Anthologies & Short Stories

Book SynopsisL. Frank Baum’s work is universally celebrated and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is known worldwide, in particular for its 1939 musical film adaptation starring Judy Garland as Dorothy. Published in 1900, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz depicted the young farm girl Dorothy and her pet dog Toto, who are swept away to the Land of Oz in a cyclone. Baum was inspired by the works of the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen, focusing on manipulating the fairy tale tradition with an American feel in the Oz series. This edition collects together the best of L. Frank Baum’s Oz works, taking material from the very first 1900 publication of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and subsequent novels including Ozma of Oz, Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz and The Lost Princess of Oz.

Read more less

Book SynopsisMalevolent and dark, the fairy tales collected by the Brothers Grimm are not for the faint-hearted. The stories were originally published in 1812 and form a vivid and fascinating body of work that is rich in folkloric significance. Replete with sinister characters and grotesque imagery, this collection is the perfect addition to our series of deluxe Gothic Fantasy giftbooks, and features some of the lesser-known tales alongside favourites like Snow White, Rapunzel, Rumpelstiltskin, and Hansel and Gretel.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis new selection offers the most chilling and unsettling of Hodgson's short fiction, from encounters with abominations at sea to fireside tales of otherworldly forces from his inventive `occult detective' character Carnacki, the ghost finder.Table of ContentsIntroduction; `A Tropical Horror' (1905); `The Voice in the Night' (1907); 'Out of the Storm' (1908); `The Gateway of the Monster' (1910); `The Horse of the Invisible' (1910); `The Whistling Room' (1910); `The Derelict' (1912); `The Thing in the Weeds' (1916); `The Hog' (1947); `The Riven Night' (1973)

Read more less

Released in 1952, Judgment Night collects five Moore novellas from the pages of editor John W. Campbell, Jr.'s Astounding Science Fiction magazine:''Judgment Night'' (first published in August and September, 1943) balances a lush rendering of a future galactic empire with a sober meditation on the nature of power and its inevitable loss; ''The Code'' (July, 1945) pays homage to the classic Faust with modern theories and Lovecraftian dread; ''Promised Land'' (February, 1950) and ''Heir Apparent'' (July, 1950) both document the grim twisting that mankind must undergo in order to spread into the solar system; ''Paradise Street'' (September, 1950) shows a futuristic take on the old western conflict between lone hunter and wilderness-taming settlers.Chosen by the author herself as the best of her longer-form writing, these stories show a gifted wordsmith working at the height of her talents.

Read more less

Book SynopsisGina Chung is a Korean American writer from New Jersey currently living in New York City. She is the author of the novel Sea Change and the short story collection Green Frog. A recipient of the Pushcart Prize, she is a 20212022 Center for Fiction/Susan Kamil Emerging Writer Fellow and holds an MFA in fiction from The New School. Her work appears or is forthcoming in The Kenyon Review, Catapult, Electric Literature, Gulf Coast, Indiana Review and Idaho Review, among others.

Read more less

Book SynopsisFrom the imaginations of Gothic short-story writers such as Edgar Allen Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mary Shelley and H.P. Lovecraft came one of the most complex of villains - the mad scientist. Promethean Horrors presents some of the greatest mad scientists ever created, as each cautionary tale explores the consequences of pushing nature too far.

Read more less

Book SynopsisHailed as a Southeast Asian Gabriel García Márquez for the exuberant beauty of his prose and the darkly comic surrealism of his stories, Eka Kurniawan is the first Indonesian writer to be nominated for a Man Booker International Prize. Here is his first collection of short stories to be translated into English.A man captures a caronang, a strange, intelligent dog that walks upright, and brings it home, only to provoke an all-too-human outcome. A girl plots against a witch doctor whose crimes against her are, infuriatingly, like any other man's. Stories explore the turbulent dreams of an ex-prostitute, a perpetual student, victims of anti-communist genocide, an elephant, a stone. Dark, sexual, scatalogical, violent, and mordantly funny, these fractured fables span city and country, animal and human, myth and politics.Trade ReviewBrash, worldly and wickedly funny, Eka Kurniawan may be South-East Asia's most ambitious writer in a generation... * Economist *Kurniawan creates a vivid sense of poverty and rural isolation and weaves magic realism into his narratives to terrific effect. It's easy to see why he is being compared to Gabriel García Márquez and hailed as one of the leading lights of contemporary Indonesian fiction. * Financial Times *Kurniawan's writing demonstrates an affinity with literary heavyweights such as, yes, García Márquez and Dostoevsky, as well as Indonesia's own social-realist master Pramoedya Ananta Toer, to whom domestic fans have dubbed him an heir. Most intriguing, though, is the influence of the home-grown pulp fiction that was popular when he was growing up in West Java * Guardian *Many have deemed Kurniawan the next Pramoedya Ananta Toer, an acclaimed pioneer of socialist realism. The observation is inevitable, given the paucity of well-known Indonesian literary voices. But, unlike Pramoedya, Kurniawan eschews political conviction for a knowing ambivalence. * New Yorker *Indonesia's most original living writer of novels and short stories, and its most unexpected meteorite. Who could predict the arrival of Sophocles, Virgil, Lady Murasaki, Cervantes, Melville, Lu Hsün, Shakespeare, Proust, Gogol, Ibsen, Márquez, or Joyce? -- Benedict Anderson * New Left Review *These stories are blasphemous, perverse, and shocking! But so are you, if you're a human being. With exceptional fervor, wit, and bite, Kurniawan faces the truth. Can you? -- James Hannaham, author of Delicious FoodsThese short, spiky tales are a joy to read. * New Internationalist *Scintillating and often darkly humorous, Kitchen Curse by Eka Kurniawan is masterful take on the vicissitudes of life for contemporary Indonesians. * Asian Review of Books *Like Beauty Is a Wound, Man Tiger is a tale of generations bound by tragedy and burdened by unspeakable histories. But it also reveals the banality of violence that has turned routine. Kurniawan suggested to an audience at the Melbourne festival that unpredictable outbreaks of violence were part of the fabric of Indonesian life. As a teenager, he saw a mob set two men on fire after the men tried to steal a guitar from a minibus. * New Yorker *Tight, focused and thrilling... Like a good crime novel, Man Tiger works best when read in a single sitting, and its propulsive suspense is all the more remarkable because Kurniawan reveals both victim and murderer in the first sentence. * New York Times *Sex, violence, and betrayal loom large throughout, as in Kurniawan's award-winning previous novels. * Library Journal *Erupting with awareness and dark wit, this work puts Kurniawan in league with Hassan Blasim, Witold Gombrowicz, and Daniil Kharms. * Publishers Weekly *These stories are sites of bold experimentation ... They provide ways of looking at Indonesia's politics, history, and culture through the lens of the everyday and the marginal: the world of the outcasts. -- Intan Paramaditha * Singapore Unbound *

Read more less

Book SynopsisFrom domineering mothers and very modern daughters to the quiet dreamers on either side of the generational divide, this anthology sketches a joyous, fraught, and ultimately tender portrait of mother-daughter relationships throughout the 20th century.

Read more less

Book SynopsisRuchama, a wigmaker from an ultra-orthodox Brooklyn enclave, journeys into Manhattan for inspiration, frequenting a newsstand where she flips through forbidden fashion magazines. An elderly Jew with a long, white beard reluctantly works as a department store Santa Claus every year - until he can take it no longer. And a Hasidic man, frustrated by his wife''s lack of interest, gets a dispensation from a rabbi to see a prostitute for the relief of unbearable urges.

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisRecipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968, the novelist Yasunari Kawabata felt the essence of his art was to be found not in his longer works but in a series of short storieswhich he called Palm-of-the-Hand Storieswritten over the span of his career. In them we find loneliness, love, and the passage of time, demonstrating the range and complexity of a true master of short fiction.

Read more less

Book SynopsisWonderfully sardonic and slyly humorous, the writings of landmark American feminist and socialist thinker Charlotte Perkins Gilman were penned in response to her frustrations with the gender-based double standard that prevailed in America as the twentieth century began. Perhaps best known for her chilling depiction of a woman''s mental breakdown in her unforgettable 1892 short story ''The Yellow Wall-Paper'', Gilman also wrote Herland, a wry novel that imagines a peaceful, progressive country from which men have been absent for 2,000 years. Both are included in this volume, along with a selection of Gilman''s major short stories and her poems.

Read more less

Book SynopsisA collection of masterful short stories in Julio Cortazar's sophistocated, powerful and gripping style.'Julio Cortázar is truly a sorcerer and the best of him is here, in these hilariously fraught and almost eerily affecting stories' Kevin BarryA grieving family home becomes the site of a terrifying invasion. A frustrated love triangle, brought together by a plundered Aztec idol, spills over into brutality. A lodger’s inability to stop vomiting bunny rabbits inspires a personal confession. As dream melds into reality, and reality melts into nightmare, one constant remains throughout these thirty-five stories: the singular brilliance of Julio Cortazar’s imagination.WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY KEVIN BARRY ‘Anyone who doesn't read Cortázar is doomed’ Pablo NerudaTrade ReviewA fecund mixture of surrealism, symbolism, nouveau roman experimentation and Borgesian fantasy, Cortázar enthusiastically seeds his realistic settings – for the most part split between Buenos Aires and Paris – with impossible invasions of the fantastical and supernatural. The effect is often a refined philosophical take on the "uncanny tales" strand of speculative fiction * Guardian *Cortázar is one of the most distinctive voices in Latin American literature * Newsday *Original...circuitous and powerful... Cortázar's method is to keep tight control over a world in which, just below the surface of charming, sophisticated social life, lies the unfaceable and unmentionable * Financial Times *Cortázar can induce the kind of chilling unease that strikes like a sound in the night * Time *A first-class literary imagination at work * The New York Times Book Review *

Read more less

Book SynopsisA chemist by training, the author became one of the witnesses to twentieth-century atrocity. In these haunting reflections inspired by the elements of the periodic table, he ranges from young love to political savagery; from the inert gas argon - and 'inert' relatives like the uncle who stayed in bed for twenty-two years - to life-giving carbon.

Read more less

Book SynopsisFlamboyant, theatrical and ambitious, Margaret Cavendish was one of the seventeenth century''s most striking figures: a woman who ventured into the male spheres of politics, science, philosophy and literature. The Blazing World is a highly original work: part Utopian fiction, part feminist text, it tells of a lady shipwrecked on the Blazing World where she is made Empress and uses her power to ensure that it is free of war, religious division and unfair sexual discrimination. This volume also includes The Contract, a romance in which love and law work harmoniously together, and Assaulted and Pursued Chastity, which explores the power and freedom a woman can achieve in the disguise of a man.

Read more less

Book SynopsisIsak Dinesen was the pen-name of Karen Blixen, who was born in Rungsted, Denmark in 1885. After studying art at Copenhagen, Paris and Rome, she married her cousin, Baron Bror Blixen-Finecke, in 1914. Together they went to Kenya to manage a coffee plantation. After their divorce in 1921, she continued to run the plantation until a collapse in the coffee market forced her back to Denmark in 1931.

Read more less

Book SynopsisTrade ReviewA giant of 20th-century science fiction * Guardian *A Jorge Luis Borges for the Space Age * New York Times *The linguistic inventiveness is extraordinary ... Lem has created a curious world in which robots and rockets rub shoulders with kings, dragons, witches and pirates * Independent on Sunday *

Read more less

Book SynopsisWelcome to the second new collection of dark Christmas stories in the Tales of the Weird series, ushering in a fresh host of nightmarish phantoms and otherworldly intruders bent on joining or ruining the most wonderful time of the year.

Read more less

Book SynopsisFinalist for the 2020 Hugo Award for Best Semiprozine. Celebrate the fifteenth anniversary of cutting-edge science fiction from the hit podcast, Escape Pod. Escape Pod has been bringing the finest short fiction to millions of ears all over the world, at the forefront of a new fiction revolution. This anthology gathers together fifteen stories, including new and exclusive work from writers such as from Cory Doctorow, Ken Liu, Mary Robinette Kowal, T. Kingfisher and more. From editors Mur Laffterty and S.B. Divya comes the science fiction collection of the year, bringing together bestselling authors in celebration of the publishing phenomenon that is, Escape Pod.Trade Review'A major new sci-fi anthology' – New Scientist.'The 15 pieces in this diverse, enjoyable anthology…showcase the wide variety of ideas the short science fiction story can accommodate…The result is sure to please” – Publishers Weekly“[Mur Lafferty is] …one of the worst-kept secrets in science fiction and fantasy publishing.” – Cory Doctorow "Podcast fans will undoubtedly enjoy this book, as they experience stories written by their favorite “escape artists.” For the uninitiated in the Escape Pod universe, consider this anthology as an invitation to the new fiction revolution." - Portland Book Review"Excellently curated and arranged, this collection really does provide a nice range of the best that SF has been offering, from a variety of voices and perspectives" – Skiffy and Fanty"If Escape Pod: The Science Fiction Anthology is any indication to the quality of the work found in the podcast, it is certainly worth checking out."SF Book Review"As subversive as it is excellent."Amazing Stories"One of the strongest anthologies I’ve ever read... All science fiction fans should add Escape Pod to your “must read” list immediately!"Books, Bones & Buffy"Hugely satisfying and well worth your attention.”Runalong the Shelves"Not only is it a book that shows the beauty and versatility of the science fiction genre, but it’s one that will leave you wanting to read more."Trans-Scribe Review"A great anthology ... Escape Pod delivers it all."Liis Thinks Review"I can fully recommend [Escape Pod: The Science Fiction Anthology]"ReiBwolf Review"Something for everyone!"Lisa's Books, Gems & Tarot"I would definitely recommend this anthology."The Curious Reader"There is something for everyone in this collection."Chain Interaction"A marvellous collection, and one I wholeheartedly recommend" – Sci-Fi & Fantasy Reviews

Read more less

Book SynopsisA deadly virus has been stolen, and the thieves plan to use the hundred million pound ransom to fund terrorist armies. When the mission looks impossible, the world calls upon UNACO.Trade Review'A magnificent storyteller' Sunday Mirror ‘The most successful British novelist of his time’ Jack Higgins ‘Alistar MacLean is one of the few people writing today who has a story to tell.’ Daily Express

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe first ever collection of Michael Marshall Smith’s award-winning short stories.Trade Review‘Astonishingly distinctive short stories’Independent ‘A story telling skill that can only be described as pure genius’Venue ‘Very funny and decidedly surreal’Empire ‘No one writes better than Smith about love: how it’s won, how it’s lost. No one writes better about being wasted – by drugs, by drink, by time. Nigh-on unique’i-D

Read more less

Book SynopsisBy turns, an unsparing and joyous account of life in a postwar London rooming house by Doris Lessing, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature 2007.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe best book yet from this witty writerTrade Review‘Dunn is a surgeon of the heart, and her observations are sparky.’Time Out ‘Compelling power… Dunn shows again her gift for making the ordinary seem extraordinary.’The Times

Read more less

Book SynopsisFrom Doris Lessing, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, the sequel to one of her most celebrated novels, ‘The Fifth Child’.Trade Review‘A wonderful novel, flawless as a black pearl.’ Daily Mail ‘Outstanding…A tour de force that poses stark questions about modern-day Britain and what it is to be human.’ Sunday Times ‘“Ben, In the World” is huge in scope, humanity and pathos. Lessing created a monster; her triumph is that he not only personifies the human yearning to belong, but that we also come to love him.’ Shena Mackay, Daily Telegraph

Read more less

Book SynopsisNobel Prize for Literature winner Doris Lessing tackles the 1960s and their legacy head-on in one of her most involving, personal, political novels.It's the morning of the 1960s and it's suppertime at Freedom Hall, the most welcoming household in north London. Frances Lennox stands at her stove, preparing another feast before ladling it out to the youthful crew assembled around her hospitable table here are her two sons, smarting at their upbringing but beginning to absorb their mother's lessons. Around them are ranged their schoolfriends and girlfriends and ex-friends and new friends fresh off the street. The feast begins. Wine and talk flow. Everything is being changed and being challenged.But what is being tolerated? And where will it end? Over there in the corner is Frances's ex-husband, Comrade Johnny, who delivers his rousing tirades, then laps up the adolescent adulation before disappearing into the night to evade the clutches of his responsibilities. Upstairs sits Johnny's exiTrade Review‘Her portraits of sympathetic human relationships are of quite staggering beauty…It would be hard to exaggerate the splendour of this book.’ The Times ‘The haunting brilliance of her characters…the passion of her ideas and vision, remain undiminished. She’s up there in the pantheon with Honore [Balzac] and George [Eliot].’ Independent

Read more less

Book SynopsisWITH AN INTRODUCTION BY HERMIONE LEE The previously uncollected occasional prose of a great English writer – full of wit, feeling and illumination.Trade Review‘Of all the novelists in English of the last quarter-century, Penelope Fitzgerald has the most unarguable claim on greatness.’ Philip Hensher ‘This generous selection of essays, reviews, introductions and other occasional writings proves yet again that stylistically, intellectually and morally Fitzgerald couldn’t put a foot wrong if she’d tried. Hers is an impeccable and unique voice not just from another century but another world.’ Michael Dibdin, Books of the Year, Daily Telegraph ‘Remarkable. It is the range of her scholarship that impresses.’ Doris Lessing, Books of the Year, Daily Telegraph ‘An intelligent writer, superbly and unfailingly so. Wise and funny, with a dry wit allied to a great emotional sympathy.’ Sunday Times

Read more less

Book SynopsisFirst published in 1984, under a pseudonym, as The Diary of a Good Neighbour' and If the Old Could ', now published as The Diaries of Jane Somers', this is in many ways classic Lessing.As resonant with social and political themes as The Golden Notebook', Lessing returns to the realism of her early fiction with the wisdom and experience of maturity.The diaries introduce us to Jane, an intelligent and beautiful magazine editor concerned with success, clothes and comfort. But her real inadequacy is highlighted when first her husband, then her mother, die from cancer and Jane feels strangely removed. In an attempt to fill this void, she befriends ninety-something Maudie, whose poverty and squalor contrast so radically with the glamour and luxury of the magazine world. The two gradually come to depend on each other Maudie delighting Jane with tales of London in the 1920s and Jane trying to care for the rapidly deteriorating old woman.The Diary of Jane Somers' contrasts the helplessness of

Read more less

Book SynopsisA collection of short stories from one of our most popular novelists the perfect gift.A rich and wonderful selection of short stories. A TV chef who specialises in outrageous cakes tempts a monk who bakes bread for his brothers; a surprise visitor invites mayhem into the perfect minimalist flat in the season of good will; a woman explains her unique view of straying husbands; straying husbands encounter a variety of effective responses. Just some of the delicacies on offer in this sumptuous box of delightsTrade Review‘To those that have feasted on Joanne Harris’s delightful novel Chocolat, the title of this collection of short stories should give ample hint as to their themes…All of these modern morality tales are well observed and tastily enjoyable’ The Times ‘This stunning collection of short stories (is) about modern relationships – and modern women. Every twist and turn, nuance and delicacy of the mating game is portrayed…Throughout, Gregory’s grasp of the female psyche never errs…It is a significant accomplishment’ Daily Mail

Read more less

Book SynopsisA remarkable collection of short stories set in Wyoming from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of ‘The Shipping News’ and ‘Brokeback Mountain’.Trade Review‘Proulx writes in wonderful stews, everything thrown in together…the stories demand a second reading.’ Daily Telegraph ‘Her keen eye for idiosyncrasy ensures her continuing reputation as one of the shrewdest chroniclers of contemporary America.’ David Robson, Sunday Telegraph ‘Vivid and evocative…as [the stories] gather force, you find yourself being drawn in to their momentum.’ Financial Times ‘Proulx['s]…stories’ sour sometimes brutal folksiness gains a singular resonance from the fine, sinewy prose in which they are rendered.’ The Times ‘Packed with grittily persuasive detail, they feel both modern and as timeless as the Wyoming plains.’ Marie Claire ‘Performs inspired imaginative feats.’ Alex Clark, Sunday Times

Read more less

Book SynopsisDoris Lessing's first book after winning the Nobel Prize for Literature revisits her childhood in Southern Africa and the lives, both fictional and factual, that her parents led.I think my father'''s rage at the trenches took me over, when I was very young, and has never left me. Do children feel their parents'' emotions? Yes, we do, and it is a legacy I could have done without. What is the use of it? It is as if that old war is in my own memory, my own consciousness.'In this extraordinary book, Doris Lessing explores the lives of her parents, both of them irrevocably damaged by the Great War. Her father wanted the simple life of an English farmer, but shrapnel almost killed him in the trenches, and thereafter he had to wear a wooden leg. Her mother Emily''s great love was a doctor who drowned in the Channel, and she spent the war nursing the wounded in the Royal Free Hospital.In the first half of this book, Lessing imagines the lives her parents might have made for themselves had therTrade Review'Writers approaching 90 aren't supposed to write with vigour or experiment with form. But Lessing has never done the expected thing and "Alfred and Emily" is one more exception in an exceptional career.' Blake Morrison, Guardian ‘This tale has a quality at once dreamy and wooden, like beautifully carved wooden dolls. Vividly and urgently written, [it] makes us think about the moral and emotional power of different ways of telling a story.' Financial Times 'Vivid, turbulent, raw with emotion.' Sunday Telegraph 'Quietly extraordinary…this perfectly crafted book is, as Lessing knows, the latest instalment of a remarkable payback.' Observer 'Powerful…it is fascinating to see [Lessing] focus so sharply in her new book on what must be for us all, the most intimate of personal narratives: our parents' lives, what they were, or might have been.' The Times ‘Lessing excels in the portrait of unsatisfactory lives, and together the parts form a poignant experiment.’ Daily Telegraph 'It has the freshness, clarity and emotional acuity that made her first novel "The Grass is Singing" so outstanding. A tribute to a remarkable childhood, and a poignant memoir of the mother whose greatest legacy to her daughter was an invaluable gift for storytelling.’ Literary Review

Read more less

Book SynopsisFirst in a two volume collection of short stories by the acclaimed author of Empire of the Sun', Crash' and Super-Cannes'. The new edition is introduced by Adam Thirwell.With eighteen novels over four decades from The Drowned World' in 1962 to his final novel Kingdom Come' in 2006 J.G. Ballard is known as one of Britain's most celebrated and original novelists.However, during his long career he was also a prolific writer of short stories; in fact, many people consider that he is at his best in the short-story format. These highly influential stories have appeared in magazines such as New Worlds, Amazing Stories and Interzone, and in several separate collections, including The Terminal Beach', The Venus Hunters', Vermilion Sands', Low-Flying Aircraft' and Myths of the Near Future'.Set out in the original order of publication and frequently the point of conception for ideas he further developed in his novels, these stories provide an unprecedented opportunity to see the imagination of Trade Review‘More than one thousand compelling pages from one of the most haunting, cogent and individual imaginations in contemporary literature’ William Boyd ‘A marvel … there is something a little shaming in reading Ballard: you have to face the fact that there exist writers with such fresh imaginations they can’t write five pages without stumbling on an alternate world’ Zadie Smith ‘Simply a master story writer – the maker of unforgettable artefacts in words’ Jonathan Lethem ‘Indispensable … probably the most original English writer of the last century’ China Miéville

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe second in a two volume collection of short stories by the acclaimed author of Empire of the Sun', Crash' and Super-Cannes'. The new edition is introduced by Adam Thirwell.With eighteen novels over four decades from The Drowned World' in 1962 to his final novel Kingdom Come' in 2006 J.G. Ballard is known as one of Britain's most celebrated and original novelists.However, during his long career he was also a prolific writer of short stories; in fact, many people consider that he is at his best in the short-story format. These highly influential stories have appeared in magazines such as New Worlds, Amazing Stories and Interzone, and in several separate collections, including The Terminal Beach', The Venus Hunters', Vermilion Sands', Low-Flying Aircraft' and Myths of the Near Future'.Set out in the original order of publication and frequently the point of conception for ideas he further developed in his novels, these stories provide an unprecedented opportunity to see the imaginatioTrade Review‘A marvel … there is something a little shaming in reading Ballard: you have to face the fact that there exist writers with such fresh imaginations they can’t write five pages without stumbling on an alternate world’ Zadie Smith ‘Each of Ballard’s 98 short stories is like a dream more perfectly realized than any of your own … Simply a master story writer – the maker of unforgettable artefacts in words, each as absolute and perplexing as sculptures unviewable from a single perspective’ Jonathan Lethem ‘One of the most haunting, cogent and individual imaginations in contemporary literature’ William Boyd

Read more less

Book SynopsisA wonderful collection of prize-winning short stories from one of Canada’s brightest authors. The cult film success KISSED is based on the title story.Trade Review‘Gowdy is a writer now emerging as one of Canada’s most accomplished and outrageous… We So Seldom Look on Love will only deepen her reputation for fine technique and alarming content. These are unsettling and profoundly moving short stories to be read, and reread, and then to be dreamt upon… this is a remarkable and uplifting book.’Toronto Globe and Mail ‘Barbara Gowdy’s stunning collection plants her firmly in the constellation of Canada’s bright literary lights… in this new set of stories she truly shines. Her insatiable curiousity, her candour and her cool wit emerge like chrysalids from the assembled deformity of this lively and memorable book.’Montreal Gazette

Read more less

Book Synopsis‘Sparkling, sharply observing, insights delivered with a light touch that puts us in a good mood, however dark the comedy’ SpectatorTrade ReviewPraise for Fay Weldon’s short stories: ‘Weldon’s stories pull no punches. There is always humour.’Independent on Sunday ‘Bang up-to-date.’Financial Times ‘Immaculately written, simple, stylish and swallowable whole. Her stories are so smart and sassy and multiply ironic.’Scotsman

Read more less

Book SynopsisBrilliant stories from the hyper-real world of Weldonia.Trade Review‘Sparkling, sharply observing, insights delivered with a light touch that puts us in a good mood, however dark the comedy.’Spectator ‘Weldon’s writing is seductively readable, her magic realism is never pretentious; it is understated and convincing.’Times Literary Supplement

Read more less

Book SynopsisFor readers of Melissa Bank or Jhumpa Lahiri: witty, seductive stories of expatriate women, their loves and losses.Trade Review‘Andrea Lee is the real thing. There is nothing more to say.’ Philip Roth ‘Andrea Lee’s stories are sly and sexy, sophisticated retellings of standoffs between traditional opposites. Her writing is beautifully controlled.’ Sunday Times ‘The heroines of Andrea Lee’s ‘Interesting Women’ live up to their billing. They cuckold their Puritan ancestry by sleeping – casually, bemusedly – with European princes twice their age. They offer hookers as birthday gifts to their Italian husbands. On vacation in Madagascar, they slap native girls who mess with their men…It’s this voice – a once-cherished concubine writing bitchy postcards from a fabulous self-exile – that makes this book a decadent holiday well worth taking.’ Elle ‘…each of these finely tuned, exquisitely written tales has the interest and substance of a novel…Lee is ironic, profound and a wonderful find.’ Daily Mail ‘…sophisticated and intelligent, fascinating and amusing. An entertaining and undemanding read.’ Time Out ‘Exceptional.’ Metro ‘A stylish, sensual, summer read.’ Sunday Express ‘Told elegantly, with an enjoyable arch tone, this is an intelligent look at the games we play with others and ourselves.’ The Times ‘Like the author’s formula for the perfect cappuccino (which should always include the “slight taste of mysery”), these shrewd stories of ephemeral liaisons and global friendships leave a bitter aftertaste in their deceptively frothy wake.’ Independent

Read more less

Book Synopsis‘Hill is an instinctive and complete novelist who is blessed with a spontaneous storytelling gift’ Frances Fyfield, Mail on SundayTrade Review‘Few writers in the genre today have Hill’s gifts: formidable intelligence, quick humour, compassion and a prose style that blends elegance and grace’ Donna Leon, Sunday Times ‘The fertility of Hill’s imagination, the range of his power, the sheer quality of his literary style never cease to delight’ Val McDermid, Sunday Express ‘He is probably the best living male crime writer in the English-speaking world’ Andrew Taylor, Independent ‘Reginald Hill’s novels are really dances to the music of time, his heroes and villains interconnecting, their stories entwining’ Ian Rankin, Scotland on Sunday

Read more less

Book SynopsisFrom the author of ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE, a collection of stories about memory: the source of meaning and coherence in our lives, the fragile thread that connects us to ourselves and to others.In the luminous title story, a young boy in South Africa comes to possess an old woman's secret, a piece of the past with the power to redeem a life. In The River Nemunas', a teenaged orphan moves from Kansas to Lithuania, and discovers a world in which myth becomes real. And in Afterworld,' a woman who escaped the Holocaust is haunted by visions of her childhood friends in Germany, yet finds solace in the tender ministrations of her grandson.The stories in Memory Wall show us how we figure the world, and show Anthony Doerr to be a master of the form.Trade Review‘It's fair to say that Anthony Doerr is doing things with the short story that have rarely been attempted and seldom achieved. The stories in Memory Wall have such scope and depth that they hit as hard as novels three times their length. Doerr has set a new standard, I think, for what a story can do.’ Dave Eggers ‘Ambitiously wide-ranging and inventive, Doerr’s six stories movingly investigate the ways in which we are nothing without memory.’ Sunday Times ‘Doerr is a lusciously good stylist.’ Guardian ‘If this book's wisdom can be summed up in a single line it is this one, from ‘Afterworld’: ‘Within the wet enclosure of a single mind a person can fly from one decade to the next, one country to another, past to present, memory to imagination.’ That thought informs Memory Wall many times.’ Janet Maslin, Scotsman

Read more less

Book SynopsisTen daring stories from a writer who seems capable of anything' (Guardian), the Booker Prize-shortlisted Philip HensherBackdrops vary in this collection of stories from the author of The Northern Clemency from turmoil in Sudan following the death of a politician in a plane crash, to southern India where a Soho hedonist starts to envisage the crump and soar of munitions. Each story, regardless of location, reveals a great writer at the peak of his powers.Trade Review‘As a fiction writer, Hensher has virtuosity on tap, so every page delivers something enjoyable and even eye-popping; a vibrant exchange, a spry description, a tickling bit of indirect speech’ New Statesman ‘Entertainingly varied stories … Hensher sneaks into a life like a cat burglar, pads around to survey the scene and slips out again, leaving everything quietly disturbed’ Literary Review ‘Thomas Mann-like in its homoerotic undertones and high-flown hymns to unrequited love but a good deal funnier … Hensher is deft at locating the moment of crisis when a character experiences a change of heart or a nasty surprise, and life is exposed in all its drab wonder … Entertainingly varied in tone and setting, the stories combine quaint physical observation with a caustic intelligence’ Evening Standard ‘Elegant stories that radiate with fine human feeling inspired by altogether muddled lives … Hensher’s prose can be painterly’ Financial Times 'Hensher has a pitch-perfect way with language and invented detail' Sunday Times ‘A comedy of manners with an occasional dark side’ Daily Telegraph ‘A delightful read, full of beauty and humour' The Herald ‘He is an expert writer, and an expert tone runs through this vigorous collection. Hensher observes all human life with the detachment of a scientist … He nails lust, hypocrisy, regret and hopefulness with an exquisite eye for detail. Unromantic, and dark at times, this collection is always interesting’ Daily Mail ‘A brilliantly astute book … every narrative is unified by Hensher’s incredible eye for detail and effortless talent for multi-layered storytelling’ Attitude ‘Hensher’s adaptability as a writer and love of form brings us clever, ravishing and moving storytelling’ Monocle ‘It’s Hensher writ large: poignant without sentimentalising, acutely observant of the mores of the modern world, but profoundly interested in the timeless search for the meaning of life.’ Observer

Read more less

Book SynopsisAs a favour to an old friend, Hercule Poirot finds himself at a summer fete in Devon, taking part not in a Treasure Hunt, but a Murder Hunt, in this never-before-published novella version of Dead Man's Folly. Now released for the first time in print in this illustrated collector's edition.Sir George and Lady Stubbs, the hosts of a village fête, hit upon the novel idea of staging a mock murder mystery. In good faith, Ariadne Oliver, the well known crime writer, agrees to organise their murder hunt. But at the last minute Ariadne calls her friend Hercule Poirot for his expert assistance. Instinctively, she senses that something sinister is about to happenIn 1954, Agatha Christie wrote this novella with the intention of donating the proceeds to a fund set up to buy stained glass windows for her local church at Churston Ferrers, and she filled the story with references to local places, including her own home of Greenway. But having completed it, she decided instead to expand the story intoTrade Review‘There are [authors] like Agatha Christie: I read those books and I’m in awe that somebody constructed those plots where they all make sense at the end. Those are like magic tricks to me.’ STEPHEN KING

Read more less

Book SynopsisCommissioned by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, these tales of dangerous women by the most stellar names in fiction are available for the first time in three-volume paperback.George R.R. Martin is the bestselling author of A Song of Ice and Fire, the inspiration for HBO's hit series Game of Thrones.This first volume features an original 35,000 word novella by George R.R. Martin. The Princess and the Queen'' reveals the origins of the civil war in Westeros (before the events in A Game of Thrones), which is known as the Dance of the Dragons, pitting Targaryen against Targaryen and dragon against dragon.Other authors in this volume of warriors, bad girls and dragonriders include worldwide bestselling authors Brandon Sanderson, Lawrence Block and Nancy Kress.DANGEROUS WOMEN 1Gardner Dozois's introductionGeorge R. R. Martin, The Princess and the Queen'Carrie Vaughn, Raisa Stepanova'Nancy Kress,'Second Arabesque, Very Slowly'Lawrence Block, I Know How to Pick Em'Megan Abbott, My HeartTrade Review‘This meaty collection delivers something for nearly every reader’s taste as it explores the heights that brave women can reach and the depths that depraved ones can plumb’Publisher’s Weekly ‘Reads like Martin’s outline for a Game of Thrones prequel that never wasEntertainment Weekly

Read more less

Book SynopsisCommissioned by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, these tales of dangerous women by the most stellar names in fiction are available for the first time in three-volume paperback.George R.R. Martin is the bestselling author of A Song of Ice and Fire, the inspiration for HBO's hit series GAME OF THRONES.This second volume features an original short story by Megan Lindholm (who also writes as Robin Hobb). In the bittersweet Neighbors' Sarah, a rather strange widow, lives isolated and alone, surrounded by young families. But is the old lady afflicted by dementia or by something far more odd?Other contributors to this volume of stories of formidable women include worldwide bestselling authors Diana Gabaldon, with an Outlander story, Sharon Kay Penman and Lev Grossman.DANGEROUS WOMEN 2Gardner Dozois's introductionMegan Lindholm, Neighbors'Lev Grossman, The Girl in the Mirror'Sharon Kay Penman, A Queen in Exile'S. M. Stirling, Pronouncing Doom'Caroline Spector, Lies My Mother Told Me'SamTrade Review‘This meaty collection delivers something for nearly every reader’s taste as it explores the heights that brave women can reach and the depths that depraved ones can plumb’Publisher’s Weekly ‘Reads like Martin’s outline for a Game of Thrones prequel that never wasEntertainment Weekly

Read more less

Book SynopsisCommissioned by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, these tales of dangerous women by the most stellar names in fiction are available for the first time in three-volume paperback.George R.R. Martin is the bestselling author of A Song of Ice and Fire, the inspiration for HBO's hit series GAME OF THRONES.This third volume features an original short story by Joe Abercrombie. ''Some Desperado'' centres on Shy South, the protagonist of Abercrombie's novel RED COUNTRY. Having robbed a bank, Shy is carrying 2,000 silver pieces, and she''s on the run when her horse catches an arrow. Marooned in a dusty ghost town, she faces up to a trio of murderous, flea-bitten criminalsThis volume of stories about hard-living bad girls, killers and superheroes also includes contributions from worldwide bestselling authors Jim Butcher, Melinda Snodgrass and Pat Cadigan.DANGEROUS WOMEN 3Gardner Dozois's introductionJoe Abercrombie, Some Desperado'Diana Rowland, City Lazarus'Sherlynn Kenyon, Hell Hath No FurTrade Review‘This meaty collection delivers something for nearly every reader’s taste as it explores the heights that brave women can reach and the depths that depraved ones can plumb’Publisher’s Weekly ‘Reads like Martin’s outline for a Game of Thrones prequel that never wasEntertainment Weekly

Read more less

Book SynopsisA brilliant and rather transgressive collection of short stories from the double Man Booker Prize-winning author of Wolf Hall, Bring Up the Bodies and The Mirror & the Light.Including a new story The School of English'.Hilary Mantel is one of Britain's most accomplished and acclaimed writers. In these ten bracingly subversive tales, all her gifts of characterisation and observation are fully engaged, summoning forth the horrors so often concealed behind everyday façades. Childhood cruelty is played out behind the bushes in Comma'; nurses clash in Harley Street' over something more than professional differences; and in the title story, staying in for the plumber turns into an ambiguous and potentially deadly waiting game.Whether set in a claustrophobic Saudi Arabian flat or on a precarious mountain road in Greece, these stories share an insight into the darkest recesses of the spirit. Displaying all of Mantel's unmistakable style and wit, they reveal a great writer at the peak of her Trade Review‘An exhilarating, if dark, collection … ‘The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher’ is a small triumph: a lesson in artfully controlled savagery’ Sunday Times ‘Remarkably good: taut, engaging and shocking … acutely observed’ Evening Standard ‘I would recommend the brilliantly chilling …The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher over most other long or short works this year.’ Telegraph, Books of the Year ‘What a fabulously nasty concoction Hilary Mantel has served up … It’s a fugu fish of a book; parts of which will leave you dizzily elated, while other parts may make you very ill indeed … The venom is distilled, bottled and dripped like slowly staining bitters into the cocktail of the entertainment … That title story, wickedly good, is alone worth the price of admission to the book’ Simon Schama, Financial Times ‘The best stories in the collection … combine sharp observation and sly wit with a subtle burrowing into the recesses of her protagonists’ heads. The darker stories recall both the metaphysical speculations of Jorge Luis Borges and the trickery of Roald Dahl’ Mail on Sunday ‘Infused with Mantel’s almost lush evocations of isolation and distress … All in all, these are alluring portraits of interior disquiet’ Observer ‘No one else quite sounds like Mantel in this vein, although a top-level summit of Muriel Spark and Alan Bennett might conceivably come close. Mantel takes absolutely nothing on trust. Bodies can, and will, malfunction; ditto minds, and marriages. Malice, power or simple chance may always undermine the ground beneath your feet’ Independent ‘These are the sticky slices of suburban noir that Mantel served up so well in her pre-Wolf Hall output and they never fail to deliver’ The Times ‘Much of Mantel’s glorious power comes from her unsentimental, forensic gaze and willingness to describe the uncomfortable … Mantel’s brutally dissecting eye is much in evidence here … Her prose is sublime … the glittering details exquisite’ Independent on Sunday

Read more less

Book SynopsisAn English Girl in New YorkTrade Review‘Heart-warming, hilarious and simply irresistible, The Kiss Before Christmas continues to affirm Sophie Pembroke’s standing as one of romantic fiction’s fastest rising stars!’ – Bookish Jottings

Read more less

Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics.In 1913, Rabindranath Tagore became the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, and he remains one of the most important voices of Bengali culture to this day. These short stories, written mostly in the 1890s, vividly portray Bengali life and culture. Tagore's treatment of caste culture, bureaucracy and poverty paint a vivid portrait of nineteenth-century India, and all are interwoven with Tagore's perceptive eye for detail, strong sense of humanity and deep affinity for the natural world. Tagore's stories continue to rise above geographic and cultural boundaries to capture the imaginations of readers around the world.

Read more less

Book SynopsisHere are the moments that our fairy tales forgot or deliberately concealed, reimagined by one of the most gifted storytellers of his generation, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Hours, and exquisitely illustrated by Yuko Shimizu. Rarely have our bedtime stories been this dark, this perverse, or this true.The Beast stands ahead of you in line at the convenience store, buying smokes and a Slim Jim, his devouring smile aimed at the cashier. A malformed little man with a knack for minor acts of wizardry goes to disastrous lengths to procure a child. A loutish and lazy Jack prefers living in his mother''s basement to getting a job, until the day he trades a cow for a handful of magic beans.In A Wild Swan and Other Tales, the people and the talismans of lands far, far away the mythic figures of our childhoods and the source of so much of our wonder are transformed by Michael Cunningham into stories of sublime revelation.Trade Review‘While there was darkness in the original tales – blood, butchery and much else – Cunningham’s collection brings emotional light and shade where there was none … The comedy in these stories works brilliantly, but it does not uncut the tragedy of its lonely and quietly tormented outsiders … This collection reminds us of the uncanny ability of the fairy tale to allow its story and characters to bend and stretch to the time in which it is being reconceived, to be both archaic and topical … Short, contemporary, disturbing, and alluring,: a transporting and enthralling read’ FIVE STARS, Independent ‘With a light touch and bags of sardonic elegance, Cunningham impishly expands on these timeless narratives’ Hephzibah Anderson, Observer Praise for THE SNOW QUEEN: 'Clean and sharp as an ice crystal; a brief but profound and poetic meditation on love, death and compassion from a master craftsman of language' Observer ‘Michael Cunningham’s resonant new novel . . . is arguably [his] most original and emotionally piercing book to date’ New York Times ‘The pursuit of transcendence in all kinds of forms — music, drugs, a McQueen minidress, and those things less tangible but no less powerfully felt — drives Michael Cunningham's best novel in more than a decade’ Vogue Praise for THE HOURS: ‘“The Hours” is a book which heightens the perception of the reader. Cunningham’s craftsmanship is overwhelming.’ Robert Farren, Independent on Sunday ‘An extremely moving, original and memorable novel.’ Hermione Lee, TLS ‘Engrossing, imaginative and humane.’ Richard Francis, Observer

Read more less