Warmhearted Stories of Connection for Fans of 'Somebody Somewhere'

by Eileen Garvin

Following three lonely strangers in a rural Oregon town, each working through grief and life's curveballs, who are brought together by happenstance on a local honeybee farm where they find surprising friendship, healing—and maybe even a second chance‚just when they least expect it,

by Nickolas Butler

Sharing a childhood in small-town Wisconsin before going their separate ways with careers and families, Hank, Leland, Kip, and Ronny are reunited during a visit marked by culture clashes and a woman who inspires passion in each of them.

by Andrew O'Hagan

In the summer of 1986, in a small Scottish town, James and Tully ignite a brilliant friendship based on music, films and the rebel spirit. Thirty years on, the phone rings. Tully has news that forces the life-long friends to confront their own mortality head-on. What follows is an incredibly moving examination of the responsibilities and obligations we have to those we love—what do we owe to our friends? And what does it mean to love another person amidst tragedy?

by Kent Haruf

From the unsettled lives of a small-town teacher struggling to raise two boys alone in the face of their mother's retreat from life, a pregnant teenage girl with nowhere to go, and two elderly bachelor farmers emerges a new vision of life and family as their diverse destinies intertwine.

by Milena Michiko Flasar; translated by Sheila Dickie

Twenty-year-old Taguchi Hiro has spent the last two years of his life living as a hikikomori—a shut-in who never leaves his room and has no human interaction—in his parents' home in Tokyo. As Hiro tentatively decides to reenter the world, he spends his days observing life around him from a park bench. Gradually he makes friends with Ohara Tetsu, a middle-aged salaryman who has lost his job but can't bring himself to tell his wife, and shows up every day in a suit and tie to pass the time on a nearby bench. As Hiro and Tetsu cautiously open up to each other, they discover in their sadness a common bond. Regrets and disappointments, as well as hopes and dreams, come to the surface until both find the strength to somehow give a new start to their lives.

by Eleanor Ray

A collector of objects, Amy Ashton, who believes it is easier to love things than people, finds her solitary existence interrupted when a new family moves in next door with two young boys—one of whom has a collection of his own.

by Samantha Allen

In Real Queer America, Allen takes us on a cross-country road trip stretching all the way from Provo, Utah to the Rio Grande Valley to the Bible Belt to the Deep South. Capturing profound cultural shifts underway in unexpected places and revealing a national network of chosen family fighting for a better world, Real Queer America is a treasure trove of uplifting stories and a much-needed source of hope and inspiration in these divided times.

by Arnold Lobel

Frog and Toad are best friends—they do everything together. When Toad admires the flowers in Frog's garden, Frog gives him seeds to grow a garden of his own. When Toad bakes cookies, Frog helps him eat them. And when both Frog and Toad are scared, they are brave together.

by TJ Klune

Linus Baker is a by-the-book case worker in the Department in Charge of Magical Youth. He's tasked with determining whether six dangerous magical children are likely to bring about the end of the world. Arthur Parnassus is the master of the orphanage. He would do anything to keep the children safe, even if it means the world will burn. And his secrets will come to light. The House in the Cerulean Sea is an enchanting love story, masterfully told, about the profound experience of discovering an unlikely family in an unexpected place—and realizing that family is yours.

by Stephanie Eding

When she and two old friends from high school, Ben and Kevin, make a life pact to move in together and turn their lives around, divorced and pregnant Josie Hale, despite her growing feelings for Ben, has finally found a place to call home. 

by Richard Roper

In order to find their way back to the truth and to their friendship, two long-lost friends honor a promise they made years ago to walk all 184 miles of the Thames Path.

by Patti Smith

Patti Smith would evolve as a poet and performer, and Robert Mapplethorpe would direct his highly provocative style toward photography. Bound in innocence and enthusiasm, they traversed the city from Coney Island to Forty-Second Street, and eventually to the celebrated round table of Max's Kansas City, where the Andy Warhol contingent held court. In 1969, the pair set up camp at the Hotel Chelsea and soon entered a community of the famous and infamous, the influential artists of the day and the colorful fringe. It was a time of heightened awareness, when the worlds of poetry, rock and roll, art, and sexual politics were colliding and exploding. In this milieu, two kids made a pact to take care of each other. Scrappy, romantic, committed to create, and fueled by their mutual dreams and drives, they would prod and provide for one another during the hungry years.

by Elvin James Mensah

While working at a dead-end job at a movie theater, college dropout Harley attempts to take his own life, but is interrupted by his new roommate who takes him under his wing, showing him everything that makes life worth living until their friendship becomes complicated, which causes him to falter once again.

by Gail Honeyman

Eleanor Oliphant struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she's thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding social interactions, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy. But everything changes when she meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office. When she and Raymond together save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has fallen on the sidewalk, the three become the kinds of friends who rescue one another from the lives of isolation they have each been living. And it is Raymond's big heart that will ultimately help Eleanor find the way to repair her own profoundly damaged one.