It is said that a picture may be worth a thousand words but an old photograph can inspire many more. In this beguiling book, Alexander McCall Smith casts his eye over five chanced-upon photographs from the era of black-and-white photography and imagines the stories behind them. Who were those people, what were their stories, why are they smiling, what made them sad? What emerges are surprising and poignant tales of love and friendship in a variety...

A Pulitzer Prize finalist, Betty DeRamus is an award-winning journalist who rummaged through musty records and forgotten memoirs to resurrect this book's unsung heroes. Despite the risks, some American slaves partook of the "forbidden fruit" of marriage. And when the dreaded separation inevitably occurred, slave spouses grieved deeply and sometimes made Herculean efforts to re-unite. DeRamus recounts the tales of soulmates who braved bloodhounds,...

"Kamilah Vega is desperate to convince her family to update their Puerto Rican restaurant and enter it into the Fall Foodie Tour. With the gentrification of their Chicago neighborhood, it's the only way to save the place. The fly in her mofongo: her blackmailing abuelo says if she wants to change anything in his restaurant, she'll have to marry the one man she can't stand: his friend's grandson. Liam Kane spent a decade working to turn his family's...

The world-class writers featured in this collection are adept at conjuring the depth and passion that surrounds all stories of love and loss. The short story form is perfect for capturing the dizzying heights that accompany a new object of affection, as well as the queasy unease and bottomless longing of lost loves.

This recording includes the following stories:

"The Piazza" by Herman Melville (1819–1891), narrated by Peter Marinker

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