In Holt, Colorado, widower Louis Waters is initially thrown when the widowed Addie Moore suggests that they spend time together, in bed, to stave off loneliness, but soon they are exchanging the confidences and memories.

Lonely Gingerbread Baby, having set out to find a friend, enters a bakery where he tries to talk to different cookies and other figures, but winds up leading a crowd back to his house on a chase similar to the one in the familiar tale.

"It's 1988. The CD has arrived. Sales of the shiny new disks are soaring on high streets in cities across the country. Meanwhile, down a dead-end street, Frank's music shop stands small and brightly lit, jam-packed with records of every kind. It attracts the lonely, the sleepless, the adrift. There is room for everyone. Frank has a gift for finding his customers the music they need. Into this shop arrives Ilse Brauchmann - practical, brave, well-heeled....

In parallel stories, Bone, an orphaned dog, finds and loses a series of homes, Molly, a family pet, helps Charlie through the grief and other after-effects of his brother's death, and lonely Henry pleads for a dog of his own.

"Explores what superheroes can teach us about being alone, the ways kids have survived on their own, and how activists in the civil rights movement took a stand against loneliness. Discover what comfort foods, sweatpants, and being kind to each other have to do with loneliness. Based on the podcast of the same name. Readers will learn about loneliness and how being alone can ultimately bring us closer together"--Provided by publisher.

A lonely firefly goes out into the night searching for other fireflies. Carle's very special story is finally available in a board book format, and, just like the hardcover edition, the fireflies' lights actually light up, delighting children of all ages.

"A masterful collection of stories that plumb the depths of everyday life to reveal the shifting tides and hidden undercurrents of ordinary relationships. In each of these twelve stories, small events have huge consequences. Heloise's father died in a car crash when she was a little girl; at a dinner party in her forties, she meets someone connected to that long-ago tragedy. Two estranged sisters cross paths at a posh hotel and pretend not to recognize...

A pioneering neuroscientist reveals the reasons for chronic loneliness--which he defines as unrecognized syndrome--and brings it out of the shadow of its cousin, depression.

Once popular, an increasingly shabby library book grows lonely until a young girl rediscovers it, but when it becomes lost again both the book and the girl wonder if they will have a happy ending.

Whale's beautiful song calms a wriggly octopus, cheers a sad urchin, and much more but cannot cure his loneliness without the help of his friends.