"Pi Patel is an unusual boy. The son of a zookeeper, he has an encyclopedic knowledge of animal behavior, a fervent love of stories, and practices not only his native Hinduism, but also Christianity and Islam. When Pi is sixteen, his family emigrates from India to North America aboard a Japanese cargo ship, along with their zoo animals bound for new homes. The ship sinks. Pi finds himself alone in a lifeboat, his only companions a hyena, an orangutan,...

Set against the backdrop of the fourteenth-century Black Death, an anthology of one hundred interlinked tales presents a variety of works recounted by the citizens of Florence--nobles, knights, abbots, nuns, doctors, philosophers, students, peasants, pilgrims, thieves, and others--who have fled the city to escape the plague.

"It was a beautiful, breezy, yellow-and-green afternoon." This is the way Abby Whitshank always begins the story of how she fell in love with Red that day in July 1959. The whole family--their two daughters and two sons, their grandchildren, even their faithful old dog--is on the porch, listening contentedly as Abby tells the tale they have heard so many times before. And yet this gathering is different too: Abby and Red are growing older, and decisions...

Outlaw Rexi Hood, bound to Princess Dorthea, joins forces with reformed knight Mordred to steal the sword Excalibur from the Wicked Witch so that she can write her own story.

Five New Yorkers have received an anonymous, mysterious invitation to the Fifth Avenue Story Society: executive assistant Lexa; broken-hearted Professor Jett; Uber driver Chuck; widower Ed; and Coral, a cosmetics empire scion. None of the five one knows who sent the invitations, and they suspect they're victims of a practical joke. No one has heard of the literary society, and no one is prepared to share their deepest secrets with a roomful of strangers....

"When the children discover a bear at the librarian's desk at story time, they think he's the new librarian. He's not!"--

When Max cuts out words from magazines and newspapers, collecting them the way his brothers collect stamps and coins, they all learn about words, sentences, and storytelling.

At first, twelve-year-old Carol is not happy to be spending the summer helping her parents move her grandfather to an assisted living home, but as the summer wears on, she finds herself drawn to him, fascinated by his amazing stories.

"Milo's mother is too busy to read him a story so she sends him outside to play in the snow where he discovers a story of his own"--