Julie Otsuka

Presents the stories of six Japanese mail-order brides whose new lives in early twentieth-century San Francisco are marked by backbreaking migrant work, cultural struggles, children who reject their heritage, and the prospect of wartime internment.

"A novel portraying a group of dedicated recreational swimmers and what happens when a crack appears at the bottom of their community pool. The swimmers are unknown to each other except through their private routines (slow lane, fast lane), and the solace each takes in their morning or afternoon laps. But when a crack appears at the bottom of the pool, they are cast out into an unforgiving world. One of these swimmers is Alice, who is slowly losing...

Collects forty short stories published between 1915 and 2015, from writers that include Ernest Hemingway, John Updike, and Alice Munro that exemplify their era and stand the test of time.

"Contacts" is a photoessay collection of eight photographs from the "Belfast Exposed Archive" housed in Belfast, Northern Ireland, by Belfast Exposed Photography (also available on the internet); "A Just Defiance" is a riveting courtroom drama and a real-life political thriller that captures the moral vertigo of South Africa's violent apartheid years.