the death was not a careless hunting accident, but something much more sinister.

Discovering a cache of valuable Native American artifacts while appraising an estate in New Hampshire, Faye Travers investigates the history of a ceremonial drum, which possesses spiritual powers and changes the lives of people who encounter it.

When Sheriff Hardy investigates the source of a brilliant light and shiny slime afflicting Riverbend, he finds that the village is becoming part of a child's coloring book streaked with greasy crayons.

"Yan Lianke has secured his place as contemporary China's most essential and daring novelist, "with his superlative gifts for storytelling and penetrating eye for truth" (New York Times Book Review). His newest novel, The Day the Sun Died--winner of the Dream of the Red Chamber Award, one of the most prestigious honors for Chinese-language novels--is a haunting story of a town caught in a waking nightmare. In a little village nestled in the Balou...