A name you know. A mood you’re in. Ten minutes to yourself. Start anywhere.
Where does the story take place?
Two friends promise to send a sign after death, and a meeting on a San Francisco street tests their pact.
A newspaper reporter spends the night alone in a Cincinnati house that crowds believe is haunted.
A man hears a familiar tapping in a room where no one else can be.
Identical twins share more than a face as one brother’s engagement turns dangerous.
A corpse appears in a locked third-floor bedroom, and no one can identify it.
An exhausted traveler checks into an Atlanta hotel and wakes to find his room occupied.
A man meets a hypnotist he distrusts, then sees his fiancée arrive in town without warning.
Penniless after a hospital stay, a nightclub dancer visits an old admirer and finds that ordinary clothes have changed their acquaintance.
A wealthy lover tries to settle an adulterous triangle with cash, only to discover that affection cannot be bought.
A sensitive law student joins two friends on a tour of Moscow brothels and finds himself unable to accept their practiced indifference.
An eloquent abbot leaves his desert monastery to condemn the city’s sins, then discovers how seductive a warning can become.
A wealthy factory owner spends Christmas confronting the distance between her good intentions, her workers, and the life she longs to lead.
An indecent antique passes from one grateful professional to another as each admirer searches for a respectable way to lose it.
A solitary landowner explains how love entered his friends’ household and remained unspoken while duty and hesitation consumed the years.
A strong old actor falls ill far from home, while his theatrical companions mistake remedies and affection for understanding.
A sober, pious man steals a midnight drink, swallows paraffin instead, and spends the night preparing for death.
An impoverished young bride enters a joyless marriage, then discovers that beauty can confer a power her husband never expected.
On a Black Sea steamer, a disillusioned landowner recounts how his worship of a beautiful neighbor drew him across Europe.
Weeks before her wedding, a young woman begins to see her comfortable provincial life—and the future chosen for her—with new clarity.
A hotel waiter misplaces a piano-tuner’s boots, sending their anxious owner into an increasingly dangerous mix-up.
After a ball, a wealthy manufacturer drinks through the night and confesses that money has made every relationship feel bought.
A self-assured critic and his widowed sister grow apart when her search for moral certainty challenges his literary convictions.
Two childhood friends reunite warmly at a railway station until one learns the other’s official rank.
A toddler’s first walk beyond the nursery turns ordinary streets, strangers, animals, and sounds into an overwhelming new universe.
