Its streets overrun with children, the village of Kaname has distinguished itself with the highest birth rate in Japan. Its citizens are excited-tomorrow, the Prime Minister arrives to formally celebrate Kaname's demographic distinction. The spirit is festive, except for one 14-year-old girl. She knows the secret of Kaname's fecundity, and she's typing up a tell-all letter to a prominent journalist, revealing the crazy, complicated tale. It all began 14 years ago... Betrayed and disgraced, big-city reporter Kazuya Mizuno is banished to a desk at Kaname's boring little town newspaper. But Kaname isn't as boring as it seems on the surface. Not with characters around like Shimeko, a girl genius with a childlike lack of propriety, and her ace fisherman/folk-singer dad. Or the overbearing and unpleasant local Shinto priest, a former Christian cultist. Or Endo, Kazuya's new colleague...

Abandoned as a baby, journalist Yue has only resent for the parents she never knew. While covering a tragic story about a woman and her unborn child, Yue receives news that her foster mother is dying. Her final wish is for Yue to meet her birth mother. With only a train ticket as clue, Yue embarks on a sweeping journey through China to find her mother and the truth behind her abandonment.

By 2008, more than 25 percent of major league baseball players were born in Latin America. At 19, Miguel "Sugar" Santos, a serious kid from the Dominican Republic, signs with Kansas City. He flies to Phoenix for tryouts and is sent to the Class A team "The Swing" in the fictional town of Bridgetown, Iowa, where he lives with a farm family. Thus begins his odyssey: leaving his mom and girlfriend; living in an alien culture; learning English; overcoming jitters; working hard; achieving early success; navigating friendships, occasional racism, and a woman's mixed signals; dealing with an injury; trying performance-enhancing drugs; and, searching for his place in the world. Will he make it to the Majors; will he play in New York?

When people begin exploding from stress, George Washington Winsterhammerman tries to ignore the epidemic and live his usual life, but then he suffers his first symptom.

Tired and irritable, Zakes Abbott drives home along the motorway, his girlfriend, Beth, asleep beside him. Failing to spot his exit he speeds across the causeway, cutting up a white van and barely avoiding an accident. Apoplectic with rage, the truck driver gives chase, and as he violently overtakes the tailgate flips up revealing a woman bound and bloodied in the back. But before there is time for a second look, the door is slammed shut and Zakes is left bewildered and wondering if what he saw was real. Later at a service station, Zakes' fears grow when Beth goes missing, and as he begins a frantic search, he is enticed into a deadly game of cat and mouse on the deserted motorway. But being the sole witness to the earlier scene, how does he convince others of his desperate need for help? Playing on our most primal fears, this taut suspense thriller challenges a world where we constantly...

An examination of one of the most influential books in the world, the Koran, which guides the Muslim religion.

In 1922, Madrid is wavering on the edge of change as traditional values are challenged by the dangerous new influences of Jazz, Freud and the avant-garde. Salvador Dali arrives at the university; 18 years old and determined to become a great artist. His bizarre blend of shyness and rampant exhibitionism attracts the attention of two of the university's social elite - Federico Garcia Lorca and Luis Bunel. Salvador is absorbed into their youthfully decadent group and for a time Salvador, Luis and Federico become a formidable trio, the most ultra-modern group in Madrid. However as time passes, Salvador feels and increasingly strong pull towards the charismatic Federico - who is himself oblivious of the attentions he is getting from his beautiful writer friend, Magdalena. In the face of his friends' preoccupations - and Federico's growing renown as a poet - Luis sets off for Paris in search of his own artistic success. Federico and Salvador spend the holiday in the sea-side town of ...

Peter and Carla have a wasted marriage and constant friction. Peter buys expensive camping gear and, despite the protests of Carla, insists they travel with their dog Cricket to camp on the isolated Moondah Beach in the North Coast with his friend Luke and his girlfriend during the rainy holiday. Peter stops in a pub at the Eggleston Hotel and leaves a message for Luke with the owner of the pub. When Peter takes what he believes to be shortcut to the beach, he gets lost and the couple spends the night sleeping in their SUV. The next morning, Peter organizes the campsite and their intrusion into and abuse of the natural environment begins. During the two days, the couple's relationship deteriorates while the nature avenges the bad treatment the couple has inflicted upon it.