The last novel Ernest Hemingway saw published, The Old Man and the Sea has proved itself to be one of the enduring works of American fiction. It is the story of an old Cuban fisherman, down on his luck, and his supreme ordeal: a relentless, agonizing battle with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream. Using the simple, powerful language of a fable, Hemingway takes the timeless themes of courage in the face of defeat and personal triumph won from...

Gus Lobel has been one of the best scouts in baseball for decades, but, despite his efforts to hide it, age is starting to catch up with him. Nevertheless, Gus--who can tell a pitch just by the crack of the bat--refuses to be benched for what may be the final innings of his career. The one person who might be able to help is also the one person Gus would never ask: his daughter, Mickey, an associate at a high-powered Atlanta law firm.

"Homicide cop Tom McMichael is on the rotation when an 84-year-old city patriarch named Pete Braga is found bludgeoned to death. Not good news, especially since the Irish McMichaels and the Portuguese Bragas share a violent family history dating back three generations. Years ago Braga shot McMichael's grandfather in a dispute over a paycheck; soon thereafter Braga's son was severely beaten behind a waterfront bar -- legend has it that it was an act...

Four best friends in their late-60s decide to escape retirement and throw a Las Vegas bachelor party for the only one of them who has remained single.

Bob Comet is a retired librarian, isolated but not lonely, living out his quiet days in a mint-colored house in Oregon, surrounded by his books and small comforts. One morning, out on his daily walk, he performs an act of kindness that brings him into contact with a nearby senior center, where he soon begins volunteering. Here, as a community of peers and friends gathers around Bob, and following a happenstance brush with a painful complication from...

Liam Pennywell, who set out to be a philosopher and ended up teaching fifth grade, never much liked the job at that run-down private school, so early retirement doesn't bother him. But he is troubled by his inability to remember anything about the first night that he moved into his new, spare, and efficient condominium on the outskirts of Baltimore. All he knows when he wakes up the next day in the hospital is that his head is sore and bandaged.

Fifteen years after Eddie died saving a little girl named Annie, Annie suffers a terrible accident and finds herself reunited with Eddie, one of the five people who will show her how her life mattered in ways she never considered.

In Avenue of Mysteries, Juan Diego--a fourteen-year-old boy, who was born and grew up in Mexico--has a thirteen-year-old sister. Her name is Lupe, and she thinks she sees what's coming--specifically, her own future and her brother's. Lupe is a mind reader; she doesn't know what everyone is thinking, but she knows what most people are thinking. Regarding what has happened, as opposed to what will, Lupe is usually right about the past; without your...

Meet Ove. He's a curmudgeon - the kind of man who has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him "the bitter neighbor from hell." But behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness. So when a chatty young couple with two chatty young daughters move in next door and accidentally flatten Ove's mailbox, it is the lead-in to a comical and heartwarming tale of unexpected friendship.

"Unconstrained, astute, provocative, often laugh-out-loud funny, Frank Bascombe is once more our guide to the great American midway. Now in the twilight of life, a man who has occupied many colorful lives--sportswriter, father, husband, ex-husband, friend, real estate agent--Bascombe finds himself in the most sorrowing role of all: caregiver to his son, Paul, diagnosed with ALS. On a shared winter odyssey to Mount Rushmore, Frank, in typical Bascombe...