“ In the kitchen there was a box of fresh oranges, their scent lingered in the air. The fruits were made to be shared. ” From a distance, Umiko watches the people her age, classmates, how they seem to experience their teenage life in a way, she does not feel a part of. Trying to fit in, she gets lost between her parents worries for her sickness and the wish to leave her hometown. Somewhat of a loner, she never had meaningful or deep friendships, until Nora, a girl from her school, choses to befriend her. Being friends with Nora, Umiko slowly opens up and leaves overcomes the walls she built up inside. After spending a summer together, it becomes clear, how much both care for each other and feel a deep sense of belonging when seeing one another. But every friendship comes to an end, some more tragic than others.

Portions of little and big coincidences in life. A storyteller in progress...

When I was 17 years old and living in Europe, a strange woman started following me. She would find me everywhere. And all she wanted me to do was take her orange. I moved to America a year after the first incident. Ten years later, she found me again. This is the story of her, the woman holding the orange. --from the back of the book.

The New York Times–bestselling author’s Whitbread Prize–winning debut—“Winterson has mastered both comedy and tragedy in this rich little novel” (The Washington Post Book World). When it first appeared, Jeanette Winterson’s extraordinary debut novel received unanimous international praise, including the prestigious Whitbread Prize for best first fiction. Winterson went on to fulfill that promise, producing some of the most dazzling fiction and nonfiction of the past decade, including her celebrated memoir Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal?. Now required reading in contemporary literature, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is a funny, poignant exploration of a young girl’s adolescence. Jeanette is a bright and rebellious orphan who is adopted into an evangelical household in the dour, industrial North of England and finds herself embroidering grim religious mottoes and shaking her little tambourine for Jesus. But as this budding missionary comes of age, and comes to terms with her unorthodox sexuality, the peculiar balance of her God-fearing household dissolves. Jeanette’s insistence on listening to truths of her own heart and mind—and on reporting them with wit and passion—makes for an unforgettable chronicle of an eccentric, moving passage into adulthood. “If Flannery O’Connor and Rita Mae Brown had collaborated on the coming-out story of a young British girl in the 1960s, maybe they would have approached the quirky and subtle hilarity of Jeanette Winterson’s autobiographical first novel. . . . Winterson’s voice, with its idiosyncratic wit and sensitivity, is one you’ve never heard before.” —Ms. Magazine

Berlin. From a once divided city now a multicultural bustling place, Berlin's underground has seen it all. Six women (FLINTA) from different countries who now call Berlin home, reflect on their chaotic and sometimes other worldly experiences on Berlin's U-Bahn. From U1 to U9. How does one find solace or adventure in the U-Bahn? Perhaps the love of your life or a grieving friend awaits there. Together, through a mix of fiction and non-fiction, the essence and uniqueness of each of the nine U-bahn lines that sprawl under Berlin are captured in this book.

"Tell me about them", she says. "Well, then let me start at the end, lead you through the hinterlands. Here these characters have space to unfold, and I can study them at my leisure, as if they were special statues in a museum. I am the curator of this exhibition, let me show you around. In 60 pages I'm going to introduce you to this little world about entering adulthood and all the obstacles in-between, about sexual desires, and your own identity, about what it really means to grow up, and finally how not to compromise who you truly want to be. So, I invite you to let yourself fall into insanity, beauty, and a daydream again."