A New York Times Notable Book Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award A personal, lyrical narrative about storytelling and empathy, from the author of Orwell's Roses Apricots. Her mother's disintegrating memory. An invitation to Iceland. Illness. These are Rebecca Solnit's raw materials, but The Faraway Nearby goes beyond her own life, as she spirals out into the stories she heard and read—from fairy tales to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein—that helped her navigate her difficult passge. Solnit takes us into the lives of others—an arctic cannibal, the young Che Guevara among the leprosy afflicted, a blues musician, an Icelandic artist and her labyrinth—to understand warmth and coldness, kindness and imagination, decay and transformation, making art and making self. This captivating, exquisitely written exploration of the forces that connect us and the way we tell our stories is a tour de force of association, a marvelous Russian doll of a book that is a fitting companion to Solnit's much-loved A Field Guide to Getting Lost.

Heartfelt and irresistible—“a lovely, deeply moving story of loss and love and memory made real” (Diana Gabaldon, #1 New York Times bestselling author)—this enchanting debut follows a woman who travels back in time to be reunited with the mother she lost when she was a child. Every night, as Faye puts her daughters to bed, she thinks of her own mother, Jeanie, who died when Faye was eight. The pain of that loss has never left her, and that’s why she wants her own girls to know how very much they are loved by her—and always will be, whatever happens. Then one day, Faye gets her heart’s desire when she’s whisked back into the past and is reunited not just with her mother but with her own younger self. Jeanie doesn’t recognize grown-up Faye as her daughter, even though there is something eerily familiar about her. But the two women become close friends and share all kinds of secrets—except for the deepest secret of all, the secret of who Faye really is. Faye worries that telling the truth may prevent her from being able to return to the present day, to her dear husband and beloved daughters. Eventually she’ll have to choose between those she loved in the past and those she loves in the here and now, and that knowledge presents her with an impossible choice. If only she didn’t have to make it....

In Taiwanese writer Lo Yi-Chin’s Faraway, a fictionalized version of the author finds himself stranded in mainland China attempting to bring his comatose father home. Lo’s father had fled decades ago, abandoning his first family to start a new life in Taiwan. After travel between the two countries becomes politically possible, he returns to visit the son he left behind, only to suffer a stroke. The middle-aged protagonist ventures to China, where he embarks on a protracted struggle with the byzantine hospital regulations while dealing with relatives he barely knows. Meanwhile, back in Taiwan, his wife is about to give birth to their second child. Isolated in a foreign country, Lo mulls over his life, dwelling on his difficult relationship with his father and how becoming a father himself has changed him. Faraway is a powerful meditation on the nature of family and the many ways blood can both unite and divide us. Lo’s depiction of family dynamics and fraught politics contains a keen sense of irony and sensitivity to everyday absurdity. He offers a deft portrayal of the rift between China and Taiwan through an intimate view of a father-son relationship that bridges this divide. One of the most celebrated writers in Taiwan, Lo has been greatly influential throughout the Chinese-speaking world, but his work has not previously been translated into English. Jeremy Tiang’s translation captures Lo’s distinctive voice, mordant wit, and nuanced portrayal of Taiwanese culture.

Nervous about visiting her grandmother in Taipei, Taiwan, a young girl soon adjusts to her unfamiliar surroundings and enjoys the adventure.

Lucian enjoys searching the beach below his home for treasure, but after becoming attached to a mysterious cutlass he meets its owner, who offers something greater for its return.

Eighteen years later, in 1999, Lucy took her three children to the farthest corner of the Solomons to live for a year on remote Pigeon Island. This time the invitation had come from an intrepid eighty-year-old, Diana Hepworth, who, in 1947, set sail from England and embarked on a hazardous journey to find a faraway paradise where she and her husband Tom could raise a family. Faraway is the fascinating tale of two extraordinary worlds - 'primitive' and modern 'colonial' - in which tragedy, heroism, danger and pure joy combine in one remarkable story. This is a classic account by a writer who has dug deep into her psyche to illuminate the darkest reaches of our own.

On a long-haul international flight writer Piya Choudhury tells the one story she hasn?t yet told ? her own... Loved and indulged by her mother and grandparents, but haunted by the mysterious absence of her father, Piya grows up in Kolkata, a gifted and impetuous child who pursues her studies with the same passion as she does her first few adolescent crushes, until a savage encounter leaves her repulsed. She moves to Mumbai hoping to become a journalist and falls deeply in love with her editor, Abir, but when a controversial story she is working on is stymied, she is forced to choose between the man she loves and her own integrity. Years later, she is settled in New York, married to a renowned artist who helps her find herself creatively. A liberated, successful, and dynamic writer, Piya has everything she's ever wanted, until she is revisited by her past... Sensuous, profound, lyrical and moving, Faraway Music is a story of family, friendship, fame, love and loss ? and all that lies in between?