It is 1948 and a young American couple arrive in France for a holiday, full of anticipation and enthusiasm. But the countryside and people are war-battered, and their reception at the Chateau Beaumesnil is not all the open-hearted Americans could wish for.

Pregnant with her second child, Martha King finds her marriage to lawyer Austin King more and more frustrating when her husband befriends his young foster cousin, Nora, and, in the process, unwittingly jeopardizes his marriage, career, and place in the community.

This supernatural tale was originally published in 1946. In the story, the Marvell family goes away on vacation, leaving their farm, pets, and livestock home alone, to be taken care of by August, the hired man. But August fails to come. That night, the neighborhood is roused by an unusual glow. When August goes to the farm to investigate, he finds that it is under the care of mysterious beings-the twelve signs of the zodiac. This story sparkles with fantasy and humorous realism that both adults and children will appreciate.

The National Book Award-winning author of So Long, See You Tomorrow offers an astonishing evocation of a vanished world, as he retraces, branch by branch, the history of his family, taking readers into the lives of settlers, itinerant preachers, and small businessmen, examining the way they saw their world and how they imagined the world to come. From the Trade Paperback edition.

To eight-year old Bunny Morison, his mother is an angelic comforter in whose absence nothing is real or alive.  To his older brother, Robert, his mother is someone he must protect, especially since the deadly, influenza epidemic of 1918 is ravaging their small Midwestern town.  To James Morison, his wife, Elizabeth, is the center of a life that would disintegrate all too suddenly were she to disappear.     Through the eyes of these characters, William Maxwell creates a sensitive portrait of an American family and of the complex woman who is its emotional pillar.  Beautifully observed, deftly rendering the civilities and constraints of a vanished era, They Came Like Swallows measures the subterranean currents of love and need that run through all our lives.  The result confirms Maxwell's reputation as one of the finest writers we have. From the Trade Paperback edition.

In rural Illinois, two tenant farmers share much, finally too much, until jealously leads to murder and suicide. A tenuous friendship between lonely teenagers - the narrator, whose mother has died young, and Cletus Smith, the troubled witness to his parent’s misery - is shattered. After the murder and upheavals that follow, the boys never speak again. Fifty years on, the narrator attempts a reconstruction of those devastating events and the atonement of a lifetime’s regret. This Orange Inheritance Edition of So Long, See You Tomorrow is published in association with the Orange Prize for Fiction. Books shape our lives and transform the way we see ourselves and each other. The best books are timeless and continue to be relevant generation after generation. Vintage Classics asked the winners of the Orange Prize for Fiction which books they would pass onto the next generation and why. Ann Patchett chose So Long, See You Tomorrow. "The novel comes from a place so deep inside the human soul that I cannot imagine a time its wisdom would not feel fresh and applicable."--Ann Patchett

From the American Book Award-winning author of Ancestors and Time Will Darken comes a masterful collection of stories, spanning more than 50 years--a tour of a world that engages readers entirely, and whose characters command the deepest loyalty and tenderness.

Here is a classic novel from one of our most honored writers--the author of such acclaimed works as So Long, See You Tomorrow and All the Days and Nights." The Folded Leaf is the serenely observed yet deeply moving story of two boys finding one another in the Midwest of the 1920s, when childhood lasted longer than it does today and even adults were more innocent of what life could bring. From the Trade Paperback edition.

From the American Book Award-winning author of Ancestors and Time Will Darken comes a masterful collection of stories, spanning more than 50 years--a tour of a world that engages readers entirely, and whose characters command the deepest loyalty and tenderness.

Pregnant with her second child, Martha King finds her marriage to lawyer Austin King more and more frustrating when her husband befriends his young foster cousin, Nora, and, in the process, unwittingly jeopardizes his marriage, career, and place in the community.

The National Book Award-winning author of So Long, See You Tomorrow offers an astonishing evocation of a vanished world, as he retraces, branch by branch, the history of his family, taking readers into the lives of settlers, itinerant preachers, and small businessmen, examining the way they saw their world and how they imagined the world to come.From the Trade Paperback edition.