""There are books that are suitable for a million people, others for only a hundred. There are even remedies--I mean books--that were written for one person only ... A book is both medic and medicine at once. It makes a diagnosis as well as offering therapy. Putting the right novels to the appropriate ailments: that's how I sell books." Monsieur Perdu calls himself a literary apothecary. From his floating bookstore in a barge on the Seine, he prescribes...

A history of the countries bordering the Black Sea told through the stories of the people who live there.

Fringing the Black Sea is a diverse array of countries, some centuries old and others emerging only after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Jens Mühling travels through this region, telling the stories of the people he meets along the way in order to paint a picture of the mix of cultures found here and to understand the present...

Comatose after an act of heroism, ex-war reporter Henri Skinner revisits memories of his British youth. His son, Sam -- a thirteen-year old synesthete with an IQ of 144 and an appetite for science fiction -- waits by his father's bedside every day. He meets Eddie Tomlin, a woman forced to confront her love for Henri after all these years, and pre-teen Madelyn Zeidler, a coma patient and the sole survivor of a traffic accident that killed her family....