Anthologies & Short Stories

Book SynopsisPublished soon after Fitzgerald's debut novel This Side of Paradise, Flappers and Philosophers was the author's first collection of short fiction, a form through which he had gained notoriety in newspapers and magazines. The familiar themes of aspiration and social satire already permeate his writing: in 'Bernice Bobs Her Hair' the fashionable Marjorie attempts to turn her dowdy cousin into a debutante, before betraying her out of jealousy, while 'The Ice Palace' features a Southern belle whose engagement to a Northerner finds her confronted with a cultural clash between tradition and modernity. Also containing 'The Offshore Pirate', 'Head and Shoulders', 'The Cut-Glass Bowl', 'Benediction', 'Dalyrimple Goes Wrong' and 'The Four Fists', this volume of stories illustrates the early stages of Fitzgerald's development as a writer and provides an entertaining chronicle of America in the 1910s.Trade ReviewHe was better than he knew, for in fact and in the literary sense he invented a generation. * The New York Times *

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Book SynopsisTadeusz Borowski's concentration camp stories were based on his own experiences surviving Auschwitz and Dachau. In spare, brutal prose he describes a world where where the will to survive overrides compassion and prisoners eat, work and sleep a few yards from where others are murdered; where the difference between human beings is reduced to a second bowl of soup, an extra blanket or the luxury of a pair of shoes with thick soles; and where the line between normality and abnormality vanishes. Published in Poland after the Second World War, these stories constitute a masterwork of world literature.

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Book SynopsisEighty short stories by a master of the genre O. Henry's comic eye and unique, ironic approach to life's realities are unmatched. These stories—about con men and tricksters and innocent deceivers, about fate, luck, and coincidence—have delighted generations of readers. Set in New York and the West, in Central America and the South, they demonstrate O. Henry's mastery of speech and place, and highlight his appreciation of life's quirks.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.Table of ContentsSelected StoriesIntroductionSuggestions for Further ReadingFrom The Four Million (1906)The Coming-Out of MaggieA Service of LoveBetween RoundsAn Unfinished StoryAfter Twenty YearsBy CourierFrom The Trimmed Lamp (1907)The PendulumThe Buyer from Cactus CityBrickdust RowThe Foreign Policy of Company 99The Count and the Wedding GuestThe Country of ElusionFrom Heart of the West (1907)The Ransom of MackThe Higher AbdicationA Call LoanThe Princess and the PumaThe Indian Summer of Dry Valley JohnsonThe Reformation of CalliopeFrom The Voice of the City (1908)The Complete Life of Johns HopkinsDoughtery's Eye-OpenerWhile the Auto WaitsThe Defeat of the CityThe Plutonian FireSquaring the CircleThe Fool-KillerTransients in ArcadiaExtradited from BohemiaFrom Each According to His AbilityThe MementoFrom The Gentle Grafter (1908)Jeff Peters as a Personal MagnetModern Rural SportsThe Man Higher UpHostages to MomusFrom Roads of Destiny (1909)The Guardian of the AccoladePhoebeA Double-Dyed DeceiverA Retrieved ReformationFriends in San RosarioThe Emancipation of BillyA Departmental CaseThe Renaissance at CharleroiTwo RenegadesFrom Options (1909)"The Rose of Dixie"Schools and SchoolsThimble, ThimbleThe Moment of VictoryNo StoryFrom Strictly Business (1910)The Gold That GlitteredThe Day ResurgentThe Thing's the PlayA Municipal ReportProof of the PuddingThe VenturersFrom Whirligigs (1910)The Theory and the HoundThe Ransom of Red ChiefThe Whirligig of LifeThe Roads We TakeA Blackjack BargainerOne Dollar's WorthMadame Bo-Peep, of the RanchesFrom Sixes and Sevens (1911)Witches' LoavesThe Duplicity of HargravesOctober and JuneThe Church with an Overshot-WheelFrom Rolling Stones (1912)The Atavism of John Tom Little BearThe Marquis and Miss SallyFrom Waifs and Strays (1917)Out of NazarethHearts and Hands

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Book SynopsisThis new translation includes Kafka's two published collections, A Country Doctor and A Hunger Artist with other, uncollected stories, aphorisms, and parables that have become part of the Kafka canon. Enigmatic, satirical, often bleakly humorous, the stories meditate on art and artists and the human experience. Includes an introduction and notes.Table of ContentsTHE AEROPLANES AT BRESCIA; A COUNTRY DOCTOR: LITTLE TALES; THE RIDER ON THE COAL-SCUTTLE; A HUNGER ARTIST: FOUR STORIES; BLUMFELD, AN ELDERLY BACHELOR; AT THE BUILDING OF THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA; THE HUNTSMAN GRACCHUS; INVESTIGATIONS OF A DOG; THE BURROW; SELECTED SHORTER PIECES; APHORISMS

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Book SynopsisAn NYRB Classics OriginalWinner of the  2014 PEN Translation Prize Winner of the 2014 Read Russia PrizeThe stakes are wildly high in Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky’s fantastic and blackly comic philosophical fables, which abound in nested narratives and wild paradoxes. This new collection of eleven mind-bending and spellbinding tales includes some of Krzhizhanovsky’s most dazzling conceits: a provincial journalist who moves to Moscow finds his existence consumed by the autobiography of his room’s previous occupant; the fingers of a celebrated pianist’s right hand run away to spend a night alone on the city streets; a man’s lifelong quest to bite his own elbow inspires both a hugely popular circus act and a new refutation of Kant. Ordinary reality cracks open before our eyes in the pages of Autobiography of a Corpse, and the extraordinary spills out.

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Book SynopsisIn her second volume of short stories, which follows the hugely successful ''Encounters'', Barbara Erskine has created a compelling world of love, betrayal, suspense and grief.A biographer investigating a tragic death hears voices from the past drawing her towards the truthA nineteenth century parson's daughter is caught up in the excitement and romance of a smuggling intrigueA young boy from a deprived background finds his own haven in the wastelands of the inner cityContemporary, historical, spooky, and humorous there are over thirty delightful stories, each one guaranteed to capture the reader's imagination, and all demonstrating Barbara Erskine's unique powers as a storyteller.Readers LOVE Barbara Erskine:Atmospheric' ?????Enthralling' ?????Spellbinding' ?????Another fabulous read from the mistress of the genre' ?????Immensely and deeply immersive fiction' ?????I loved every minute' ?????An exceptional writer of great books' ?????You can rely on this author to keep you wanting morTrade ReviewPraise for Barbara Erskine: ‘Her forte is mood, atmosphere and the toe-curling frisson’, Sunday Times ‘Barbara Erskine’s storytelling talent is undeniable’ The Times ‘Marvellous, escapist stuff’ Woman and Home

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Book SynopsisThe late stories by an influential writer of singular talentBetween 1799, when he left the Prussian Army, and his suicide in 1811, Kleist developed into a writer of unprecedented and tragically isolated genius. This collection of works from the last period of his life also includes 'The Earthquake in Chile,' 'Michael Kohlhaas,' 'The Beggarwoman of Locarno,' 'St. Cecilia or The Power of Music,' 'The Betrothal in Santo Domingo,' 'The Foundling,' and 'The Duel.'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.Table of Contents"The Earthquake in Chile"; "The Marquise of O--"; "Michael Kohlhaas"; "The Beggarwoman of Locarno"; "St Cecilia or The Power of Music"; "The Betrothal in Santo Domingo"; "The Foundling"; "The Duel"

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Book SynopsisThe complete stories of a 20th century master of fictionAffairs, obsessions, ardors, fantasy, myth, legends, dreams, fear, pity, and violence—this magnificent collection of stories illuminates all corners of the human experience. Including four previously uncollected stories, this new complete edition reveals Graham Greene in a range of contrasting moods, sometimes cynical and witty, sometimes searching and philosophical. Each of these forty-nine stories confirms V. S. Pritchett’s declaration that Greene is “a master of storytelling.” This Penguin Classics edition features an introduction by Pico Iyer.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 in

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Book SynopsisThis book presents three tales that encapsulate Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky’s gift for creating philosophical, satirical, and lyrical phantasmagorias. It also includes excerpts from his notebooks—aphoristic glimpses of his worldview, moods, humor, and writing methods—and reminiscences of Krzhizhanovsky by his lifelong companion, Anna Bovshek.Trade ReviewIf H. G. Wells had been a poet, if Emily Dickinson were born a Slav, and if they had teamed up to write darkly hilarious, meandering novellas of fantastic realism, they might have equaled the bleak wit of Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky. Joanne Turnbull’s deft, dazzlingly inventive translation and Caryl Emerson’s lucid and moving introduction reveal the human side of this brilliant, tragically frustrated talent. -- Muireann Maguire, author of Stalin's Ghosts: Gothic Themes in Early Soviet LiteratureKrzhizhanovsky is unmatched for the droll humor with which he fictionalizes philosophers, from Kant to the imaginary Katafalaki. “Logic for children,” he wrote in his notebook; yes, children of the universe, old as we are, and still bewildered. I am so grateful for his gentle pathos in the face of great odds. -- Ange Mlinko, author of Venice: PoemsSince his rediscovery in the waning days of the Soviet Union, Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky has completely overturned the canon of Russian literature. Joanne Turnbull and Nikolai Formozov’s blistering translations of these three novellas, which provoke frequent guffaws of delight and horror, show us why. -- Benjamin Paloff, author of Lost in the Shadow of the Word: Space, Time, and Freedom in Interwar Eastern EuropeIt is now clear that Krzhizhanovsky is one of the greatest Russian writers of the last century. -- Robert Chandler, The Financial TimesKrzhizhanovsky is often compared to Borges, Swift, Poe, Gogol, Kafka, and Beckett, yet his fiction relies on its own special mixture of heresy and logic...phantasmagoric. -- Natasha Randall, BookforumKrzhizhanovsky takes the reader through realms of magic and science alike. It’s like little else you’ll encounter anywhere—politically resonant fables where people and places turn malleable at a moment’s notice. -- Tobias Carroll * Words Without Borders *[A] richly rewarding read with great depths to mine for the dedicated reader. -- Axie Barclay * Seattle Book Review *Just brilliant. -- Karen Langley * Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings *Would Krzhizhanovsky have dared write something so esoteric if he expected to be published? There is an exhilarating sense that the deeper his obscurity ran, the wilder his intellectual frolics became. -- Sam Sacks * Wall Street Journal *This collection of playful metaphysical tales and memoirs, by and about the Kyiv-born author Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky, will delight admirers and enchant new readers. -- Muireann Maguire * Times Literary Supplement *This lively, thought-provoking new translation represents an important step in bringing [Krzhizhanovsky’s] work into being for Anglophones. -- A. J. DeBlasio * Choice Reviews *

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Book SynopsisIt''s not just Murakami but also the shadow of Borges that hovers over this mesmerizing book [and] one may detect a slight bow to the American macabre of E.A. Poe. Ogawa stands on the shoulders of giants, as another saying goes. But this collection may linger in your mind it does in mine as a delicious, perplexing, absorbing and somehow singular experience. Alan Cheuse, NPR Sinister forces collide---and unite a host of desperate characters---in this eerie cycle of interwoven tales from Yoko Ogawa, the critically acclaimed author of The Housekeeper and the Professor. An aspiring writer moves into a new apartment and discovers that her landlady has murdered her husband. Elsewhere, an accomplished surgeon is approached by a cabaret singer, whose beautiful appearance belies the grotesque condition of her heart. And while the surgeon''s jealous lover vows to kill him, a violent envy also stirs in the soul of a lonely craftsman. Desire meets w

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Book SynopsisBret Easton Ellis is the author of several novels, including Imperial Bedrooms, Less Than Zero, The Rules of Attraction, American Psycho, Glamorama and Lunar Park, and a collection of stories, The Informers. Less Than Zero, The Rules of Attraction, American Psycho and The Informers have all been made into films. His first work of non-fiction, White, was published in 2019. He is the host of the Bret Easton Ellis Podcast available on Patreon. He lives in Los Angeles.

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Book SynopsisFaber Stories, a landmark series of individual volumes, presents masters of the short story form at work in a range of genres and styles. Between his second and third tours of duty, a soldier returns home.To his former home, that is, using an old key while the new tenant is at work. Is he re-entering his old life or borrowing someone else's? Where is the line he will not cross? Each day is the same: he exists in a state of suspension, barely knowing how he passes the time until someone else intrudes on the intruder.Adrian Tomine, graphic master of alienation and regret, expertly expands the form to express the unsaid and the unbearable in this unforgettable evocation of a post-traumatic life.Bringing together past, present and future in our ninetieth year, Faber Stories is a celebratory compendium of collectable work.

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Book SynopsisIndulging in the strangest eddies of literary love, this new anthology bids you enter a doom-laden yet irresistibly seductive corner of the Weird.

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Book SynopsisA collection of twenty-four tales told in bold, distinct voices from Brazil to Africa and from Nice to Hollywood.Trade Review'Probably the best short-story writer at work today' Esquire 'Perfect ... Suffused with an understanding of love, desire and emotional incompetence' Guardian 'One of the best writers in English' Sunday Telegraph 'English fiction's master storyteller ... His stories circle intelligently around fascinating themes' Independent on Sunday

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Book SynopsisAn eagerly awaited collection of brand new, specially commissioned short stories from the Master of historical crime fiction, featuring his quick witted Railway Detective, Inspector Colbeck.Trade ReviewTold with great colour and panache a wonderful sense of inhabiting the period. In Colbeck and Leeming, Marston has created a fine pair This is how history mysteries should be: fine storytelling, marvellous characters reminiscent of the great authors of the mid-Victorian period, and a sneaky mystery, too. 'In this specially commissioned collection of short stories featuring Edward Marston's hugely popular detective Robert Colbeck, the resourceful investigator faces a host of baffling conundrums' GOOD BOOK GUIDE 'Highly recommended' Antipodean Holmesian Society

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Book SynopsisFrom the bestselling author of The Handmaid's Tale and The Testaments—a thrilling, funny, and thought-provoking collection of stories that affirms Atwood as our greatest creator of worlds—and as an incisive chronicler of our darkest impulses.    “Alphinland,” the first of three loosely linked tales, introduces us to a fantasy writer who is guided through a stormy winter evening by the voice of her late husband. In “Lusus Naturae,” a young woman, monstrously transformed by a genetic defect, is mistaken for a vampire. And in the title story, a woman who has killed four husbands discovers an opportunity to exact vengeance on the first man who ever wronged her. Stone Mattress is a collection of unforgettable tales that reveal the grotesque, delightfully wicked facets of humanity.

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Book SynopsisThe stories collected in What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours are linked by more than the exquisitely winding prose of their creator: Helen Oyeyemi's ensemble cast of characters slip from the pages of their own stories only to surface in another.The reader is invited into a world of lost libraries and locked gardens, of marshlands where the drowned dead live and a city where all the clocks have stopped; students hone their skills at puppet school, the Homely Wench Society commits a guerrilla book-swap, and lovers exchange books and roses on St Jordi's Day. It is a collection of towering imagination, marked by baroque beauty and a deep sensuousness.Trade ReviewOyeyemi's imagination is impressive and vast . . . Her ability to conceive her stories on such a grand scale is what makes her work so magnetic, sucking the reader into any number of netherworlds. Perhaps it's this ability to consume and be consumed that keeps Oyeyemi constantly, and prolifically, at work. * Guardian *Transcendent . . . the pleasurable awareness of a story being told courses through the collection like electricity . . . Oyeyemi expertly melds the everyday, the fantastic and the eternal . . . with each story I had the delightful and rare experience of being utterly surprised . . . Oyeyemi has created a universe that dazzles and wounds * New York Times *Alluring . . . the style and peculiar authority of this exceptional young writer will carry you carefully through thelabyrinth and into a new and exciting literary landscape . . . If you are seduced by magical realism - particularly the novels of Allende and Marquez - you will savour Oyeyemi's inventive tales. * Daily Mail *Wild, luscious and startling . . . Oyeyemi glides seamlessly across time, space and genre . . . Oyeyemi's observations are as sharp as they are humorous. But she is equally at home in a more lyrical mode, her writing warm and sensuous . . . these gorgeously baroque stories are full of humour, tenderness, wisdom and strange delights -- Rebecca Abrams * Financial Times *Enchanting . . . the breadth of Oyeyemi's imagination is impressive, teetering, as ever, on the edge of magical realism. Her use of fairytales, folklore and ghost stories is distinctly reminiscent of the work ofAngela Carter . . . inviting, luscious prose. -- Lucy Scholes * Guardian *Curious, erotic, by turns dark and humorous; like the many secrets these stories reveal, Helen Oyeyemi's imagination is ripe to be unlocked, revelled in and treasured. * Literary Review *Ethereal beauty and unexpected humour * Independent on Sunday *Boasts ambitious stories written masterfully by an adventurous author, and is another example of Oyeyemi's skill at finding inspiration in the smallest and most ephemeral details. * New York Times Live *What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours illustrates the necessity and power of private, written confessions. * New Yorker *This is a truly exceptional work of fiction, by a writer we should be delirious to have as a contemporary. -- Stuart Evers * Independent *Oyeyemi's fireworks illuminate a world in which other people are always more mysterious and strange than we might think * Spectator *[Oyeyemi] has come up with something unique, keeping pace with a modern mixed-up world * Daily Telegraph *Oyeyemi takes the classic folk tale on a sometimes dark, often erotic, always fantastic, journey. The book itself is a thing of beauty, too. * Pool *Oyeyemi captures the off-kilter fairy-tale magic of her 2014 masterwork, Boy, Snow, Bird . . . [she] writes with mastery, sometimes keeping her prose sparse and declarative only to unleash a bounty of description and humor a sentence later. * Entertainment Weekly *Beautifully broken tales with wonderfully flawed characters . . . a fascinating glimpse into a world built on our fears, hopes and desires . . . articulating such disorder proves Oyeyemi as the painstakingly masterful writer that she is. * Stylist *The best teller of fairy tales we've got . . . [Oyeyemi's] first collection of short stories is obviously a bit of a treat . . . allowing for more invention, more sexiness and more beautiful sentences that lead you round the corner to something surprising . . . brilliant * Emerald Street *Witty and tender . . . simple and beautiful . . . hers is a rare talent -- Kate Clanchy * Guardian *These short stories are pure, sensuous enjoyment, packed with colour and passion * Times *A collection of short stories, which will suck the reader into Oyeyeymi's wild and surreal imagination. * Red Magazine *Occasionally gothic, sometimes fantastical, always captivating. * Radio Times *Oyeyemi has created a universe that dazzles and wounds. * Scotland on Sunday *It is Oyeyemi's boundless inventiveness which drives these stories . . . stylistically bold, fantastical, disorientating and ruthlessly defying convention. Oyeyemi, one of the Granta Best of Young British Novelists 2013, now effortlessly outpaces most of her peers. In this short fiction we can discern hints of Angela Carter and hear notes of Aimee Bender but on the whole what rings out is Oyeyemi's singular, magical voice. * National *Her arguments, about identity, about sexuality, are more fluid than [Angela] Carter's . . . Reading What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours is like settling into a rollercoaster: you must abandon yourself * New Statesman *What is Not Yours is Not Yours is like a charmed set of Russian dolls: spellbound, we are gripped by the seamlessly joined stories unfolding from-and into-one another, as we wait for Oyeyemi to reach for her next bit of magic. * Londonist *Dizzying, baffling, and beguiling . . . unruly in the best way, drawing on pre-modern modes of story-telling (fairy tales, Boccaccio, The Arabian Nights) to show they've lost none of their power in the present * Vulture *Imaginative, playful and entirely unique, this collection of short stories is magical realism at its finest * Time Out (US) *The stories in this collection are poetic and puzzling . . . get ready to tumble through the doors of this beautifully challenging and satisfying collection * NPR *

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Book Synopsis'How to tell the story of a 500-page collection of stories spanning more than forty years? Especially when I really want to just exclaim, "Oh, Oh, OH!" in a state of steadily mounting rapture' Geoff Dyer, Observer Williams' uniquely devastating portrayals of modern life have been captivating readers and writers for decades. Here, for the first time, Williams' thirty-three best stories are available in a single volume, together with thirteen new stories that show a writer continuing to mould the form into something strange and new. Bleak but funny, real but surreal, domestic but dangerous, familiar but enigmatic, Joy Williams' stories fray away the fabric at the edge of ordinary experience to reveal the loneliness at the heart of human life. In 'The Lover', a girl suffers a spiritual and physical wasting away; in 'The Visiting Privilege', a visitor finds refuge in her friend's psychiatric ward; in 'Charity', a woman gives a poor family gas money and finds herself marooned in their peculiar world; in 'Another Season' an itinerant man cleanses an island of roadkill; in 'Craving' an alcoholic couple head towards a car crash. The Visiting Privilege represents the culmination of Williams' career and cements her place as the most singular artist of short fiction writing today.Trade ReviewPerhaps the greatest living master of the short story ... easily taking her place among the ranks of Mavis Gallant, Flannery O'Connor, Grace Paley, John Cheever and Raymond Carver -- Neel Mukherjee * Guardian Books of the Year *Joy Williams is a stone-cold 100% American original ... a treasure trove of high-octane prose and surreal wit -- Rupert Thomson * Herald Books of the Year *An electric and dangerously human volume -- Philip Hensher * Spectator Books of the Year *The literary heir to Anton Chekhov * Washington Post *Williams is a flawless writer, and The Visiting Privilege is a perfect book * NPR *Joy Williams is simply a wonder -- Raymond CarverShe belongs in the company of Céline and Flannery O'Connor -- James SalterHow to tell the story of a 500-page collection of stories spanning more than 40 years? Especially when I really want to just exclaim, "Oh, Oh, OH!" in a state of steadily mounting rapture -- Geoff Dyer * Observer *The Visiting Privilege cements Williams's position not merely as one of the great writers of her generation, but as our pre-eminent bard of humanity's insignificance * New York Times Magazine *Powerful, important, compassionate, and full of dark humor. This is a book that will be reread with admiration and love many times over * Vanity Fair *One of the most fearless, abyss-embracing literary projects our literature has seen ... ruthless, hilarious work that holds our human folly to the fire ... you can't much pin Joy Williams down with any obvious dark masters. She is American and contemporary and strange, comfortable in the skin of domestic realism, even if that mode is a kind of misleading costume for a far more sinister project not often seen in American, or any, short fiction -- Ben Marcus * New York Times Book Review *Deep, dazzling, disconcerting -- Adam FouldsDark, funny, spare and unsparing ... wonderful ... Williams is fully alive to the tragicomedy of our transient lives. -- Eithne Farry * Sunday Express *Revisiting the edgy, perceptive, provocative stories of Joy Williams make The Visiting Privilege a celebration. From the opening story, 'Taking Care', Williams confirms her ironic pathos and consummate timing, and rarely falters. -- Eileen Battersby * Irish Times *Williams's short stories portray the edges of modern life in vivid, staccato detail and make for compelling reading. The narrative threads move forward in unpredictable, exciting and often unsettling detail. * Guardian, readers' BOTY 2016 *One of the great American short story writers -- Jay McInerneyThe bright-bleak grand master of short stories -- Lauren Groff * New Yorker *How had Joy Williams been missing from my life for so long? What a writer. What a voice. What a way of seeing. -- Laura Barnett * Twitter *

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Book Synopsis'She's a Queen of Words' CAITLIN MORAN. 'One of the great lionesses of modern English literature' HARPER'S BAZAAR. 'Readable, articulate and fascinating' THE SCOTSMAN. 'Outrageously funny' DAILY EXPRESS. 'Sharp, witty, incisive' THE TIMES. 'Wise, knowing, forthright' INDEPENDENT. Reviewers have been describing Fay Weldon's inimitable voice for years. Now, here is Fay Weldon in her own words. Choosing and and introducing twenty-one of her favourite short stories written throughout her fifty year career as one of Britain's foremost novelists. Included as a bonus is a new novella, The Ted Dreams, a ghost story for the age of cyber culture, big pharma, and surveillance.Trade ReviewOne of the great lionesses of modern English literature' * Harper's Bazaar *A sparkling river of wit * Mail on Sunday *Weldon's stories pull no punches * Independent on Sunday *Weldon at her best... Times have changed and Weldon is one of the people who have changed them' -- Kate Saunders, The TimesIt is Weldon's immersion in the real world, and her fascination with changes in fashion, trend and mood, that gives these stories their spirit... For most women love and lust are synonyms for life. And that, as almost each of these stories shows, is where the mischief comes in' * Herald Scotland *The perfect way to reacquaint yourself with a great writer or discover her for the first time * Bella *Insightful, emotionally truthful tales rich with female characters * Diva Magazine *Weldon's voice is the star... wise, witty and, well, yes, mischievous... Swiftian, elegant, droll and thought-provoking' -- Julian Clary, Daily TelegraphMagically insistent -- Janet Ellis.The acclaimed author has chosen 21 of her favourite short stories, spanning her 50-year career, for this enjoyable collection... Also included is a new novella, The Ted Dreams, a ghost story for our modern age' * Choice Magazine. *

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Book SynopsisThe port of Tianjin is where the ancient Chinese empire met the sea. The turn of the 20th century was a tumultuous time for the city, with the Qing dynasty on its last legs and the Boxers unleashing their ill-fated rebellion against the European trading concessions that had colonised its streets.For Tianjin’s inhabitants, daily life carried on. These hardy people were shaped by the bitter earth from which they sprang, and every once in a while, there would emerge someone so remarkable that a new name would be inducted into Tianjin’s hall of fame.From a miracle doctor to an ill-mannered mynah bird, they came from every walk of life and in all shapes and sizes. Together, their stories make up the rich tapestry of a city that the modern world has washed away...

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Book SynopsisThe human head remains in a state of consciousness for one and a half minutes after decapitation. In a heightened state of emotion, people speak at a rate of 160 words per minute. Inspired by this, Robert Olen Butler wrote Severance, sixty-two vignettes each exactly 240 words in length, that capture the flow of thoughts that go through a person's mind after their head has been severed. Here are the imagined ultimate words of famous and invented figures - Medusa, Sir Walter Raleigh, Anne Boleyn, Jayne Mansfield, and a chicken, beheaded for Sunday dinner. Following on from this, Butler addressed the question of: what goes through the mind of a person while having sex? Turning his daring imagination to the intimate, Butler lays bare the most flagrant, personal thoughts and feelings of fifty, often surprising, couples in Intercourse.Trade ReviewExperimental writing in its purest form... This is a beautifully designed, reversible double offering; a curio in form as well as content. A must for fans of sex and death -- Alan Bett * The Skinny *light-flashing-before-the-eye distillations of life [...] sweet, but disturbing * Shortlist *

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Book SynopsisWINNER OF THE CWA SHORT STORY DAGGER In Bloody Scotland a selection of Scotland's best crime writers use the sinister side of the country's built heritage in stories that are by turns gripping, chilling and redemptive. Stellar contributors Val McDermid, Chris Brookmyre, Denise Mina, Ann Cleeves, Louise Welsh, Lin Anderson, Doug Johnstone, Gordon Brown, Craig Robertson, E S Thomson, Sara Sheridan and Stuart MacBride explore the thrilling potential of Scotland's iconic sites and structures. From murder in an ancient broch and a macabre tale of revenge among the furious clamour of an eighteenth century mill, to a dark psychological thriller set within the tourist throng of Edinburgh Castle and a rivalry turning fatal in the concrete galleries of an abandoned modernist ruin, this collection uncovers the intimate - and deadly - connections between people and places. Prepare for a dangerous journey into the dark shadows of our nation's buildings - where passion, fury, desire and death collide.Trade Review'Like the most wonderful box of chocolates, this anthology delivers treat after treat, each with a different but harmonious flavour heightening the experience. A dozen great writers. A dozen great places. A killer combination.' * The Scotsman *'A brilliant publication capturing the unstoppable Scottish crime fiction scene in all its murderous glory via 12 short stories from writers including Val McDermid, Louise Welsh and Denise Mina . . . an astute publishing move' * The Herald, Books of the Year *'it is a brilliant read that celebrates some of the best writers we possess as a country, as well as some of our best historical landmarks' * The Courier *'An outstanding book that will broaden the horizons of its readers as it entertains them, in terms both of what Scotland has to offer visitors, and the breadth of its crime-writing talent.' * Undiscovered Scotland *'The result is a collection both diverse and surprisingly cohesive . . . In Bloody Scotland, geography, not biology, is destiny, and these 12 stories demonstrate that fate is not always kind. Here’s hoping that Scotland boasts enough landmarks for an encore.' * Kirkus Review *'The dozen entries in this fine anthology of original crime stories all feature actual Scottish landmarks, from castles to weaving mills . . . Fans of contemporary Scottish crime fiction will be well pleased.' * Publishers Weekly *

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Book SynopsisSurreal, ambitious and exquisitely conceived, The Doll's Alphabet is a collection of stories in the tradition of Angela Carter and Margaret Atwood. Dolls, sewing machines, tinned foods, mirrors, malfunctioning bodies – many images recur in stories that are in turn child-like and naive, grotesque and very dark. In ‘Unstitching’, a feminist revolution takes place. In ‘Waxy’, a factory worker fights to keep hold of her Man in a society where it is frowned upon to be Manless. In ‘Agata's Machine’, two schoolgirls conjure a Pierrot and an angel in a dank attic room. In ‘Notes from a Spider’, a half-man, half-spider finds love in a great European city. By constantly reinventing ways to engage with her obsessions and motifs, Camilla Grudova has come up with a method for storytelling that is highly imaginative, incredibly original, and absolutely discomfiting.Trade Review‘That I cannot say what all these stories are about is a testament to their worth. They have been haunting me for days now. They have their own, highly distinct flavour, and the inevitability of uncomfortable dreams.’ — Nick Lezard, Guardian‘If fairytales could dream, this nightmarish collection is what you might end up with. Grudova’s closest living counterpart could be Ben Marcus, with whom she shares a heavy debt to Kafka ... But the atmosphere of her fantastical, semi-dystopian settings is so unique and persuasive that the day after finishing the book, I awoke from a dream to realize that it had taken place in Grudova’s universe. ... The author’s surreal humour, often delivered via deadpan dream logic, recalls the startling short stories of Leonora Carrington. Both Carrington and Grudova excel at a certain well-placed, pedestrian literalism that works deliciously against the magical elements in their fiction.’ — Claire Lowdon, Times Literary Supplement‘The comic grotesqueries that emerge from this collection owe a bit to Dickens, Kafka and Heinrich Hoffmann’s “Der Struwwelpeter,” but their total effect is delightfully unclassifiable.... The Doll's Alphabet is clearly a revisionist undertaking. It unsettles assumptions about motherhood and marriage. But it also separates itself from its feminist predecessors. The world it inhabits – droll, inexplicable and even beautiful in its slovenly fashion – is unlike any other I’ve encountered.’ — Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal‘This doll’s eye view is a total delight and surveys a world awash with shadowy wit and exquisite collisions of beauty and the grotesque.’ — Helen Oyeyemi, author of Boy, Snow, Bird‘The Doll's Alphabet ... has already garnered comparisons to Angela Carter, Margaret Atwood, Leonora Carrington, Ben Marcus, and Franz Kafka. To this list let me add another name: George Orwell. Not the dystopian Orwell of 1984 or the allegorical Orwell of Animal Farm but the down-and-out, grubby-oilcloth Orwell of The Road to Wigan Pier and Keep the Aspidistra Flying. Grudova does mermaids and magic, but she also does moldy, dingy, scratch-and-sniff interiors that reek of cabbage and old shoes.’ — Christine Smallwood, Harper's Magazine‘Imagine a world in which the Brothers Grimm were two exquisite, black-eyed twin sisters in torn stockings and handstitched velvet dresses. Knowing, baroque, perfect, daring, clever, fastidious, Camilla Grudova is Angela Carter’s natural inheritor. Her style is effortlessly spare and wonderfully seductive. Read her! Love her! She is sincerely strange – a glittering literary gem in a landscape awash with paste and glue and artificial settings.’ — Nicola Barker, author of Darkmans‘One of the most purely original collections I’ve read, filled with strange and squirmy imagery, monsters and sewing machines and things with many, many legs.’ — Julia Armfield, author of Salt Slow

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Book SynopsisSet in a small rural village, seemingly everyday events take on a macabre meaning. We follow Kim Miyoung, a relatively new villager and the local primary school teacher, as she is slowly overcome by anxiety, with her daughter at the vulnerable young age of three, a difficult group of schoolboys under her wing and her mother-in-law trying to drag her into house-of-cards village politics. To top it all, she finds herself plagued by the idea of son: folklore spirits out to make people’s lives miserable. As the village gathers for the annual ‘meju-making day’, amid all the hubbub, Miyoung loses sight of her daughter Mina. Despite her cries for help, no one joins her to look for Mina, everyone seems to be against her.

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Book SynopsisWidely acknowledged as the father of the Japanese short story, Ryunosuke Akutagawa remains one of the most influential Japanese writers of all time. Rashomon and Other Stories, a collection of his most celebrated work, resonates as strongly today as when it first published a century ago. This volume includes: In a Grove: An iconic, contradictory tale of the murder of a samurai in a forest near Kyoto told through three varying accounts; Rashomon: A masterless samurai contemplates following a life of crime as he encounters an old woman at the old Rashomon gate outside Kyoto; Yam Gruel: A low-ranking court official laments his position all the while yearning for his favourite, yet humble, dish; The Martyr: Set in Japan's Christian missionary era, a young boy is excommunicated for fathering an illegitimate child, but not all is as it seems; Kesa and Morito: An adulterous couple plots to kill the woman's husband as the situation threatens to spin out of control; The Dragon: A priest concocts a prank involving a dragon, but the tall tale begins to take on a life of its own. With a new foreword by noted Akutagawa scholar Seiji Lippit, this updated version of a classic collection is a an excellent, readable introduction to Japanese literature.Trade Review"Clear-eyed glimpses of human behavior in the extremities of poverty, stupidity, greed, vanity … Story-telling of an unconventional sort, with most of the substance beneath the shining, enameled surface." --The New York Times Book Review"There are enough Swiftian touches in Akutagawa to show his hatred of stupidity, greed, hypocrisy and the rising jingoism of the day. But Akutagawa's artistic integrity kept him from joining his contemporaries in the easy social criticism or naive introspection … What he did was question the values of his society, dramatize the complexities of human psychology, and study, with a Zen taste for paradox, the precarious balance of illusion and reality." --Howard Hibbett, from the Introduction to Rashomon and Other Stories

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Book SynopsisThis classic collection of short stories serves as the ideal introduction to Steinbeck''s work. Set in the idyllic Salinas Valley in California, where simple people farm the land and struggle to find a place for themeselves in the world, these stories reflect many of the concerns key to Steinbeck as a writer; the tensions between town and city, labourers and owners, past and present. Included here are the celebrated tales, THE MURDERER and THE CHRYSANTHEMUMS.

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Book SynopsisA collection of treasured stories by the unchallenged master of American fictionA Penguin Classic Nobel Prize winner Saul Bellow has deservedly been celebrated as one of America’s greatest writers. For more than sixty years he stretched our minds, our imaginations, and our hearts with his exhilarating perceptions of life. Here, collected in one volume and chosen by the author himself, are favorites such as “What Kind of Day Did You Have?”, “Leaving the Yellow House,” and a previously uncollected piece, “By the St. Lawrence.” With his larger-than-life characters, irony, wisdom, and unique humor, Bellow presents a sharp, rich, and funny world that is infinitely surprising. With a preface by Janice Bellow and an introduction by James Wood, this is a collection to treasure for longtime Saul Bellow fans and an excellent introduction for new readers.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of

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Book SynopsisNATIONAL BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE WINNER • With music pulsing on every page, this startling, exhilarating novel of self-destruction and redemption “features characters about whom you come to care deeply as you watch them doing things they shouldn't, acting gloriously, infuriatingly human” (The Chicago Tribune).One of the New York Times’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century • One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years • A Kirkus Reviews Best Fiction Book of the Century • A Los Angeles Times Best Fiction Book of the Last 30 YearsBennie is an aging former punk rocker and record executive. Sasha is the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. Here Jennifer Egan brilliantly reveals their pasts, along with the inner lives of a host of other characters whose paths intersect with theirs. “Pitch perfect . . . Darkly, rippingly funny . . . Egan possesses a satirist’s eye and a romance novelist’s heart.”—The New York Times Book Review

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Book SynopsisThe more than 600 stories written by O. Henry provided an embarrassment of riches for the compilers of this volume.  The final selection of the thirty-eight stories in this collection offers for the reader's delight those tales honored almost unanimously by anthologists and those that represent, in variety and balance, the best work of America's favorite storyteller.  They are tales in his most mellow, humorous, and ironic moods.  They give the full range and flavor of the man born William Sydney Porter but known throughout the world as O. Henry, one of the great masters of the short story.

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Book SynopsisMost readers know Truman Capote as the author of Breakfast at Tiffany’s and In Cold Blood; or they remember his notorious social life and wild and witty public appearances. But he was also the author of superb short tales that were as elegant as they were heartfelt, as grotesque as they were compassionate. Now, on the occasion of what would have been his eightieth birthday, the Modern Library presents the first collection that includes all of Capote’s short fiction-a volume that confirms his status as one of the masters of this form.Among the selections are “A Tree of Night,” in which an innocent student, sitting on a train beside a slatternly woman and her deaf-mute companion, enters a seductive nightmare that brings back the deepest fears of childhood . . . “House of Flowers,” the inspiration for a celebrated Broadway musical, which tells of a superstitious prostitute who learns to love in a way no one else can ever understand

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Book SynopsisContains ten of Hemingway's classic stories including "The snows of Kilimanjaro," "A day's wait," "Fathers and sons," "The killers," and "The short happy life of Francis Macomber".

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Book SynopsisFrom Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, the highly acclaimed translators of War and Peace, Doctor Zhivago, and Anna Karenina, which was an Oprah Book Club pick and million-copy bestseller, The Eternal Husband and Other Stories brings together five of Dostoevsky’s short masterpieces. Filled with many of the themes and concerns central to his great novels, these short works display the full range of Dostoevsky’s genius. The centerpiece of this collection, the short novel The Eternal Husband, describes the almost surreal meeting of a cuckolded widower and his dead wife’s lover. Dostoevsky’s dark brilliance and satiric vision infuse the other four tales with all-too-human characters. The Eternal Husband and Other Stories is sterling Dostoevsky—a collection of emotional power and uncompromising insight into the human condition.

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Book SynopsisCritics often comment on the importance of landscape in Wuthering Heights, and in this edition, Christopher Heywood locates the text more precisely than previous editions amid Yorkshire’s limestone north and moorland south, drawing out the importance of the region's slaveholding society. Heywood also makes an important contribution to scholarship arguing persuasively for a re-structuring of the chapter and section breaks. Finally, this edition includes a variety of appendices that help to illuminate the novel’s historical background.Trade ReviewChristopher Heywood invites us to take a fresh look at this oft-interpreted novel, throwing new light on its literary ancestry, and providing a wealth of material about the 'plantation economy' of northern England in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. His introduction situates the work firmly in its place and time, putting particular emphasis on the complex of family and social histories out of which Bronte wove her story. In Heywood's provocative reading, Heathcliff sheds the demonic aura with which he is invested by other critics, and takes on tragic dimensions, becoming 'a martyr and hero of social change.' This Broadview edition of Wuthering Heights makes a valuable contribution to the continuing debate about the origins, structure, and meaning of one of the greatest—and most enigmatic—novels in English." - Herbert Rosengarten, University of British ColumbiaTable of ContentsPrefaceAbbreviationsAcknowledgementsList of IllustrationsEmily Brontë: A Brief ChronologyIntroduction The Wuthering Heights landscape The story: symmetry The marriage prohibition Lockwood’s Wilberforcean dreams Africa and Yorkshire unchained Signs of fertility Note on the text Wuthering HeightsAppendix A: The Chronology of Wuthering HeightsAppendix B: Literary TraditionAppendix C: Family HistoriesAppendix D: Documents Landscape John Hutton, Tour to the Caves (1781) Emancipation John Woolman, Journal (1776) John Woolman, Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes (1754) Slavery ‘The Sorrows of Yamba’ Robert Brougham (1778-1868),‘On the Immediate Emancipation of Negro Apprentices’ Blacks in England ‘Samboo’s Tomb’ (1822) Slavery in Yorkshire The Leeds Mercury, 1831 Image of the Rocks Adam Sedgwick (1785-1873) The Brontës in Ireland Alice Brontës Interview Select Bibliography

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Book SynopsisSudha Murty, a versatile storyteller and accomplished author, has received numerous awards for her literary contributions. Her 200th title, "Here, There and Everywhere," showcases a collection of her best-loved stories across genres, highlighting her diverse talents and literary journey.

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Book SynopsisThis collection of stories, written especially for BBC Radio 4, includes a ten-part sequence: The Circus', set around Cliftonville Circus, where five roads meet in North Belfast.

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Book SynopsisCampbell gives voice to the extraordinary (never ordinary) men and women of Manchester. He goes beyond the King''s English and formulaic approaches to short stories to capture, in print, how people really talk. Think James Kelman, Irvine Welsh, but Mancunian. Funny and heartfelt, this book is a romp to whizz through with pleasure. Forget mad for it Madchester, this is the Manchester of now, where Hacienda clichés turn into corporate nightmares and the only art is in marketing.

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Book SynopsisSoon to be a major movie starring Paul Mescal and Josh O'Connor''Exquisitely crafted, deeply imagined, exhilaratingly diverse, The History of Sound places Ben Shattuck firmly among the very finest of our storytellers'' - Geraldine Brooks, New York Times bestselling author of HorseIn twelve luminous stories set across three centuries, The History of Sound examines the unexpected ways the past returns to us and how love and loss are entwined and transformed over generations. In Ben Shattuck''s ingenious collection, each story has a companion story, which contains a revelation about the previous, paired story. Mysteries and murders are revealed, history is refracted, and deep emotional connections are woven through characters and families.The haunting title story recalls the journey of two men who meet around a piano in a smoky, dim bar, only to spend a summer walking the Maine woods collecting

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Book Synopsis"The Gentleman from San Francisco" is easily the best known of Ivan Bunin's stories and has achieved the stature of a masterpiece. But Bunin's other stories and novellas are not to be missed. Over the last several years a great many of them have been freshly and brilliantly translated by Graham Hettlinger. Together, along with four new pieces, they are now published in a one-volume paperback collection of Bunin's greatest writings. In Mr. Hettlinger's renderings readers will see why Bunin was regarded by many of his contemporaries as the rightful successor to Tolstoy and Chekhov as a master of Russian letters.Trade ReviewIvan Bunin...is one of the finest story writers of the twentieth century, a master of tone and experiment. -- Gary Saul Morson[Bunin is] one of the great literary masters of the twentieth century...[his is a] powerful and pellucid art. -- Cynthia Ozick, author of The Pagan Rabbi and Other StoriesRussian exile Bunin (1870-1953), who won the Nobel Prize in 1933, becomes stunningly accessible in this beautiful new translation. * Publishers Weekly *"The translation is graceful and essentially accurate." -- Richard Lourie * The Wall Street Journal *Emotional intensity in remembrance that recalls Proust....Stunningly accessible...beautiful new translation. * Publishers Weekly *Fluid new translations...this piercingly lyrical collection renders fully the passion of the human heart and the power of memories. -- LELIA RUCKENSTEIN * The Review of Higher Education *Now we have a new and comprehensive volume of [Bunin's] fiction, Collected Stories of Ivan Bunin, beautifully translated by Graham Hettlinger. * New York Sun *[Hettlinger's translations] are a joy to read. * Slavic and East European Journal *

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