Anthologies & Short Stories

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Book Synopsis‘I started to write short pieces when I was living in a room too small to write a novel in.’ So says Angela Carter of this collection, written during a period living in Toyko. These exotic, sensuous stories represent Carter’s first major achievement in the short story form. Lush imaginary forests, a murderous puppet show and an expressionistic vision of Japan: each one instantly conjures an atmosphere, dark and luminous in turn, and from the recognisably daring imagination of one of the great twentieth-century stylists.Trade ReviewExotic and sensuous * Sunday Times *Luminous * The Age *It is hard to imagine the literary landscape without Angela Carter. Hers is a legacy that extends way beyond the bounds of her own work * Independent *I can't think of anyone who is at that pitch of intellectual commentary, fictional experimentation and fullness of expression. I'm not a patch on her. Jesus, I wish I was -- Ali SmithIts autobiographical stories set in Japan, where she had gone to live with a Japanese lover, give off a direct and poignant emotion. They show her changing, too * Independent *

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Book SynopsisBringing together six short stories – two of which are previously unpublished – One Last Dram Before Midnight is the perfect Christmas gift for fans of Denzil Meyrick. These tales take us from Jim Daley’s early days pounding the beat in Glasgow as a young constable to a light-hearted whisky smuggling romp involving Hamish and some ghostly pipers. Includes four previously eBook exclusive stories: 'Single End', 'Two One Three', 'Dalintober Moon' and 'Empty Nets and Promises'.Trade Review‘What distinguishes Meyrick from other tartan noir authors is his humour and the depth of his interest in local issues… Although he delivers fine plotting and gore in abundance, he really comes into his own describing the back stories of the Kinloch locals and his lead characters’ * The Times, Audiobook of the week *‘One Last Dram Before Midnight’ contains Meyrick’s trademark dark police humour and plenty of gritty cases, a few ghostly whispers also caress the pages, ensuring a gathering of gutsy, compelling tales * LoveReading *‘This man has terrific writing skills and reading his books have been a great pleasure. His characters are witty, gritty and he writes in a way that I feel I am actually back in Campeltown’ * Waterstones Bookseller *'So many brilliant characters scattered throughout these tales . . . you get to learn about how different things were not only in the police force but also how people’s perceptions have changed over the years' * Breakaway Reviewers *‘Witty and informative. The characters throughout the book felt like they were real people and I found it difficult to put down’ * Waterstones Bookseller *‘A brilliant collection of short stories linked to the DCI Daley series… With half a dozen stories to choose from they make the perfect lunch break filler and are guaranteed to have you smiling, as well as keeping you on tenterhooks’ * JenMed's Book Reviews *

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Book SynopsisLish's latest work of exquisitely crafted fiction sees a narrator - variously Gordon, I, He - approaching the precipice of old age. White Plains is Lish at his sharpest, tackling his perennial subject - the memory of memory itself - with spellbinding mastery.Trade Review"These are stories for the neurotic state of our times, stories for insomnia, stories for those who wake in discontent. There will never be another like Gordon Lish." BERFROIS "Gordon Lish, famous for all the wrong reasons, has written some of the most important American fiction of the past ten or twelve years [...] hypnotic, ever circling, a desperate entity that belies the elegance of the prose that drives it." DON DELILLO "Lish is still our Joyce, our Beckett, our most true modernist. Buy! Read! Listen up!" KIRKUS REVIEWS "A writer of extraordinary vision, a tireless innovator." ELECTRIC LITERATURE "It's the voice, the force of the language that compels us to read Lish." BIBLIOKLEPT "The US's answer to Samuel Beckett and Thomas Bernhard." THE GUARDIAN "His enormous importance, as an editor and teacher, to the story of twentieth-century American fiction is now, finally, not in dispute. But I guess some more people will have to die before there can be a full reckoning with the power of [his] pieces." SAM LIPSYTE

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Book Synopsis**ESCAPE FROM SPIDERHEAD NOW STREAMING ON NETFLIX - STARRING CHRIS HEMSWORTH AND MILES TELLER**The prize-winning, New York Times bestselling short story collection from the internationally bestselling author of Lincoln in the Bardo''The best book you''ll read this year'' New York Times''Dazzlingly surreal stories about a failing America'' Sunday TimesWINNER OF THE 2014 FOLIO PRIZE AND SHORTLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD 2013George Saunders's most wryly hilarious and disturbing collection yet, Tenth of December illuminates human experience and explores figures lost in a labyrinth of troubling preoccupations.A family member recollects a backyard pole dressed for all occasions; Jeff faces horrifying ultimatums and the prospect of Darkenfloxx(TM) in some unusual drug trials; and Al Roosten hides his own internal monologue behind a winning smile that he hopes will maTrade ReviewThe best book you'll read this year * New York Times *Dazzlingly surreal stories about a failing America * Sunday Times *The best short story writer in English – not "one of", not "arguably", but the Best * Time Magazine *Riotously imaginative ... From one of the few living masters of the genre -- Books of the Year * Daily Telegraph *If you're a fan of dark, disturbing and satirical, George Saunders is your ideal travel companion -- Summer Reads * Daily Mail *Funny, poignant - in flashes, deeply moving - light as a feather and consistently weird -- Hari Kunzru * Guardian *

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Book SynopsisFrom the cruel irony of 'A member of the Family' to the fateful echoes of 'The Go-Away Bird' and the unexpectedly sinister 'The Girl I Left Behind Me', in settings that range from South Africa to the Portobello Road, Muriel Spark probes the idiosyncrasies that lurk beneath the veneer of human respectability, displaying the acerbic wit and wisdom that are the hallmarks of her unique talent. The Complete Short Stories is a collection to be loved and cherished, from one of the finest short story writers of the twentieth century.Trade ReviewIt is perhaps her short stories that demonstrate her gifts best: wit, perception, acute characterisation, elegance and precision. They mark her out as one of the finest writers of her generation * * Observer * *Glittering, concise, funny and beautifully written * * Telegraph * *Completely, searingly original. There is nobody remotely like her * * Independent * *None could equal the cool perception with which she chronicles the darker mysteries of the human conidtion -- John Mortimer * * Evening Standard * *One of the most decisive and unmistakable voices in contemporary fiction - youthful, witty, sly, maternal, intimate, and alive with opinion -- Stephen Schiff * * New Yorker * *My admiration for Spark's contribution to world literature knows no bounds. She was peerless, sparkling, inventive and intelligent - the crème de la crème -- Ian RankinA wholly original presence in modern literature -- Andrew MotionMuriel Spark's novels linger in the mind as brilliant shards, decisive as a smashed glass is decisive -- John Updike * * New Yorker * *Dullness is as alien to her as inelegance * * New Statesman and Society * *You've got to hand it to Canongate. When it comes to repackaging their back catalogue, they're in a class of their own . . . What have [the Canons] in common? Nothing - except for a subtle yet powerful branding . . . the way they are marketed has a touch of genius * * Scotsman * *

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Book SynopsisAn unmissable collection of eight unconventional and captivating short stories for young and adult learners of Icelandic."Olly's top-notch language-learning insights are right in line with the best of what we know from neuroscience and cognitive psychology about how to learn effectively. I love his work - and you will too!" - Barbara Oakley, PhD, Author of New York Times bestseller A Mind for Numbers Short Stories in Icelandic for Beginners has been written especially for students from high-beginner to low-intermediate level, designed to give a sense of achievement, a feeling of progress and most importantly - enjoyment! Mapped to A2-B1 on the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) for languages, these eight captivating stories are designed to give you a sense of achievement and a feeling of progress when reading.What does this book give you?- Eight stories in a variety of exciting genres, from science fiction and crime to history and thriller - making reading fun, while you learn a wide range of new vocabulary- Controlled language at your level to help you progress confidently- Realistic spoken dialogues to help you learn conversational expressions and improve your speaking ability- Accessible grammar so you learn new structures naturally, in a stress-free way· Beautiful illustrations accompanying each story, to set the scene and support your understanding- Pleasure! Research shows that if you're enjoying reading in a foreign language, you won't experience the usual feelings of frustration - 'It's too hard!' 'I don't understand!'Carefully curated to make learning a new language easy, these stories include key features that will support and consolidate your progress, including: - A glossary for bolded words in each chapter- Full plot summary- A bilingual word list- Comprehension questions after each chapter. As a result, you will be able to focus on enjoying reading, delighting in your improved range of vocabulary and grasp of the language, without ever feeling overwhelmed. From science fiction to fantasy, to crime and thrillers, Short Stories in Icelandic for Beginners will make learning Icelandic easy and enjoyable.Trade ReviewAs researchers in language acquisition, we need to study people like you. * Stephen Krashen, Emeritus Professor, University of Southern California *Olly's advice on language learning is the real deal, and I recommend you pay attention to what he has to say! * Benny Lewis, Fluent in 3 Months *When we wanted to create a free online course on how to learn a language we asked Olly to write it with us. * Dr Tita Beaven, The Open University *Learning a language is challenging, but it's one of the best things you can do for your brain and your learning skill set... Olly Richards is doing some seriously incredible work to empower more and more people to rise to the challenge. * Jonathan Levi *Olly bridges the gap between theory and practice by helping you to use scientific principles to get real results with your language learning. * Anthony Metivier, Magnetic Memory Method *

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Book SynopsisWhen the descendant of an ancient aristocratic family moves from Massachusetts to Exham Priory, his ancestral home in the south of England, he is plagued by the constant noise of rats scurrying within its walls. As the sound begins to haunt his dreams, he investigates the house and discovers a horrific secret underneath, which will bring him to the point of madness. Considered one of the most accomplished examples of the horror genre, 'The Rats in the Walls' is presented here alongside other quintessentially Lovecraftian tales - such as 'The Dunwich Horror', 'At the Mountains of Madness', 'The Colour out of Space' and 'The Horror at Red Hook' - in a brand-new collection which will delight new readers and those familiar with the blood-curdling imaginary worlds of the twentieth century's master of terror.Trade ReviewThe most important US horror writer since Edgar Allan Poe and a big influence on nearly every major figure in the genre after his day. * Publishers Weekly *Table of ContentsContains: The Statement of Randolph Carter, Arthur Jermyn, The Rats in the Walls, The Horror at Red Hook, The Colour out of Space, The Dunwich Horror, The Strange High House in the Mist, The Dreams in the Witch House, The Quest of Iranon, At the Mountains of Madness, The Shunned House, The Thing on the Doorstep.

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Book SynopsisA collection of riveting tales of the sea including the story that launched his writing career and the account of the epic battle to sink the German battle ship, Bismarck.THE MASTER STORYTELLER IN HIS ELEMENTAlistair MacLean has an unmistakable and unrivalled skill in writing about the sea and its power and about the men and women who sail it, and who fight and die in it.His distinctive voice was evident from his very first prize-winning story, The Dileas', and has been heard time and again in his international career as the author of such bestsellers as H.M.S. Ulysses and San Andreas.The Lonely Sea starts where MacLean's career started, with The Dileas', and collects together his stories of the sea. Here is a treasury of vintage MacLean, compelling and brilliant, where the master storyteller is in his element.Trade Review‘The most successful British novelist of his time’ Jack Higgins ‘Alistair MacLean is one of the few people writing today who has a story to tell’ Daily Express ‘Alistair MacLean is a magnificent storyteller’ Sunday Mirror

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Book SynopsisIn crisp, unembellished prose, Choi Eunyoung paints intimate portraits of the lives of young women in South Korea, balancing the personal with the political. In the title story, a fraught friendship between an exchange student and her host sister follows them from adolescence to adulthood. In 'A Song from Afar', a young woman grapples with the death of her lover, travelling to Russia to search for information about the deceased. In 'Secret', the parents of a teacher killed in the Sewol ferry sinking hide the news of her death from her grandmother. In the tradition of Sally Rooney, Banana Yoshimoto, and Marilynne Robinson - writers from different cultures who all take an unvarnished look at human relationships and the female experience - Choi Eunyoung is a writer to watch.Trade ReviewInsightful and deeply felt * New York Times Book Review *Written with sober detail, filmic precision and absolute control . . . an incredibly impressive collection told with realism, seriousness and moral integrity * Observer *Gentle yet elucidating . . . Shoko's Smile is the most beautiful book I've come across this year * Sisain *Shoko's Smile is the outcome of Choi's quite triumphant attempt to invent her own way to talk about dark facets of our reality . . . And her way at first comes across as bright and lighthearted. Of course, misleadingly so . . . Choi invents the narratives of today's real people who have not surrendered or become oppressors themselves, and who have survived nonetheless * GQ *Eunyoung's engaging debut collection examines her protagonists' interior lives in moments of longing, connection, and familial rift . . . Eunyoung's lyrical prose and complex characters will captivate readers * Publishers Weekly *

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Book SynopsisA brand new bumper omnibus gathering together over 50 classic Agatha Christie stories featuring Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, Harley Quin, Parker Pyne and Hercule Poirot, plus her rare Christmas Stories not available in any other volume.This new compendium of over 50 stories is the first time all the stories featuring Agatha Christie's detectives have been collected together. Here you will meet -PARKER PYNE - a consulting detective whose practice is to solve less murderous enigmas and restore happiness to his clients;HARLEY QUIN - a tall, dark, mysterious young man who takes a more surreptitious approach to solving crime;TOMMY AND TUPPENCE BERESFORD - a newly married pair of self-styled Young Adventurers' who are prepared to do anything in the name of justice.And in addition to presenting the complete oeuvre for these detectives, this volume includes as a bonus four rare short stories featuring that grand master of detection, Monsieur HERCULE POIROT, plus Agatha Christie's little-knownTrade Review‘The plots are so good that one marvels … most of them would have made a full length thriller.’ Daily Mirror

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Book SynopsisDON''T MISS THE STUNNING AND ROMANTIC NEW NOVEL FROM SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR VERONICA HENRY - ORDER THE SECRET BEACH NOW!Escape to the coast with this delicious collection of short stories and beach-hut inspired recipes from Sunday Times bestselling author Veronica Henry - the perfect summer treat!****''Beach bliss! A delicious combination of food and fiction'' SARAH MORGAN''The essential accompaniment to summer. A pure delight of a book!'' MILLY JOHNSON''The perfect book to take on beachside holiday or a weekend away'' CRESSIDA MCLAUGHLINOn a shimmering summer''s day, the waves are calling, the picnic basket is packed, and change is in the air. It''s just the start of an eventful day for a cast of holidaymakers: over one day, sparks will fly, the tide will bring in old faces and new temptations, a proposal is planned, and an unexpected romance simmers... This uplifting collection ofTrade ReviewA delicious collection of short stories, transporting you to the golden sands of Everdene. Add in 50 of the author's own recipes that are perfect for a summer's day and this is the beach read you'll want - Woman's WeeklyFabulous feel-good storyteller Veronica Henry is ready to whisk us away to the coastal joys and sunshine food of Everdene Sands, a place that offers comfort to the heart, mind and soul - Lancashire Post

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Book SynopsisWith an Introduction and Notes by Stuart Hutchinson, University of Kent at Canterbury. The Diamond as Big as the Ritz is an ominous fable about the pursuit of great wealth. Readers will be transported to a fabulous fantasy land of such opulence that its very existence has to remain a jealously guarded secret. Fatal consequences lie in store for 'bona fide' guests and uninvited visitors alike, while the sybaritic luxury of the place is evoked in an effortless prose style which is quintessentially F. Scott Fitzgerald. Also featured in this volume are The Cut-Glass Bowl, May Day, The Rich Boy, Crazy Sunday, An Alcoholic Case, The Lees of Happiness, The Lost Decade and Babylon Revisited.

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Book SynopsisIt''s 1890. Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson return to Baker Street after a night pursuing a vicious criminal. Inspector Lestrade is waiting for Holmes with a proposition of national importance. Lestrade tells Holmes that a school of detection has been formed to train a new breed of modern investigators that will serve in Great Britain and the Empire. Most students will become police officers. Some, however, will become bodyguards and spies. Holmes begins instructing his decidedly curious assortment of students from home and abroad. He does so with his customary gusto and inventiveness.Scotland Yard, in the main, allocates crimes to solve and Holmes mentors his students. Occasionally, he shadows them in disguise in order to assess or even directly test their abilities with creative scenarios he devises. Certain crimes investigated by the students might appear trivial, such as the re-positioning of an ornament atop a garden wall, yet it will transpire an assassin has

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Book SynopsisLike fiction, cars take us into a different world: from the tony enclaves of upper crust society to the lowliest barrio; from muscle car-driving con men to hardscrabble kids on the road during the Great Depression; from a psychotic traveling salesman to a Mexican drug lord who drives a tricked-out VW Bus. We all share the roads, and our cars link us together. Including entirely new stories from Michael Connelly, C.J. Box, George Pelecanos, Diana Gabaldon, James Sallis, Ace Atkins, Luis Alberto Urrea, Sara Gran, Ben H. Winters, and Joe Lansdale, THE HIGHWAY KIND is a street-level look at modern America, as seen through one of its national obsessions.

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Book SynopsisP. G. Wodehouse (1881-1975) is widely regarded as the greatest comic writer of the 20th century. Wodehouse wrote more than 70 novels and 200 short stories, creating numerous much-loved characters - the inimitable Jeeves and Wooster, Lord Emsworth and his beloved Empress of Blandings, Mr Mulliner, Ukridge, and Psmith. His humorous articles were published in more than 80 magazines, including Punch, over six decades. He was also a highly successful music lyricist, once with over five musicals running on Broadway simultaneously. P.G. Wodehouse was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for 'an outstanding and lasting contribution to the happiness of the world'.Trade ReviewThe gold standard of English wit … There is not, and never will be, anything to touch him -- Christopher HitchensThe funniest writer ever to put words to paper -- Hugh LaurieFor as long as I'm immersed in a P.G. Wodehouse book, it's possible to keep the real world at bay and live in a far, far nicer, funnier one where happy endings are the order of the day -- Marian Keyes

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Book SynopsisIn this, her first collection of short stories, Winterson reveals all the facets of her extraordinary imagination. In prose that is full of imagery and word-play, she creates physical and psychological worlds that are at once familiar and yet shockingly strange.Trade ReviewA greatly gifted and original writer...there is an exhilarating freshness and energy to this collection * Observer *This first book of short stories will delight her fans with their daring. Whether in a world where sleep is illegal or on an island of diamonds where the rich wear coal jewellery, Winterson is the mistress of the short story -- Jessica de Rothschild * Tatler *The quality of her writing has remained constant: precise, fluent, perfectly judged. This collection is another refinement of that art, studded with metaphors and unexpected asides * Independent on Sunday *The short story form was made for Jeanette Winterson...mesmerising prose poems * The Times *Her stories transport us into the dizzyingly fertile mind of one of Britain's most prodigiously gifted authors...breathtaking * Scotland on Sunday *

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Book SynopsisAn airline stewardess is entrusted with a list of names which could threaten the lives of her 700 passengers... A young woman is tortured by terrifying nightmares, until she finds a gramophone record that unlocks the door concealing a dark memory... Lottery-winner turned amateur detective, Alvirah Meehan returns from a trip to England to find the body of a Broadway starlet in their wardrobe... Peopled by a colourful cast of characters and brimming over with bizarre twists and turns, this collection is further proof of Mary Higgins Clark''s ingenious touch and superlative skill. Start reading - and you won''t be able to stop.

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Book SynopsisGraham Greene was born in 1904. He worked as a journalist and critic, and in 1940 became literary editor of the Spectator. He was later employed by the Foreign Office. As well as his many novels, Graham Greene wrote several collections of short stories, four travel books, six plays, three books of autobiography, two of biography and four books for children. He also wrote hundreds of essays, and film and book reviews. Graham Greene was a member of the Order of Merit and a Companion of Honour. He died in April 1991.Trade ReviewA superb storyteller..he had a talent for depicting local colour, which he gathered at first hand; a keen sense of the dramatic; an eye for dialogue, and skill in pacing his prose - New York TimesOne of the most important British writers of the twentieth century * Daily Telegraph *Greene was a force beyond his books... The outsider, the dissenter, the spoiled priest, the failure, the classic underdog - out of characters such as these Greene made novels and stories which have enriched hundreds of thousands of readers

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Book SynopsisThe stories in this collection move from Malaya to America and England, and include some of Maugham''s most famous tales; ''Flotsam and Jetsam'', the story of an old woman trapped for years in a loveless marriage in the remote rubber plantations; ''The Man with the Scar'', and notably the opening story ''The Vessel of Wrath'', a tale of the unexpected love that grows between a devout missionary nurse and a drunken reprobate. In this second volume of his collected stories, Maugham illustrates his characteristic wry perception of human foibles and his genius for evoking compelling drama from an acute sense of time and place.Trade ReviewA brilliant entertainer * New York Times *A formidable talent, a formidable sum of talents * Spectator *As clever a craftsman as the cleverest * Observer *

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Book SynopsisThis final classic collection of stories reveals Somerset Maugham''s unique talent for exposing and exploring the bitter realities of human relationships. Brilliant tales of love, infidelity, passion and prejudice, the stories range from ''The Lotus Eater'' in which a man has a vision of a life of bliss in the Mediterranean, to the astringent tales of ''The Outstation'' and ''The Back of Beyond'' in Malaya and South East Asia. Largely set in favourite Maugham country, this colourful collection brilliantly evokes the numbered days of the British Empire.Trade ReviewThe short story was Maugham's true métier, and some of the stories he wrote are among the best in the language -- Anthony BurgessOne of my favourite writers -- Gabriel Garcia Marquez

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Book SynopsisMaeve Binchy was born in Dublin, and went to school at the Holy Child Convent in Killiney. She took a history degree at UCD and taught in various girls' schools, writing travel articles in the long summer holidays. In 1969 she joined the Irish Times and for many years she was based in London writing humorous columns from all over the world. She is the author of five collections of short stories as well as twelve novels including Circle of Friends, The Copper Beech, Tara Road, Evening Class and The Glass Lake. Maeve Binchy died on 30 July 2012. She is survived by her husband, the writer Gordon Snell.Trade ReviewMaeve Binchy has a gimlet eye for the seething cauldron of emotions which lies beneath the surface of everyday life * Irish Independent *An adept storyteller with a sharp eye for social nuances and a pleasing affection for her characters * Sunday Times *Compulsive reading . . . Ms Binchy has the true story-teller's knack * Observer *

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Book SynopsisDiscover this brooding collection of short stories from one of Britain''s finest writers. A world where everyday life crackles with the electricity sparking between men and women, between parents and children, between friends. A son confesses to his mother that he is cheating on his girlfriend; a student falls in love with her lecturer and embarks on an affair with a man in the pub who looks just like him. Young mothers pent-up in childcare dream treacherously of other possibilities; a boy becomes aware of the woman, a guest at his parents'' holiday home, who is pressing up too close against him on the beach. Hidden away inside the present, the past is explosive; the future can open unexpectedly out of any chance encounter; ordinary moments are illuminated with lightning flashes of dread or pleasure. These stories about family life are somehow undomesticated and dangerous.''She is the writer we didn''t know we were waiting for, until she arrived'' ATrade ReviewFew writers give me such consistent pleasure -- Zadie SmithShe has such great psychological insights into human beings, which is rare. She is one of the best fiction writers writing today -- Chimamanda Ngozie AdichieTruly absorbing... a masterful yet understated read... More please * Sunday Express *Brilliant... Hadley's style is as discreet as good tailoring * Independent *The stories sparkle...Hadley is fascinating for the way she admits a fantasy or a missed chance can be more significant than the actual events that shape a life * Metro *

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Book SynopsisRichard Yates was born in 1926 in New York and lived in California. His prize-winning stories began to appear in 1953 and his first novel, Revolutionary Road, was nominated for the National Book Award in 1961. He is the author of eight other works, including the novels A Good School, The Easter Parade, and Disturbing the Peace, and two collections of short stories, Eleven Kinds of Loneliness and Liars in Love. He died in 1992.Trade ReviewThe most perceptive author of the twentieth century * The Times *Yates is a realist par excellence, the natural heir to Hemingway's pared-to-the-bones style and the antecedent of Carver's flat minimalism. There is something else though: a kind of transparency, almost a translucency, that owes more to Fitzgerald, his great literary hero... Read and weep -- Kate Atkinson * Guardian *Yates created what is almost the New York equivalent of Dubliners * New York Times *Eloquent and powerful... Wryly funny even when he's quietly tearing your heart out * Harper's *Extravagantly gifted... Yates' eye and ear are unsurpassed; I know of no writer whose senses are in more admirable condition. It is they that make his characters live, make these stories move and beat - they, and the sure perfection of his writing * Esquire *

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Book SynopsisThese are beguiling, provocative stories about manipulative men and the women who outwit them.Brimming with intensely believable characters and rich social detail' Sunday TimesA wife and mother whose spirit has been crushed finds release from her extraordinary pain in the most unlikely of places. The young victim of a humiliating seduction finds an unusual way to get her own back and move on. An older woman, dying of cancer, weaves a poisonous story to save her life. Alice Munro takes on complex, even harrowing emotions and events and renders them into stories that surprise, amaze, and shed light on the unpredictable ways we accommodate to what happens in our lives.Winner of the Nobel Prize in LiteratureWinner of the Man Booker International Prize 2009Trade ReviewShe writes with a beautiful clarity, an elemental humanity and a marvellous, limpid, funny, apprehension of what goes on -- Jane Shilling * Sunday Telegraph *Some of the most honest, intuitive and exacting fiction, long or short, of our time -- Tom Gatti * The Times *Munro's bold, unflinching narratives have taken the short story places many a novelist has feared to tread... That she does this in a style both calm and deliberate, fluid yet tightly controlled, stark yet compassionate, is what makes her insights into the human condition so profound -- Mary Crockett * Scotsman *Written with veteran assurance, brimming with intensely believable characters and rich social detail, these dispatches from the most unsparing reaches of Munro's imagination confirm her acclaimed place on the highest ground of contemporary fiction -- Peter Kemp * Sunday Times *Alice Munro commands enormous respect and almost uncritical adoration from her readers -- Elaine Showalter * Literary Review *

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Book SynopsisSalman Rushdie is the author of sixteen novels, including Midnight's Children (for which he won the Booker Prize and the Best of the Booker), The Satanic Verses, and Quichotte (which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize). A former president of PEN American Center, Rushdie was knighted in 2007 for services to literature and was made a Companion of Honour in the Queen's last Birthday Honours list in 2022.Trade ReviewA vindication of the rights of fiction...His story-telling powers are alive and well - his ingenuity, wit, charm and his restless talent for the unexpected * Sunday Times *Literary magic * Literary Review *The most original imagination writing today * Nadine Gordimer *Scheherazade meets Star Trek in these well-honed miniatures from the maestro of the cross-cultural blockbuster * Independent *Home in neither, but poised somewhere in between - Salman Rushdie's volume of short stories on this theme is deft, inventive, entertaining * Financial Times *

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Book SynopsisWinner of the Sunday Times short story prizeWinner of the Edge Hill short story prizeA kiss that just won''t happen. A disco at the end of the world. A teenage goth on a terror mission. And OAP kiddie-snatchers, and scouse real-ale enthusiasts, and occult weirdness in the backwoods...Dark Lies the Island is a collection of unpredictable stories about love and cruelty, crimes, desperation, and hope from the man Irvine Welsh has described as ''the most arresting and original writer to emerge from these islands in years''. Every page is shot through with the riotous humour, sympathy and blistering language that mark Kevin Barry as a pure entertainer and a unique teller of tales.Trade ReviewStealthy and shimmering * Boston Globe *He writes short stories that will satisfy any reader -- Shane Hegarty * Irish Times *This book of short stories seals Barry's rep as one of the most original voices to emerge from the Emerald Isle in some years. Full of acute observation and sly wit, this collection is the ideal companion to his equally excellent novel, City of Bohane -- Ryan Rushton * Skinny *These darkly comic short stories are beautifully written and the author’s keen appreciation of the vernacular makes the characters leap off the page and thump you in the face -- Ciara Geraghty * Woman's Way *Wonderfully, restlessly alive * The Times *

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Book SynopsisThese eight stories by leading 20th century French writers offer fascinating insights into French life and literature and are accompanied by a parallel English text, making them valuable for both French and English language students.Among the diverse and entertaining stories in the collection are the wistful masterpiece Green Tobacco' by Clair Sainte-Soline; the exuberant tale of The Ants' by the post-war king of café society, Boris Vian, and a suspense in the nineteenth-century erotic tradition from Andre de Mandiargues.Table of ContentsGreen tobacco, Claire Sainte-Soline; the ants, Boris Vian; the dead man's return, C.F. Ramuz; a house in the Place des Fetes, Roger Grenier; Jimmy, Francoise Mallet-Joris; the unknown saint, Blaise Cendrars; Sabine, Andre Pieyre de Mandiargues; traffic in horses, Jacques Perret.

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Book SynopsisAfter Rain - Twelve remarkable stories by the master storyteller William Trevor ''There is no better short story writer in the English-speaking world'' Wall Street JournalIn this collection of twelve dazzling, acutely rendered tales, William Trevor plumbs the depths of the human heart. Here we encounter a blind piano tuner whose wonderful memories of his first wife are cruelly distorted by his second; a woman in a difficult marriage who must choose between her indignant husband and her closest friend; two children, survivors of divorce, who mimic their parents'' melodramas; and a heartbroken woman traveling alone in Italy who experiences an epiphany while studying a forgotten artist''s Annunciation. Trevor is, in his own words, ''a storyteller. My fiction may, now and again, illuminate aspects of the human condition, but I do not consciously set out to do so.'' Conscious or not, he touches us in ways that few writers even dare to try.Trade Review"There is no better short story writer in the English-speaking world."—Wall Street Journal"Everyone will have his own list of the best short stories. Mine includes most of Chekhov, one or two by James Joyce, a dozen or more from D. H. Lawrence and -- in this same vein -- a healthy selection from William Trevor. This Irish-born, English-domiciled writer, who is also an excellent novelist, gave us his ''Collected Stories'' a few years back. Now, as if to assure us that the well is far from dry, he offers a luminously disturbing new collection, ''After Rain.'' -- Wendy Lesser, The New York Times Book Review"The deft handling of information, as well as the exquisite sense of control, again show Trevor as a brilliant master of his craft." - Publishers Weekly (Starred) "Dependably brilliant work from one of Chekhov's most accomplished disciples." - Kirkus ReviewsTable of ContentsAfter Rain The Piano Tuner's WivesA FriendshipTimothy's BirthdayChild's PlayA Bit of BusinessAfter RainWidowsGilbert's MotherThe Potato DealerLost GroundA DayMarrying Damian

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Book SynopsisCharles Dickens's first book, complete with all the pathos and comic invention of his later masterpieces Published under the pen-name 'Boz', Charles Dickens's first book Sketches by Boz (1836) heralded an exciting new voice in English literature. This richly varied collection of observation, fancy and fiction shows the London he knew so intimately at its best and worst - its streets, theatres, inns, pawnshops, law courts, prisons, omnibuses and the river Thames - in honest and visionary descriptions of everyday life and people. Through pen portraits that often anticipate characters from his great novels, we see the condemned man in his prison cell, garrulous matrons, vulgar young clerks and Scrooge-like bachelors, while Dickens's powers for social critique are never far from the surface, in unflinching depictions of the vast metropolis's forgotten citizens, from child workers to prostitutes. A startling mixture of humour and pathos, these Sketches reveal LoTrade ReviewWalter Bagehot once remarked, Dickens wrote about London "like a special correspondent for posterity"."The first sprightly runnings of his genius are undoubtedly here," wrote Dickens’s friend and biographer John Forster.

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Book SynopsisA lawyer by day and a creator of a world of fantasy by night, Hoffman (1776-1822) lived a Jekyll and Hyde existence. Many of the characters in his stories are subject to a similar split personality.   The duality of his nature is frequently reflected in some of his characters—Cardillac the goldsmith in Mademoiselle de Scudéry and Nathaniel in The Sandman, for example. Cardillac is a virtuous, industrious man by day but a violent criminal at night, while Nathaniel, obsessed by a childhood fantasy, is driven to madness and cruelty.   These tales can be read on several levels: as an expression of the concerns of the Romantic era, as impressive examples of German Romantic literature and as exciting works of fiction made all the more extraordinary by their concern with the supernatural and the bizarre.Table of ContentsTales of HoffmanIntroductionMademoiselle de ScuderyThe SandmanThe ArtushofCouncillor KrespelThe EntailDoge and DogaressaThe Mines at FalunThe Choosing of the Bride

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Book SynopsisAuthor, dramatist and satirist, Nikolai Gogol deeply influenced later Russian literature with his powerful depictions of a society dominated by petty bureaucracy and base corruption. This volume includes both his most admired short fiction and his most famous drama. A biting and frequently hilarious political satire, The Government Inspector has been popular since its first performance and was regarded by Nabokov as the greatest Russian play every written. The stories gathered here, meanwhile, range from comic to tragic and describe the isolated lives of low-ranking clerks, lunatics and swindlers. They include Diary of a Madman, an amusing but disturbing exploration of insanity; Nevsky Prospect, a depiction of an artist besotted with a prostitute; and The Overcoat, a moving consideration of poverty that powerfully influenced Dostoevsky and later Russian literature.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking wTable of ContentsThe Diary of a Madman, The Government Inspector, and Selected StoriesChronologyIntroductionFurther ReadingTable of RanksIvan Fyodorovich Shponka and His AuntHow Ivan Ivanovich Quarrelled with Ivan NikiforovichNevsky ProspektThe NoseThe OvercoatDiary of a MadmanThe CarriageThe Government InspectorPublishing History and Notes

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Book SynopsisHere are some of Tolstoy's extraordinary short stories, from The Death of Ivan Ilyich. in a masterly new translation, to The Raid, The Wood-felling, Three Deaths, Polikushka, After the Ball, and The Forged Coupon, all gripping and eloquent lessons on two of Tolstoy's most persistent themes: life and death. More experimental than his novels, Tolstoy's stories are essential reading for anyone interested in his development as one of the major writers and thinkers of his time.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

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Book SynopsisRyünosuke Akutagawa (1892-1927) is one of Japan''s foremost stylists - a modernist master whose short stories are marked by highly original imagery, cynicism, beauty and wild humour. ''Rashömon'' and ''In a Bamboo Grove'' inspired Kurosawa''s magnificent film and depict a past in which morality is turned upside down, while tales such as ''The Nose'', ''O-Gin'' and ''Loyalty'' paint a rich and imaginative picture of a medieval Japan peopled by Shoguns and priests, vagrants and peasants. And in later works such as ''Death Register'', ''The Life of a Stupid Man'' and ''Spinning Gears'', Akutagawa drew from his own life to devastating effect, revealing his intense melancholy and terror of madness in exquisitely moving impressionistic stories.

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Book SynopsisContains: The Umbrella Man; Dip in the Pool; The Butler; The Hitchhiker; Mr Botibol; My Lady Love, My Dove; The Way Up to Heaven; Parson''s Pleasure; The Sound Machine; The Wish.

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Book SynopsisA vitally alive and ever-surprising collection of stories from the Booker Prize-shortlisted, Women''s Prize-winning author of How to be both and the critically acclaimed Seasonal quartet ''Bold and sensitive. Smith''s prose is a joy'' IndependentIndividually lucid and luminous, these tales resonate subtly together. In examining the distances and connections between ourselves and others, expertly inching us closer to the bone, Ali Smith''s storytelling has never seemed so necessary, so moving or so joyous.*****''Captures quiet epiphanies of the extraordinary in the mundane'' Sunday Times ''These stories fizz with life'' The Times Literary Supplement

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Book SynopsisOut of his smoke-filled rooms in Baker Street stalks a figure to cause the criminal classes to quake in their boots and rush from their dens of inequity The twelve mysteries gathered in this first collection of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson's adventures reveal the brilliant consulting detective at the height of his powers. Problems involving a man with a twisted lip, a fabulous blue carbuncle and five orange pips tax Sherlock Holmes' intellect alongside some of his most famous cases, including A Scandal in Bohemia and The Red-Headed League.

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Book SynopsisA form-bending and endlessly inventive collection of short stories - from the Booker Prize-shortlisted, Women''s Prize-winning author of How to be both and the critically acclaimed Seasonal quartet ''A glorious collection that celebrates and subverts the short story form'' Independent A middle-aged woman conducts a poignant conversation with her gauche fourteen-year-old self. An innocent supermarket shopper finds in her trolley a foul-mouthed, insulting and beautiful child. Challenging the boundaries between fiction and reality, we see a narrator, ''Ali'', as she drinks tea, phones a friend and muses on the relationship between the short story and a nymph. Innovative, sophisticated and intelligent, The First Person and Other Stories effortlessly appeals to our hearts, heads and funny bones in equal measure. One-of-a-kind Ali Smith and the short story are made for each other.*****''Hurrah for Ali SmithTrade ReviewTerrific . . . hurrah for Ali Smith * The Times *Wonderful . . . Smith has found a format in which her sly wit and dextrous storytelling sing. It might be more helpful to say: read them * Independent *She's a genius, genuinely modern in the heroic, glorious sense * Alain de Botton *One of the most gifted writers of her generation * Scotsman *

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Book SynopsisJohn Updike was born in 1932 in Shillington, Pennsylvania. He is the author of over fifty books, including The Poorhouse Fair; the Rabbit series (Rabbit, Run; Rabbit Redux; Rabbit Is Rich; Rabbit At Rest); Marry Me; The Witches of Eastwick, which was made into a major feature film; Memories of the Ford Administration; Brazil; In the Beauty of the Lilies; Toward the End of Time; Gertrude and Claudius; and Seek My Face. He has written a number of collections of short stories, including The Afterlife and Other Stories and Licks of Love, which includes a final Rabbit story, Rabbit Remembered. His essays and criticism first appeared in publications such as the New Yorker and the New York Review of Books, and are now collected into numerous volumes. Collected Poems 1953-1993 brings together almost all of his verse, and a new edition of his Selected Poems is forthcoming fr

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Book SynopsisThis new collection brings together First Love, The Calamative, The End and The Expelled; these four novellas are among the first major works of Beckett''s decision to use French as his language of literary composition. Rich in verbal and situational humour, they offer a fascinating insight into many of the issues which preoccupied Beckett all his working life. As the first novella reveals, nobody writes with quite such cruel and unnervingly clever wit as Beckett...

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Book SynopsisSaki is perhaps the most graceful spokesman for England''s ''Golden Afternoon'' - the slow and peaceful years before the First World War. Although, like so many of his generation, he died tragically young, in action on the Western Front, his reputation as a writer continued to grow long after his death. The stories are humorous, satiric, supernatural, and macabre, highly individual, full of eccentric wit and unconventional situations. With his great gift as a social satirist of his contemporaryupper-class Edwardian world, Saki is one of the few undisputed English masters of the short story.

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Book SynopsisJorge Luis Borges''s Labyrinths is a collection of short stories and essays showcasing one of Latin America''s most influential and imaginative writers. This Penguin Modern Classics edition is edited by Donald A. Yates and James E. Irby, with an introduction by James E. Irby and a preface by André Maurois.Jorge Luis Borges was a literary spellbinder whose tales of magic, mystery and murder are shot through with deep philosophical paradoxes. This collection brings together many of his stories, including the celebrated ''Library of Babel'', whose infinite shelves contain every book that could ever exist, ''Funes the Memorious'' the tale of a man fated never to forget a single detail of his life, and ''Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote'', in which a French poet makes it his life''s work to create an identical copy of Don Quixote. In later life, dogged by increasing blindness, Borges used essays and brief tantalising parables to explore the enigma of time

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Book SynopsisWilliam Burroughs' work was dedicated to an assault upon language, traditional values and all agents of control. Produced at a time when he was at his most extreme and messianic, The Job lays out his abrasive, incisive, paranoiac, maddened and maddening worldview in interviews interspersed with stories and other writing. On the Beat movement, the importance of the cut-up technique, the press, Scientology, capital punishment, drugs, good and evil, the destruction of nations, Deadly Orgone Radiation and whether violence just in words is violence enough Burroughs' insights show why he was one of the most influential writers and one of the sharpest, most startling and strangest minds of his generation.

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Book SynopsisThis is the essential one-volume edition of Tales from 1,001 Nights, drawn from the acclaimed landmark translation published in 3 volumes by Penguin Classics in 2008. It contains ''Aladdin'', ''Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves'', ''Sindbad the Sailor'' and many others of the most enjoyable and beloved tales from the Arabian Nights.This new translation was described as ''magnificent'' and ''the most ambitious and thorough translation'' in the Guardian and lauded in the Telegraph as ''outstanding''. The Sunday Times said ''The new Penguin edition is the one to have''.Trade Review“For the past decade, Penguin has been producing handsome hardcover versions of their classics (…) both elegant and quirky in shocks of bright color” –The New York Times

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Book SynopsisThese sumptuous new hardback editions mark the 70th anniversary of Fitzgerald''s death.Encompassing the very best of F. Scott Fitzgerald''s short fiction, this collection spans his career, from the early stories of the glittering Jazz Age, through the lost hopes of the thirties, to the last, twilight decade of his life. It brings together his most famous stories, including ''The Diamond as Big as the Ritz'', a fairy tale of unlimited wealth; the sad and hilarious stories of Hollywood hack Pat Hobby; and ''The Lost Decade'', written in Fitzgerald''s last years.

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Book SynopsisAn impressive new selection of Henry James’s short stories, edited by Pulitzer Prize–nominated James biographer Michael GorraThis volume gathers seven of the very best of Henry James’s short stories, all exploring the relationship between art and life. In the title story, “The Aspern Papers,” a critic is determined to get his hands on a great poet’s papers hidden in a faded Venetian house—no mater what the human cost. “The Author of Beltraffio,” “The Lesson of the Master,” and “The Figure in the Carpet” all focus on naive young men’s unsettling encounters with their literary heroes. In “The Middle Years,” a dying novelist begins to glimpse his own potential, while “The Real Thing” and “Greville Fane” explore the tension between artistic and commercial success. These fables of the creative life reveal James at his ironic, provocative best.For mor

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Book SynopsisNikolai Semyonovich Leskov was born in 1831 in Gorokhovo, Oryol Province and was orphaned early. In 1860 he became a journalist and moved to Petersburg where he published his first story. He subsequently wrote a number of folk legends and Christmas tales, along with a few anti-nihilistic novels which resulted in isolation from the literary circles of his day. He died in 1895.David McDuff is a translator of Russian and Nordic literature. His translations of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Russian prose classics (including works by Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Bely and Babel) are published by Penguin.

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Book SynopsisDanilo Kiš (Author) Danilo Kiš was born in the then Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1935. After an unsettled childhood during the Second World War, in which several of his family members were killed, Kiš studied literature at the University of Belgrade where he lived for most of his adult life. He wrote novels, short stories and poetry and went on to receive the prestigious NIN Award for his novel Pešcanik. He died in Paris in 1989.Trade ReviewI urge you to read this reissued collection from a writer who reinvented and invigorated the short story...[The title story] is one of the most moving I have ever read, a testament to both the power and the weakness of literature and human memory... He is one of those writers you feel is on your side. In short, I cannot recommend this book highly enough, or urge it on you more strongly -- Nicholas Lezard * Guardian *Kis is woefully undervalued. He belongs at the centre of European literature, not on its fringes. . .It is past time for Kis's rediscovery. * New Statesman *Compulsively readable * Daily Telegraph *Kiš is one of the great European writers of the post-war period * Guardian *Fantasy chases reality and reality chases fantasy. Pirandello and Borges are not far away. But these names are intended as approximate references. Kiš is a new, original writer -- Leonardo Sciascia * Times Literary Supplement *In The Encyclopedia of the Dead, Danilo Kiš offers a vision that expands the domain of life at the expense of that of death. These stories present that vision with a journalist's precision, with a taxidermist's tactile knowledge of era and realm, with the tenacity of a true son of the century -- Joseph BrodskyIntense and exotic, his mysteries hint at unspeakable secrets that remain forever beyond the story-teller's grasp -- Boyd TonkinThis translation, by Michael Henry Heim, is superb * Independent *The Encyclopedia of the Dead is a book of wonders, product of a vivid imagination that is yet a model of narrative restraint * RTE *

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