Nearly a decade after occupation by an extraterrestrial force, the lives of a Chicago neighborhood on both sides of the conflict are explored. In a working-class Chicago neighborhood occupied by an alien force for nine years, increased surveillance and the restriction of civil rights have given rise to an authoritarian system -- and dissent among the populace.

An old man comes home with the ashes of his dead wife in an urn. As he waits for the kettle to boil, the relentless hissing of boiling water brings to mind memories. There is nothing ahead for the old man, only lack of purpose, sense of loss and loneliness. He embarks on a journey.

The daring journey through Europe of two somewhat naive friends, Salvatore and Felice, fleeing a small town in Puglia, who find themselves catapulted to Rotterdam and then to Iceland. For the first time in their lives they will discover what it means to feel alive and happy. Through some mishap and with the help of the generous and extravagant Anke, they will overcome their fears and inhibitions. They will be overwhelmed by life, discovering the joy of existing and of experiencing and receiving affection and love in a strange triangle of relationships typical of a 'modern family', bizarre and reassuring at the same time.

The scholar Sveinn Bergsveinsson, a Communist in the 1930s, was trapped in Berlin by the outbreak of World War II and forced to work for the Nazi propaganda machine. Returning to Iceland, sick with tuberculosis, he found himself branded by both sides of the cold war political divide and barred from academic work. In desperation, he emigrated to East-Germany where he became a respected professor. He always hoped to return home but died in East-Berlin in 1988, a year before the wall came down. He left behind a wealth of documents, photographs, film and voice recordings which form the basis of this narrative.

Chronicles Nick Schuyler's dramatic rescue by the US Coast Guard 43 hours after a boating accident in the Gulf of Mexico that took the lives of NFL players Marquis Cooper, Corey Smith, and Schulyer's best friend, Will Bleakley.

Paolo is a sceptical 30-year-old who works unwillingly as a sales clerk in a Turin department store. Mia is a back-up singer in a band and lives her life haphazardly, which leads her to being practically homeless. One night, they bump into each other by chance, in a gay club in Turin. It will be the beginning of an emotional adventure and a journey across the country looking for the father of Mia’s baby.

Mihkel boards a ferry from his small town in Estonia to Saint Petersburg in Russia, on his way to Iceland, where he wants to make a new life for himself and his fiancée, Vera. His friend Igor, who emigrated to Iceland a few years earlier, convinces Mihkel to smuggle two bottles of liquid amphetamine and then seek payment from an 
Estonian priest, who is a business partner of Igor’s in Saint Petersburg. The priest is then to set him up in his new home and bring Vera over to join him. Rather than getting paid, he is instead coerced into swallowing seventy drug capsules to take on to Iceland. He arrives in Iceland and is picked up by Igor and his two Icelandic accomplices, Jóhann and Bóbó. However, in the next two days it becomes clear that something is wrong and Mihkel cannot pass the drugs. The Icelandic criminals become very nervous, and more and more frantic activity ensues as the situation becomes more serious.