"Hilma, an American painter of fifty-eight, goes to the beautiful island of Samos to escape a family tragedy by swimming and hiking and trying to forget. But on one of these swims, she finds a small Syrian girl floating unconscious in a life jacket. Hilma saves her but quickly becomes obsessed with the idea of adopting the girl, whose mother and father, she assumes, have drowned, as so many refugees do. The child's mother, Farah, did not drown, however,...

"How ought one to live?" This is the question that obsesses London-based publisher Ayush, driving him to question every act of consumption. He embarks on a radical experiment in his own life and the lives of those connected to him: his practical economist husband; their twins; and even the authors he edits and publishes. One of those authors, a mysterious M. N. Opie, writes a story about a young academic involved in a car accident that causes her...