Jim Meskimen

Bob Comet is a retired librarian in Portland, Oregon. One morning he encounters a confused elderly woman lost in a market and returns her to the senior center that is her home.

Hoping to fill the void he's known since retiring, he begins volunteering at the center. Here, as a community of strange peers gathers around Bob, and following a happenstance brush with a painful complication from his past, the events of his life and the details of his character are revealed.

Behind Bob Comet's straight man facade is the story of an unhappy child's runaway adventure during the last days of the Second World War, of true love won and stolen away, of the purpose and pride found in the librarian's vocation, and the pleasures of a life lived to the side of the masses.

When American fighter jets were being downed at an unprecedented rate during the Vietnam War, the U S Navy turned to a young naval aviator called Dan Pedersen. The programme he set up was called the US Navy Fighter Weapons School. It was known simply as TOPGUN. The hand-picked team of instructors - the Original Eight - were the best of the best. This is the thrilling story of how TOPGUN saw America reclaim the skies, by the man who created it.

Joe Sharkey knows he is passed his prime. Now in his sixties, the younger surfers around the breaks on the north shore of Oahu still revere him as the once-legendary 'Shark', but his sponsors have moved on, and Joe wonders what new future awaits him on the horizon. Uninterrupted quality time with the ocean, he hopes.

Life has other plans. When he accidentally hits and kills a man near Waimea while drunk-driving, he fears he will never rebound. Under the direction of his stubbornly loyal girlfriend Olive, he throws himself into uncovering his victim's story. But what they find in Max Mulgrave is entirely unexpected: a shared history - and refuge in the sea. Set on the stunning Hawaiian coast, Theroux captures the glory and nostalgia of looking back at a rich and adventurous past, whilst learning to ride out life's next unexpected wave.