A mining town in Russia at the end of the nineties. A miners' strike has paralysed the place, corruption and fraud are flourishing in the transitional period from a socialist economy to a market economy. In this world of lost souls lives Yekaterina Artemovna (Katya). This unconspicuous woman has, in the words of her future lover, a "heart of gold". The only bright spots in her lonely life in a meagre communal apartment are literature and her work in the town library. The only bright ray flashed in the life of the heroine is a visiting sailor. But he turns out to be a gigolo and leaves the poor woman. The tense string inside the heroine bursts, the iron nerves lose, and restrained Yekaterina at this point loses all patience with life and ready for the most desperate and cruel revenge...
Jane Taylor, a librarian, has lost her job. Depressed and suicidal, she decides to take a final wonderful trip to Costa Rica before swallowing a bottle of pills. Once there, she meets a younger man, Juan, a vibrant tour guide who takes her on an unexpected journey filled with adventure and romance.
Professor Griggs, teaching at the college, doesn't get paid a living wage; his next door neighbor, successful shoemaker Olsen, has money and plentiful food, while the Griggses have hardly any. When the professor's rich student Phil West falls for beautiful Griggs daughter Amelia and also befriends the poor Reverend Gates (a young man who is also in love with Amelia), he observes the difference in his life and theirs and tries to help make a difference.
A fragmented biography, inconclusive, partial, of the brilliant Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges, based on different testimonies: his links with Leonor de Acedevo —his mother— and María Kodama —his second wife—; his vast culture and devout dedication to literature, his and that of others; his country: the politicians and the disloyal military. Borges gradually builds his own impersonation of Borges.
A man desiring to join the Grouch Club describes the terrible experience of trying to check out a book from a public library.
A dysfunctional group of misfits and dropouts try to prove the relevance of their own lives as librarians endorsing the relevance of libraries, ironically at a time when they are being further pushed into the abyss in our hyper-modern technology based world. In all Doubt on Loan focuses on the dysfunctional librarians of Shawcross Library and Interactive centre, as they navigate their way through running a failing library in our increasingly hyper-modern technology based world, relationships and their pasts. Making matters worse their warped views, and precarious judgments often lead them to trouble, creating a myriad of uncomfortable situations that usually only get worse before they get better (which doesn't often happen).
Katya, a young librarian, believes in love, but her ideals are crushed by reality. After a string of disappointing affairs, Katya finally finds tenderness and understanding in the arms of her colleague, a journalist called Tanya. But then the First Department interferes: the state security services see this relationship as unacceptable for a Soviet woman.
Charlie suffers from a serious disease that causes acute narcolepsy whenever he is happy. Although he develops a variety of techniques to deny himself pleasure and deal with his sleep issues, they’re put to the test when he falls in love.
Although Mary has little income, she still finds ways to spend her nights at clubs. After being arrested for throwing an illegal rave, she asks her aunt Judy for bail money. Judy then finds Mary a job at her library so that Mary can repay her. Initially, Mary finds the job as a clerk boring and stifling, and prefers to get to know a street food vendor whom she likes. However, Mary must refocus her life once she loses her job and apartment.
The uncle of an executed murderess relates four stories of his hometown, Oldfield, to a reporter. In the first, an elderly man pursues a romance with a younger woman, even to the grave and beyond. In the second, a wounded man on the run from creditors is rescued by a backwoods hermit who holds the secret to eternal life. In the third, a glass-eating carny pays the ultimate price for looking for love on the outside. And in the fourth, a group of Civil War soldiers are held captive by a household of orphans with strange intentions for them.
Every year, Albert buys his daughter an initiatory journey to a European country. For her 17th birthday he chooses a trip to Sweden to look for a Viking's treasure. When they arrive in the rented house, it is occupied by Anika and Christine, forcing them into an unusual cohabitation.
Sue works in a library. Daniel eats crisps and listens to Metallica. This was the summer Daniel was due to spend with his father and his father's new wife in Florida. But when they cancel his trip at the last minute, Sue and Daniel suddenly face the prospect of six long weeks together.
A branch library becomes the battlefield for a fierce war of wills in this dark comedy by writer-director Tamar Halpern. A head librarian quietly loathes the new book shelver, a feisty woman fresh out of rehab. But what begins as simmering passive aggression soon spirals into all-out war.
A story of Naoufel, a young man who is in love with Gabrielle. In another part of town, a severed hand escapes from a dissection lab, determined to find its body again.
Joe Gower's job is skating through library shelves, fetching books. A police officer/friend of his is chosen to participate in a charity dance performance. Gower agrees to take his place in the show by posing as a police officer. He falls for a female officer in the show and gets into various scrapes with fellow cops and also crooks. And he dances.
A Southern librarian puts excitement in her life with a found murder weapon and a false confession.
A clique of four young teachers at a high school looks critically at their colleagues. To avoid falling in the same routine, they bring new ideas into the school lessons and play little games and pranks in their spare time -- sometimes get even more childish than their pupils. When they get opposition from the other teachers, they play tricks to get rid of them.
After a catastrophe destroys most of humanity, recluse Del lives in his small, empty town, content with the utopia he has methodically created for himself, until an interloper, young Grace, disrupts his solitude.
See how Sally Jenkins and her driver, Thomas, run Hertfordshire's mobile library service with military precision.