Equality 7-2521 lives in the Dark Ages of the future, where all decisions are made by committee, all people live in collectives, all traces of individualism have been wiped out. But the spark of individual thought and freedom still burns in Equality 7-2521, a passion which he has been taught to call sinful. In a purely egalitarian world, he dares to stand forth from the herd -- to think and choose for himself, to discover electricity, and to love...

"Reginald Edward Morse is one of the top reviewers on RateYourLodging.com, where his many posts do more than just evaluate hotels around the globe--they tell his life story ... The puzzle of Reginald's life comes together through writings that comment upon his motivational-speaking career, the dissolution of his marriage, the separation from his daughter, his struggles with alcohol, and his devotion to a paramour known only as 'K.' But when Reginald...

"The life of Baumgartner--phenomenologist, noted author, and soon-to-be retired philosophy professor--has been defined by his deep, abiding love for his wife, Anna, who was killed in a swimming accident nine years earlier. Now pushing 71, Baumgartner continues to struggle to live in her absence as the novel sinuously unfolds into spirals of memory and reminiscence, delineated in episodes spanning from 1968, when Baumgartner and Anna meet as young...

It is October 1914, and Swedish naval officer Lars Tobiasson-Svartman is charged with a secret mission to take depth readings around the Stockholm archipelago. In the course of his work, he lands on the rocky isle of Halsskär. It seems impossible for it to be habitable, yet it is home to the young widow Sara Fredrika, who lives in near-total isolation and is unaware that the world is at war. A man of control and precision, Tobiasson-Svartman is overwhelmed...

Three linked novellas explore the private worlds of three men--a farmer struggling after his father's suicide, a single dad trying to control his overweight daughter, and a mentally disabled man in love with a married woman intent on using him.