A man reflects on the past week while an unexpected storm rages outside, and he compares the events that follow with the fall of the Roman Empire.

A woman grapples with how quickly time slips by with a new baby, and how to protect her, as her partner stresses over the doom and gloom of the news.

A woman grows obsessed with a single book from the time she is a young adult to her death in old age, as the book's meaning changes for her over time.

A catalog of the tools different alien species use to read and write, leading to fundamental questions about what it means to make patterns of knowledge against the noise of the universe.

Two American astronomers work to understand why fixed stars are moving at impossible rates, only to find that a corrupt and wealthy inventor is behind the entire phenomenon.

A Boston-based publicist believes that he has found the next hit novel and signs a deal with the author. Later, he feels betrayed upon learning that the true author of the book is less than human.

Passive and easily satisfied, Roger spends his days managing his secondhand bookstore The Pleiade. He worships modernist classics without fully reading them, he’s gregarious but seldom invited to dinner, and he types novel after novel methodically, but all are rejected. He passes seasons of love and loss in unfailing, impassive routine.

After a man's long term girlfriend confesses her submissive sexual fantasies, the couple goes to see a dominatrix together. The man becomes worried as his sexual incompatibility with his wife becomes evident.