In 1950s England, crates filled with tens of thousands of books mysteriously arrive from Shanghai addressed to a young boy's Jewish father. The father later discovers the collection belongs to his second cousin, a Holocaust refugee.

A man develops a deep interest in the author of a children's book he reads to his daughters. Ignoring his wife's confusion and mild disapproval, he goes to visit the author's old house and takes his daughters with him.

A Black foster teenager looks for escape from his life through books he borrows at a library. A witch-librarian guides his selections along the way, and ultimately gives him an off-limits book to help him literally escape the world.

A teacher on the Lower East side meets a friendly man with a presence resembling a dead English poet.

A man walks with a writer around London who tells him about the novel he wrote that was lost which can never be matched in beauty by any other.

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.

Alyse, a part-time writer, is unable to excavate any interest from her seemingly boring family, utterly unaware of the deeply complex and exciting adventures her brother, sister, and aunt often have

A Jewish mother wants her daughter to marry well and have a better life, but her husband doesn't seem to care. After her other daughter passes away, she realizes she should not hesitate to make bigger sacrifices.

A Canadian graduate student and his wife are living in France and often socialize with their peers at concerts and dinner parties. They soon make friends with an established novelist, but as the student continues to meet people he begins to question who he can trust and who his real friends are.

Though most of a prep school's students are away for the long weekend, a few boys stay behind at the dorms and are invited to dinner with a wealthy boy and his stepmother. At the dinner, the stepmother's attitude and appearance are just as alluring as the food, but the wealthy student acts strange and detached the whole evening.