Anthologies featuring bestselling authors alongside rising stars. Short story collections from some of our beloved authors with Roald Dahl, Raymond Carver and Anita Desai among the better known
Anthologies & Short Stories
Penguin Putnam Inc The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories
Book Synopsis
£16.15
Random House USA Inc First Person Singular
Book SynopsisNATIONAL BEST SELLER ? A mind-bending new collection of short stories from the internationally acclaimed, best-selling author. ? ?Some novelists hold a mirror up to the world and some, like Haruki Murakami, use the mirror as a portal to a universe hidden beyond it.? ?The Wall Street JournalThe eight stories in this new book are all told in the first person by a classic Murakami narrator. From memories of youth, meditations on music, and an ardent love of baseball, to dreamlike scenarios and invented jazz albums, together these stories challenge the boundaries between our minds and the exterior world. Occasionally, a narrator may or may not be Murakami himself. Is it memoir or fiction? The reader decides. Philosophical and mysterious, the stories in First Person Singular all touch beautifully on love and solitude, childhood and memory. . . all with a signature Murakami twist.
£12.15
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group Fools for Love
£25.08
Gi Press The Chef who Lost his Salsa
Book Synopsis
£15.20
Random House USA Inc Forty Stories
Book Synopsis
£12.34
Random House USA Inc The Awakening and Selected Stories
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£7.59
Marion Boyars Publishers Ltd Absent Without Leave
Book Synopsis
£7.99
Simon & Schuster No One Belongs Here More Than You
Book Synopsis
£12.13
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC The Country Ahead of Us the Country Behind
Book SynopsisA collection of short stories that are narrated by older men, recounting the wrong turns and lost opportunities that have occurred in their lives.
£999.99
Edinburgh University Press Altrive Tales
Book SynopsisThis new edition, thoughtfully introduced, extensively annotated and featuring a reading list and Hogg chronology, presents Altrive Tales as a major achievement by one of Scotland's finest storytellers.Trade ReviewThis is a fascinating volume, full of surprises, challenges and confirmations! Gillian Hughes's editorial activities are exemplary: the textual decisions and apparatus inspire confidence and assent, and the genesis of the Tales is pieced together from manuscript evidence in an introduction which is a serious piece of scholarly detective work in its own right! [S]he offers finely-observed, stimulating exegesis which will encourage further readings, and the explanatory notes offer some wonderfully suggestive analogies. Altogether, the volume is a revelation. This is a fascinating volume, full of surprises, challenges and confirmations! Gillian Hughes's editorial activities are exemplary: the textual decisions and apparatus inspire confidence and assent, and the genesis of the Tales is pieced together from manuscript evidence in an introduction which is a serious piece of scholarly detective work in its own right! [S]he offers finely-observed, stimulating exegesis which will encourage further readings, and the explanatory notes offer some wonderfully suggestive analogies. Altogether, the volume is a revelation.
£18.99
Edinburgh University Press The Decadent Short Story
Book SynopsisAn anthology of Decadent short stories reflecting a variety of fin-de-siecle themes. It showcases the short story as the most attractive medium through which writers experiment with Decadent themes and styles. It stresses the role of the magazine culture in the unprecedented explosion of the Decadent short story in the 1890s.
£27.54
Little, Brown Book Group Reader I Buried Them and Other Stories
Book SynopsisA twisty collection of short stories from the master of classic crime fiction, Peter Lovesey, one of which stars his most popular creation, Peter Diamond. More than fifty years ago, Peter Lovesey published a short story in an anthology. That short story caught the eye of the great Ruth Rendell, whose praise ignited Lovesey''s life-long passion for short form crime fiction.More than a hundred stories later, Peter Lovesey has assembled this devilishly clever collection, fifteen yarns of mystery, melancholy, and mischief, inhabiting such deadly settings as a theatre, a monastery, and the book publishing industry. The collection includes that first story that launched his story-writing career as well as three new stories exclusive to this volume. In addition, Lovesey fans will delight in a personal essay by the author about the historical inspirations for his creation - and in an appearance by the irascible Bath detective Peter Diamond, who has, in the author''s words, 'Trade ReviewA celebratory display of the many things an accomplished veteran can do with the short mystery * Kirkus *Throughout, Lovesey delivers crisp dialogue, effortless narration, appealing characters, ingenious plots, and effervescent whimsy. . . This is a thoroughly entertaining compendium of the best of the best by one of the best * Publishers Weekly *It's a measure of the impact that award-winning novelist Peter Lovesey has made on the short form over the last 50 years that Reader, I Buried Them And Other Stories will be considered an essential purchase by readers all over the world. * Morning Star *A modern master who combines wit with suspense . . . a sparkling collection * Wall Street Journal *
£11.78
Headline Publishing Group Fragile Things
Book SynopsisA dazzling book of short stories from one of modern fiction's greatest and most imaginative writers.Trade Review'Gaiman has a deft touch for suprise and inventiveness, and there are inspired moments' -- Publishers Weekly 20060717 'Gaiman again proves himself a perverse romantic, heir not only to Poe and Baudelaire but to the breathless Pre-Raphelites... He wears his pop cred in boldface, and street-smart hipness saturates these eerie epiphanies... The collection also boasts lush prose...and a winning faith in the enchantment of stories. Expect the unexpected. Then savor the luscious chills.' -- Kirkus Reviews 20070715
£9.99
Headline Publishing Group Stories
Book SynopsisStories, edited by bestselling authors Neil Gaiman (author of The Ocean at the End of the Lane and the epic American Gods) and Al Sarrantonio, is ''an unmissable collection'' (Guardian), filled with distinctive, original and thrilling tales from writers such a Jodi Picoult, Lawrence Block, Roddy Doyle and many more.Rather than being dictated by genre, for co-editors Gaiman and Sarrantonio there is only one true distinction in fiction: the one dividing realistic and imaginative fiction. STORIES is a collection of the very best original fiction from some of the most imaginative writers in the world, as well as a showcase for some of fiction''s newer stars. One hell of a huge book of great, exciting stories which will become a uniting force for readers of all forms of imaginative fiction.Trade Review'[An] anthology of the fantastic' * SFX *'An unmissable collection' * Guardian *'A sometimes creepy, dark and dreamlike two thumbs up' * Time Out *
£9.99
Random House USA Inc Knockemstiff
Book Synopsis
£13.60
Kwela Books My Voice is Under Control Now
Book SynopsisAn eclectic collection of short stories, undermining the stark divisions normally found in South African political fiction.
£10.51
Kwela Books The Berry Basket Three African Folktales
Book SynopsisThese three stories are traditional Tsonga tales originating from the region in southern Africa bordered by Kwa-Zulu-Natal, Mozambique, Swaziland and the Indian Ocean. The Tsonga people, although not members of the Nguni family, share many cultural aspects with the amaZulu, their neighbours to the south.
£8.99
Grove Press / Atlantic Monthly Press Blasphemy
Book SynopsisSherman Alexie''s stature as a writer of stories, poems, and novels has soared over the course of his twenty-book, twenty-year career. His wide-ranging, acclaimed stories from the last two decades, from The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven to his most recent PEN/Faulkner award-winning War Dances, have established him as a star in modern literature. A bold and irreverent observer of life among Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest, the daring, versatile, funny, and outrageous Alexie showcases all his talents in his newest collection, Blasphemy, where he unites fifteen beloved classics with fifteen new stories in one sweeping anthology for devoted fans and first-time readers. Included here are some of his most esteemed tales, including What You Pawn I Will Redeem, This is What it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona, The Toughest Indian in the World, and War Dances. Alexie''s new stories are fresh and quintessential-about donkey basketball leTrade ReviewSeek it out. Bloody funny and gut-punchingly moving, it's without doubt the best book I read this year. * Spectator *The anthology offers a remarkable insight into the dissonance of contemporary Native American life * The Sunday Times *These vibrant short stories are a timely reminder of Sherman Alexie's genius. * The Guardian *Alexie's evocation of grief is heart-rippingly raw. He is equally good on the bond between friends... Sometimes, the most important subjects require the lightest approach. Alexie is a master of this technique. * The Independent *While it's fair to say politics defines his work, it is always generous, questioning - and often very funny. * The Times *You'll want to read more of him, which means you'll end up having to rebuy some of these stories. But that's OK. Many are easily good enough to own twice. -- Tom Cox * The Observer *If literary fiction in its purest form is meant to be an accurate reflection of human experience and its inevitable ambiguities, Alexie skillfully offers us this in Blasphemy. * San Francisco Chronicle *Over the years, Alexie has carved out a space in American literature as the great, tragicomic bard of the modern Native American experience. The stories in Blasphemy offer ample proof why. * Los Angeles Times *
£15.29
Grove Press / Atlantic Monthly Press Cat Brushing
Book Synopsis
£12.99
Random House USA Inc In the Country
Book Synopsis
£17.05
Random House USA Inc Vintage Munro
Book SynopsisSix of Nobel Prize–winning author Alice Munro’s revelatory short stories that unfold the wordless secrets that lie at the center of the human experience. “Alice Munro is often able to say more in thirty pages than an ordinary novelist is capable of in three hundred. She is a virtuoso of the elliptical . . . the master of the contemporary short story. . . . Munro, like few others, [has] come close to solving the greatest mystery of them all: the human heart and its caprices.”—From the Presentation Speech, Nobel Prize in Literature 2013 Vintage Munro includes stories from throughout Alice Munro’s storied career: the title stories from her collections The Moons of Jupiter; The Progress of Love; and Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage, as well as “Differently,” from Friend of My Youth; “Carried Away,” from Open Secrets; and “In Sight of the Lake” from Dear Life. This edition includes the Nobel Prize Presentation Speech
£10.18
Schocken Books The Sons
Book SynopsisFrom one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century, the author of The Trial: Three stories he published in his lifetime, including his best-known tale, “The Metamorphosis.”I have only one request, Kafka wrote to his publisher Kurt Wolff in 1913. ''The Stoker,'' ''The Metamorphosis,'' and ''The Judgment'' belong together, both inwardly and outwardly. There is an obvious connection among the three, and, even more important, a secret one, for which reason I would be reluctant to forego the chance of having them published together in a book, which might be called The Sons.
£11.69
Wildside Press The Maker of Gargoyles and Other Stories
£10.99
Wildside Press Weird Tales 298 Fall 1990
£10.99
New Directions Publishing Corporation The Bridegroom Was a Dog
Book SynopsisInternationally acclaimed author Yoko Tawada's most famous — and bizarre — tale in a stand-alone, New Directions Pearl edition.Trade Review"Her masterpiece." -- Parul Sehgal - The New York Times
£11.22
New Directions Publishing Corporation I Am the Brother of XX
Book SynopsisAs concentrated as bullets, new stories by the inimitable Fleur JaeggyTrade Review"Finely distilled and evocative stories." -- BBC"Jaeggy is a master of the short form; her essays are charged with a nearly combustible vitality, her stories without fail are compact and devastating. Long after the pleasure of reading is over, their little hooks tug at — what is it, the heart or the mind? I Am the Brother of XX bears the thematic hallmarks of Jaeggy’s fiction...stony family relations and theology that is not merely unorthodox but downright perverse. Jaeggy’s prose is superb (and as superbly translated) as ever, her characteristic desolation as self-possessed as it is recherche´." -- Financial Times"Jaeggy's astute compression of narrative detail is at once serene and startling. Beneath a placid, opalescent surface lurks a threat or violence that may or may not be realized, but which contributes to the profound impression that people and their lives are unpredictable, coursing with icy, barren wildness." -- Los Angeles Review of Books"Swiss-Italian Jaeggy, a master of the short form, again creates something unforgettable with these otherworldly stories, translated by Gini Alhadeff. They frame haunting, dreamlike moments: a 13th-century woman senses the taste of “Christ’s foreskin … tender as egg skin and very sweet”; an orphan burns alive the aristocrat who took her in “for the blasted glory of it”; a family is cursed by a possessed mandrake root. Told in Jaeggy’s characteristically jagged prose, these dark stories of madness, loss and murder are urgent and evocative. Central to each are surreal images reminiscent of paintings by Leonora Carrington or Max Ernst: “her hands, like the claws of a crustacean, clutched at a little mound of dust”. This is an intensely beautiful and original collection that bristles with a strange and often disturbing magic." -- Claire Kohda Hazelton - The Guardian"The fictional stories [ofI Am the Brother of XX] deal with by now familiar motifs of arson, ill health, insomnia, suicide, isolation, hauntings, vendettas and murder: some are Gothic tales of the supernatural, featuring ghosts and saints and mandrakes....And death haunts: the death of Sissi, Empress of Austria, assassinated on the shores of Lake Geneva in 1898; the suicide of the Austrian poet and painter Adalbert Stifter, who cut his throat in Linz in 1868." -- Margaret Drabble - The New Statesman"Startling and original—so disturbing and so haunting." -- Cathleen Schine - The New York Review of Books"Stark, surprising prose. It’s hard to capture in a line or two the strange precision of Jaeggy’s prose. Darkness seems never far away." -- Martin Riker - The New York Times Book Review"This book is twisted and hypnotizing and, somehow, downright lovely. Reading it is not unlike diving naked and headlong into a bramble of black rosebushes, so intrigued you are by their beauty: it’s a swift, prickly undertaking, and you emerge the other end bloodied all over." -- Daniel Johnson - the Paris Review"Jaeggy's prose gleams like cut gems." -- Tess Lewis - The Riveter"A wonderful, brilliant, savage writer." -- Susan Sontag"Fleur Jaeggy’s pen is an engraver’s needle depicting roots, twigs, and branches of the tree of madness—extraordinary." -- Joseph Brodsky"Nothing rivals its intensity." -- The Los Angeles Review of Books"How a novel could be so chilly and so passionate at the same time is a puzzle, but that icy-hot quality is only one of the distinctions of Sweet Days of Discipline." -- April Bernard - Newsday"Jaeggy seems to have crushed a glass in her palm and tweezed out a few shards for the page. Her prose is indeed extraordinary...it is also frightening." -- Sasha Archibald - The Rumpus
£11.39
Random House Publishing Group Happy Families
£15.20
Random House USA Inc Tenth of December
Book SynopsisNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • NAMED ONE OF TIME’S TEN BEST FICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE DECADE BY ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY AND BUZZFEED • NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEWNAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY People • The New York Times Magazine • NPR • Entertainment Weekly • New York • The Telegraph • BuzzFeed • Kirkus Reviews • BookPage • Shelf AwarenessIncludes an extended conversation with David SedarisOne of the most important and blazingly original writers of his generation, George Saunders is an undisputed master of the short story, and Tenth of December is his most honest, accessible, and moving collection yet. In the taut opener, “Victory Lap,” a boy witnesses the attempted abduction of the girl next door and is faced with a harrowing choice: Does he ignore what he sees, or override years of smothering advice from his parents and act? In “Home,” a combat-damaged soldier moves back in with his mother and struggles to reconcile the world he left with the one to which he has returned. And in the title story, a stunning meditation on imagination, memory, and loss, a middle-aged cancer patient walks into the woods to commit suicide, only to encounter a troubled young boy who, over the course of a fateful morning, gives the dying man a final chance to recall who he really is. A hapless, deluded owner of an antiques store; two mothers struggling to do the right thing; a teenage girl whose idealism is challenged by a brutal brush with reality; a man tormented by a series of pharmaceutical experiments that force him to lust, to love, to kill—the unforgettable characters that populate the pages of Tenth of December are vividly and lovingly infused with Saunders’s signature blend of exuberant prose, deep humanity, and stylistic innovation. Writing brilliantly and profoundly about class, sex, love, loss, work, despair, and war, Saunders cuts to the core of the contemporary experience. These stories take on the big questions and explore the fault lines of our own morality, delving into the questions of what makes us good and what makes us human. Unsettling, insightful, and hilarious, the stories in Tenth of December—through their manic energy, their focus on what is redeemable in human beings, and their generosity of spirit—not only entertain and delight; they fulfill Chekhov’s dictum that art should “prepare us for tenderness.” GEORGE SAUNDERS WAS NAMED ONE OF THE 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE IN THE WORLD BY TIME MAGAZINE
£10.45
Spokesman Books Nightmares of Eminent Persons and Other Stories
Book Synopsis
£11.78
Quercus Publishing A Book of Horrors
Book SynopsisDon''t turn out the lights . . . but open the cover, if you dare, and reveal the chilling delights that await you within the pages of A Book of Horrors. ''Stephen King, John Ajvide Linqvist, Lisa Tuttle and many more masters of the macabre issue a call to arms for the horror story in this collection of the very best in chiller fiction edited by Stephen Jones, one of the world''s premier anthologists'' - Crime TimeStephen Jones, Britain''s most acclaimed horror editor, has gathered together masters of the macabre from across the world in this cornucopia of classic chills and modern menaces. Within these pages you will discover the most successful and exciting writers of horror and dark fantasy today, with a spine-chilling selection of stories displaying the full diversity of the genre, from classic pulp style to more contemporary psychological tales, to cutting-edge terror fiction that will leave you uneasily looking over your shouldTrade ReviewJones has put horror back on the bookshelves in fine style * Black Abyss *Outstanding anthology * Black Static *Will ensure deliciously sleepless nights for many a reader * Crimetime *Looks too good to be passed by * Dark Wolf's Fantasy *The abundance of talent will provide ample delights and frights for anyone in search of true classic horror * Publishers Weekly *Showcases everything that's best about both the short story and the horror anthology * SFX *A superb collection of horror stories. What the hell happened to the horror genre? It may have just received a life-saving jolt * Shadows and Tall Trees *A quality primer for initiates to the genre * Time Out *'A quality primer for initiates to the genre' Time Out. * Time Out *'[An] outstanding collection ... Stephen Jones has put horror back on the bookshelves in fine style and makes sure it stays there' Black Abyss. * Black Abyss *'a splendid collection that showcases everything that's best about both the short story and the horror anthology' SFX. * SFX *'Excellent' TLS. * TLS *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Whatever Happened to Horror? - Stephen Jones. The Little Green God of Agony - Stephen King. Charcloth, Firesteel and Flint - Caitlin R. Kiernan. Ghosts with Teeth - Peter Crowther. The Coffin-Maker's Daughter - Angela Slatter. Roots and All - Brian Hodge. Tell Me I'll See You Again - Dennis Etchison. The Music of Bengt Karlsson, Murderer - John Ajvide Lindqvist. Getting it Wrong - Ramsey Campbell. Alice Through the Plastic Sheet - Robert Shearman. The Man in the Ditch - Lisa Tuttle. A Child's Problem - Reggie Oliver. Sad, Dark Thing - Michael Marshall Smith. Near Zennor - Elizabeth Hand. Last Words - Richard Christian Matheson.
£12.34
Acair Breab Breab Breab 10 Aiteal
Book Synopsis
£11.99
Saqi Books Under the Naked Sky
Book SynopsisDrawing on an intimate knowledge of modern Arabic writing, Denys Johnson-Davies brings together a colourful mosaic of life as lived and portrayed by Arabs from Morocco to Iraq. From a diverse area of the world with the common factor of a written language, these thirty stories tell of an old Moroccan peasant woman who kills snakes; an Iraqi soldier who returns home as a stranger after years as a prisoner-of-war; a repairer of lost virginities in a Tunisian village; a typically Mahfouzian start to a train journey; the steamy meeting of two women and a catat the height of an Iraqi summer; the ill-fated attraction of a boy to a magical bird in the Tuareg deserts of Libya; and a novel way of hunting ducks in the Nile Delta. The purveyors of this strange and delightful cornucopia of fictions include Naguib Mahfouz, Yusuf Idris and others.
£11.66
Saqi Books Galpa
Book SynopsisThis anthology of translated short stories is representative of the variety of issues that women from Bangladesh tackle in their writings. It includes stories about the 1971 War of Liberation, women's 'honour', mother-daughter relationships, the vagaries of marriage and contemporary political corruption.Trade Review'Once again, Saqi Books have brought to the public a collection of passionate and poignant prose from across the shores and into the literary scene.' Calabash
£9.49
New Africa Books (Pty) Ltd At the Fireside True South African Stories
Book Synopsis
£11.39
Iron Press The Singing Men
Book Synopsis
£7.00
Five Leaves Publications Sunday Night and Monday Morning
Book Synopsis
£9.99
McPherson & Co Publishers,U.S. Red MoonRed Lake Stories
Book Synopsis
£10.42
McPherson & Co Publishers,U.S. Siren Songs and Classical Illusions
Book Synopsis
£10.00
McPherson & Co Publishers,U.S. Music Behind the Wall v 1 Selected Stories
Book Synopsis
£14.25
McPherson & Co Publishers,U.S. Queen of Terror
Book Synopsis
£10.00
McPherson & Co Publishers,U.S. Music Behind the Wall v 2 Selected Stories
Book Synopsis
£16.15
Dedalus Ltd Smarra and Trilby European Classics Dedalus
Book Synopsis
£999.99
Dedalus Ltd Senso And Other Stories Decadence from Dedalus
Book Synopsis
£8.99
Papillote Press Most Wanted
Book SynopsisIntroducing the Caribbean's very own - and very amateur - private detective and his tussles with the drug dealers, cops, Rastamen, ghosts, girlfriends and dogs who cross his path. These short stories are from a new voice in crime fiction. Shillingford's tales come straight from the block - an irreverent look from the streets of Dominica.Trade ReviewThis is comic writing with a harsh edge - Guardian newspaper, November 3, 2007
£8.07
David Paul Blitz And Other Stories
Book Synopsis
£11.77
Lazy Gramophone Press The Book of Apertures A Collection of Short
Book Synopsis
£14.99
Lazy Gramophone Press Time
Book Synopsis
£18.99
MTA Publications Who am I Today
Book Synopsis
£9.99
