An Aspidistra in Babylon

A 19-year-old Anthony Bourdain travels to Provincetown and stumbles into the chaotic world of a restaurant kitchen, setting off a summer that will shape the course of his life.

At the height of summer, 18-year-old Cécile is relaxing by the French seaside with her father and falling in love with her new boyfriend. The arrival of her late mother's enigmatic friend turns her world upside down.

The lives of a disparate group of unfulfilled people converge at a small, seaside English hotel.

Four young women continue the journey toward adulthood that began with "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants." Now three years later, these lifelong friends embark on separate paths for their first year of college and the summer beyond, but remain in touch by sharing their experiences with each other.

It has been nine years since we last met Jesse and Celine, the French-American couple who once met on a train in Vienna. They now live in Paris with twin daughters but have spent a summer in Greece at the invitation of an author colleague of Jesse's. When the vacation is over and Jesse must send his teenage son off to the States, he begins to question his life decisions, and his relationship with Celine is at risk.

In 1900, young widow Lucy Muir learns that her seaside cottage is haunted and forms a unique relationship with the ghost.

An American couple, Paul and Marianne, spend their vacation in Italy and experience trouble when Marianne invites a former lover and his teenage daughter to visit, which leads to jealousy and dangerous sexual scenarios.

Three British teenage girls go on a rites-of-passage holiday—drinking, clubbing and hooking up, in what should be the best summer of their lives.

Over the summer of 1942 on Nantucket Island, three friends -- Hermie, Oscy and Benjie -- are more concerned with getting laid than anything else. Hermie falls in love with the married Dorothy, whose husband is an army pilot recently sent to the battlefront of World War II.

Standing on the precipice of adulthood, a group of friends navigate new relationships, while reexamining others, during their final summer before college.

In 1841, young Ishmael signs up for service aboard the Pequod, a whaler sailing out of New Bedford. The ship is under the command of Captain Ahab, a strict disciplinarian who exhorts his men to find Moby Dick, the great white whale. Ahab lost his leg to that creature and is desperate for revenge. As the crew soon learns, he will stop at nothing to gain satisfaction.

The summer before college, Auden meets the mysterious Eli, a fellow insomniac. While the seaside town of Colby sleeps, the two embark on nightly quests to help Auden experience the fun, carefree teen life she never knew she wanted.