A derelict oil tanker is home to cast-off members of the Sunni-Arab minority of Iran. When the owner decides to sell it, it is up to the self-proclaimed patriarch of the ship to provide a future for the people of his floating city, no matter the cost.

A young American man, with the help of a local who speaks weirdly broken English, journeys to find the woman who saved his grandfather during World War II in a Ukrainian village that was ultimately razed by the Nazis.

Melvin B. Tolson is a professor at Wiley College in Texas. Wiley is a small African-American college. In 1935, Tolson inspired students to form the school's first debate team. Tolson turns a group of underdog students into a historically elite debate team which goes on to challenge Harvard in the national championship. Inspired by a true story.

Chuyia, an Indian girl that is married and widowed at eight years old, is sent away to a home where Hindu widows must live in penitence. Her feisty presence affects the other residents, forcing each to confront their faith and society's prejudices.

A daughter Ellen, gives up her job and boyfriend to take care of her dying mother. Her father, a gifted professor of an English department, is more occupied with having his life running as smoothly as possible than caring for his wife. Living at home, Ellen discovers many new aspects to her parents' personalities, a father who is human despite his imperfections and a mother who loves her family passionately. When her mother finally dies Ellen is suspected...

Tells the parallel stories of nine-year-old Carlitos and his mother, Rosario. In the hopes of providing a better life for her son, Rosario works illegally in the U.S. In Mexico, her mother cares for Carlitos. Unexpected circumstances drive both Rosario and Carlitos to embark on their own journeys in a desperate attempt to reunite. Along the way, mother and son face challenges and obstacles but never lose hope that they will one day be together again....

Majesty gives way to mystery, and marks a harrowing descent into madness, when a young British nun is ordered to establish a convent in the remote Himalayan mountains. Sister Clodagh (Kerr) is a serious young novitiate assigned to lead a crucial mission, with the reluctant recommendation of her Mother Superior. Together with a disparate group of nuns, Sister Clodagh will face strange peoples and customs, a harsh and unforgiving climate and a wrenching...

The saga of three generations of the Trask and Hamilton families in the early 1900's in Northern California.

Takada is an aging Japanese fisherman who has been estranged from his son for many years. When the son is diagnosed with terminal cancer his daughter-in-law, Rie, summons him to the hospital. When his son refuses to see him, Rie gives him a videotape about the work his son was doing on a documentary film in a remote region of China's Yunnan province. Still troubled by the relationship, Takada decides to go to China and complete his son's work in part...

Battling illness and unable to finish a novel that has taken him ten years to write, aging novelist Leonard Schiller is slipping into literary obscurity. At one time a famous author, Schiller has been all but forgotten by the readers, colleagues and critics who once praised his works. When Heather Wolfe, an ambitious graduate student, convinces Schiller that her thesis could reintroduce his writing to the world, the reclusive writer is forced to confront...