Anthologies & Short Stories

Book SynopsisCombining hard-edged prose and savage Southern charm, Mary Miller showcases biting contemporary talent at its best. Fast on the heels of her "terrific" (New York Times Book Review) debut novel, The Last Days of California, she now reaches new heights with this collection of shockingly relatable, ill-fated love stories. Acerbic and ruefully funny, Always Happy Hour weaves tales of young women-deeply flawed and intensely real-who struggle to get out of their own way. They love to drink and have sex; they make bad decisions with men who either love them too much or too little; and they haunt a Southern terrain of gas stations, public pools, and dive bars. Though each character shoulders the weight of her own baggage-whether it's a string of horrible exes, a boyfriend with an annoying child, or an inability to be genuinely happy for a best friend-they are united in their unrelenting suspicion that they deserve better. These women seek understanding in the most unlikely places: a dilapidated foster home where love is a liability in "Big Bad Love," a trailer park littered with a string of bad decisions in "Uphill," and the unfamiliar corners of a dream home purchased with the winnings of a bitter divorce settlement in "Charts." Taking a microscope to delicate patterns of love and intimacy, Miller evokes the reticent love among the misunderstood, the gritty comfort in bad habits that can't be broken, and the beat-by-beat minutiae of fated relationships. Like an evening of drinking, Always Happy Hour is a comforting burn, warm and intoxicating in its brutal honesty. In an unforgettable style that distinguishes her within her generation, Miller once again captures womanhood in "a raw...and heartbreaking way" (Los Angeles Review of Books) and solidifies her essential role in American fiction.Trade Review"Brutally honest, it is nevertheless a comforting read." -- Five of the Best American Short Story Collections - Country & Town House

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Book SynopsisRaising the literary bar to a new level, Jerome Charyn re-creates the voice of Theodore Roosevelt, the New York City police commissioner, Rough Rider, and soon- to-be twenty-sixth president through his derring-do adventures, effortlessly combining superhero dialogue with haunting pathos. Beginning with his sickly childhood and concluding with McKinley’s assassination, the novel positions Roosevelt as a “perfect bull in a china shop,” a fearless crime fighter and pioneering environmentalist who would grow up to be our greatest peacetime president. With an operatic cast, including “Bamie,” his handicapped older sister; Eleanor, his gawky little niece; as well as the devoted Rough Riders, the novel memorably features the lovable mountain lion Josephine, who helped train Roosevelt for his “crowded hour,” the charge up San Juan Hill. Lauded by Jonathan Lethem for his “polymorphous imagination and crack comic timing,” Charyn has created a classic of historical fiction, confirming his place as “one of the most important writers in American literature” (Michael Chabon).Trade Review"A rendering of Teddy Roosevelt's early life that spotlights formative moments in colorful, entertaining episodes. Charyn makes artful use of historical fact and fiction's panache to capture the man before he became one of the great U.S. presidents and a face on Mount Rushmore." -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review)"Undeniably, a marvel.... Charyn’s empathetic first-person strategy keeps the tone sprightly positive." -- Jean Zimmerman, New York Times Book Review"Marked from beginning to end by restlessness and adventure.... A ripping, enjoyable yarn." -- Keir Graff, Booklist"Who wouldn’t want to grow old like Jerome Charyn? Now in his 80s, the prolific writer seems ever more daring. Charyn has found a path all his own — neither a substitute for biography nor a violation of it.... For fans of Roosevelt, this is tremendous fun.... One of the melancholy pleasures of this novel is the contrast it continually presents to our current president. The reviewer’s handbook says I’m not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but I have to offer some praise for this unusually witty dust jacket. It strikes just the right tone, as does this delightful novel." -- Ron Charles, The Washington Post"Graced with vivid, vigorous writing.... [Charyn] has written the rousing yarn advertised in his title and dust jacket, and he has written it well." -- Gerard Helferich, The Wall Street Journal"Warning: don't turn to the first page of Jerome Charyn's remarkable new work of fiction The Perilous Adventures of the Cowboy King unless you have time to be utterly swept away for the next ___ hours." -- Joyce Carol Oates"Jerome Charyn has long been one of our most rewarding novelists, and he has upped the ante in The Perilous Adventures of the Cowboy King, his frolic about Teddy Roosevelt in the West." -- Larry McMurtry"Charyn captures Roosevelt’s doubts, aspirations and ebullient spirit.... A lively, warts-and-all portrait of an irrepressible man." -- Mary Ann Gwinn, Newsday"Jerome Charyn is a one off: no other living American writer crafts novels with his vibrancy of historical imagination. If you think his novels about Dickinson and Lincoln are virtuosic works of art, The Cowboy King will astonish you anew. Here is Teddy Roosevelt as you’ve never before experienced him, and as you won’t soon forget him." -- William Giraldi, author of American Audacity: In Defense of Literary Daring"For TR, Mr. Charyn pulls out the stops offering up the man in his own voice, a magnificent mashup of macho and aristocrat.... Cowboy King is a novel at its best: engaging, immersive and compelling." -- Comics Grinder"No one rewrites America's strange history-- or its maverick characters-- with more flair, sharp-shooting wit, and compassion than the many-sided Jerome Charyn. And in The Perilous Adventures of the Cowboy King, he's done it again: he's written a raucous, poignant, charming novel about a raucous, poignant, charming Teddy Roosevelt, a man of his time, and ours. Don't miss it." -- Brenda Wineapple, author of Ecstatic Nation: Confidence, Crisis, and Compromise, 1848-1877

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Book SynopsisMary Miller combines hard-edged prose and savage Southern charm. Claustrophobic and lonesome, acerbic and magnetic, the women in Always Happy Hour seek understanding in the most unlikely places—a dilapidated foster home where love is a liability and the empty corners of a dream home bought after a bitter divorce. Miller evokes the particular gritty comfort found in bad habits as hope turns to dust.Trade Review"...enjoyable... a meditation on the stories a person tells herself." -- The New York Times Book Review"...a tipsy glow surrounds [Miller’s] Southern women as they [nurse] an inner ache they can’t booze away. In lucid, vivid prose, Miller renders them alive to lust and, however improbably, to love." -- O, The Oprah Magazine"You tune into each of [Miller's] narrators as though you’d missed their first two sentences, and the tempo guilts you into full attention. You don’t look away before the story ends, and it leaves you admiring how sparingly it’s been told." -- The Telegraph

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Book SynopsisYou ask for a story. I will tell you one, fact for fact and true for true." So begins ""Crook-Neck Dick,"" one of twenty-three stories in this beguiling collection of Charleston lore. Derived from African American legends, these fables have entertained generations of Charlestonians with sheer storytelling magic. To delight of folklorists, students of Charleston history, and all those who love a good ghost story, this treasure features photos of the storytellers who shared these remarkable stories with John Bennett.Julia Eichelberger, the Marybelle Higgins Howe Professor of Southern Literature and an executive board member of the Center for Study of Slavery at the College of Charleston in South Carolina, provides a foreword.Trade ReviewA collection of folk story, myth, drolleries, macabre unreason . . . old tales of death, mystery, bizarre incredibilities, diabolic influence, demanding ghosts, buried treasure, enchantments, miracles, visitations, and the dead that are not dead." —Kirkus ReviewsTable of Contents Introduction: Remembering and Rewriting Gullah Narratives An Introductory Comment 1. The Doctor to the Dead 2. The Death of the Wandering Jew 3. Madame Margot 4. The Black Constable 5. Tales from the Trapman Street Hospital 6. All God's Chillen Had Wings 7. The Measure of Grief 8. The Enchanted Cloak 9. The Young Wife Whose Vine Meloned Beyond the Fence 10. Death and the Two Bachelors 11. When the Dead Sang in Their Graves 12. Rolling Rio and the Gray Man; Or, The Gift of Strength 13. The Remember Service 14. A Young Girl's Virtue Preserved by the Devil 15. Crook-Neck Dick 16. Louis Alexander 17. The Apothecary and The Mermaid 18. The Man Who Wouldn't Believe He Was Dead 19. Daid Aaron, I 20. Daid Aaron, II 21. Buried Treasure; Or, The Two Bold Fisherman

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Book SynopsisDuring the pandemic and in the wake of his father's death, Daniel A. Olivas set upon the task of reviewing almost 25 years' worth of his short stories that had been published in various collections or as parts of novels. Our strange times seemed to call for this type of introspection and examination. He found that many of his narratives fell within the world of magic, fairy tales, fables, and dystopian futures. This review also revealed that many of his fictions confronted-either directly or obliquely-questions of morality, justice, and self-determination while being deeply steeped in Chicano and Mexican culture. Olivas decided to choose his favorite tales from the many scores of stories that populated his published works. He added to the mix two recent stories-one dystopian, the other magical-both of which confront the last administration's anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies. The result is How to Date a Flying Mexican: New and Collected Stories. Though his books have been taught in colleges and high schools across the country for over two decades, this collection brings together some of his most unforgettable strange tales that will be enjoyed, again, by his fans, and anew for readers who have not, as yet, experienced Olivas's distinct-and very Chicano-fiction. A literary critic once called Olivas a "literary marvel." These stories, collectively, offer ample support for this declaration.

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Book SynopsisHow to Date a Flying Mexican is a collection of stories derived from Chicano and Mexican culture but ranging through fascinating literary worlds of magical realism, fairy tales, fables, and dystopian futures. The characters confront—both directly and obliquely—questions of morality, justice, and self-determination. The collection is made up of Daniel A. Olivas’s favorite previously published stories, along with two new stories—one dystopian and the other mythical—that challenge the Trump administration’s anti-immigration rhetoric and policies. Readers will encounter a world filled with both the magical and the quotidian: a man with twelve fingers who finds himself on a mystical date with a woman, God who appears in the form of a scrawny chicken, a woman who bravely fights back against her abuser, and Aztec gods searching for relevance after the Spanish conquest—just to name a few of the unforgettable characters populating these pages. The book draws together some of Olivas’s most unforgettable and strange tales, allowing readers to experience his very distinct, and very Chicano, fiction.Trade ReviewCómo Salir con un Mexicano Volador es una obra bellamente realizada que surge de las profundidades de las experiencias culturales de los mexicanos y de los mexicanos americanos." —Michael Nava, Los Angeles Review of Books"Provocado por la tragedia—la muerte de su padre y la pandemia—Olivas repasa décadas de escritura para producir esta colección de relatos nuevos y previamente publicados. La obra de Olivas es surrealista, distópica, crítica, e introspectiva, para finalmente pasar a una retórica política contemporánea." —Alta JournalTable of Contents Cover Page Copyright Page Contenido Agradecimientos Introducción Cómo salir con un mexicano volador Tras la Revolución Elizondo vuelve a casa Cosas buenas que suceden en el Tina's Café Don de la Cruz y la Diabla de Malibú Señor Sánchez Camino a Ventura Franz Kafka en Fresno El fabricador Eurt El Zorro Belén El Lagarto Cornudo Chock-Chock La serpiente emplumada de Los Ángeles La Queenie Charla diabólica Los otros coyotes El chicano que hay en ti Permisos y fuentes—Agradecimientos Acerca del autor

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Book SynopsisInspired by Victoria Kelly's experiences as the wife of a fighter pilot during three wartime deployments, this collection follows women whose lives have been impacted by war and military service as they struggle with their fragile ideas of home. In "Prayers of an American Wife," a Navy wife grapples with loneliness when she discovers that her neighbor, also a Navy wife, is having an affair while their husbands are deployed on the same aircraft carrier. Tensions rise in "The Strangers of Dubai" as a soldier on leave tries to buy his wife a souvenir from an Afghan vendor. After attending eight funerals with fellow military wives whose husbands died in the Iraq war, the protagonist in "Finding the Good Light" divorces her Navy husband and tries to start a new life as a movie star. These, along with the eleven other stories in this collection, explore the emotional landscape of the resilient women who remain on the homefront.Kelly's stories offer readers an intimate, eye-opening look into the sacrifices and steadfastness of military family members.Trade Review"Violence laps at the edges of the remarkable stories in Victoria Kelly's new collection, Homefront. Characters are scarred by war, women disappear, men commit crimes both real and imaginary. But the more pressing dramas are the betrayals of lovers and family members, secrets kept and hope lost, and the regret of lives that should have been. Gorgeously written, nuanced, and timely, Homefront offers readers a perfect snapshot of American life in all its splendor and tragedy."–Siobhan Fallon, author of You Know When the Men Are Gone"If you've given up on the power of the short story, this book will change your mind for good. In Homefront, Kelly gives us characters tied together by a proximity to war, but it's truly America's story, in the hands of a master of the genre."—Karin Tanabe, author of The Sunset Crowd"In a market overwhelmed by male voices and perspectives, Homefront adds important diversity to the literary landscape and does so in a powerful way. Kelly's writing is exceptional, the characters are interesting, the writing about military culture is convincing, and the storylines are thoughtful and well-paced. Every aspect of Homefront is authentic."—Caleb Cage, U.S. Army veteran, author of Desert Mementos: Stories of Iraq and Nevada"Victoria Kelly has penned gorgeous short stories in Homefront that encompass the deep nuances within families affiliated with the military. Written tenderly and respectfully, each thought-provoking story is a page-turner and a new experience, allowing me to take a breath and dive into the intricacies and important daily lives of her characters."—Tif Marcelo, USA Today bestselling author of In a Book Club Far Away"The stories that comprise Homefront wrestle with classic dilemmas of desire and regret, hope and loss, in new and often wrenching ways. In this superb, eminently readable collection, Victoria Kelly cements herself as one of our great chroniclers of the war and peace found in contemporary American life."—Matt Gallagher, author of Daybreak and Youngblood "Victoria Kelly leverages her skills as a writer with her own experiences as a fighter pilot's spouse to capture military life from fourteen unique and engaging perspectives. HOMEFRONT is beautiful, heartbreaking, and unflinchingly honest."– Ward Carroll, author of Punk's War, YouTuber, and retired naval aviatorTable of Contents Cover Page The Battle Born Series Title Page Copyright Page Contents A Note from the Author Finding the Good Light Prayers of an American Wife The Strangers of Dubai The Whispering Gallery All the Ways We Say Goodbye The View from Bonnell Lane A Home Like Someone Else's Home Tonight Everything Will Be Quiet and Still Waiting for the Creel The Chimney The Wedding Rachel's Story What Happened On Crystal Mountain Little Angels, Little Dolls Acknowledgments About the Author

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Book SynopsisIn this collection of sixteen short stories, Robert Laxalt illuminates the Nevada of the 1950s. Written when Laxalt was in his twenties, the stories are as fresh as if they were penned yesterday. Humanity good and bad, humor and cruelty, satire and adventure are found in these early stories of a Nevada poised on the brink of change.In the lead story, Cowboy Clint Hamilton laments that the town is "getting more like a big city every day" as the traditional gambling joints of earlier times give way to the gaudy casinos that will soon become modern glitz.Sobering experiences from his days as a reporter give Laxalt an insight into murderers and prison life and lethal gas chambers. In a chilling short story, "The Snake Pen," we find the seed of Robert Laxalt's celebrated novel, A Man In the Wheatfield.Trade ReviewThis is an entertaining collection of sixteen tales about buckaroos and injuns and beeves and miners and gamblers—or, broadly speaking, the Old West twice removed. Set and written in the 1950s when the author was in his twenties, these clever and ironic stories show us a Nevada we'll never see again." --Small Press Reviews

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Book SynopsisThe seven stories comprising In the Valley of the Kings describe hard lives in the anthracite coal region of northeastern Pennsylvania, depicting with lyrical precision the moments in which lives shift or unravel, or achieve a fragile kind of grace. In the half-century after the coal's collapse, its people continue on among the silent ghosts of the past. A son recalls the night his parents' marriage unspooled; a father, haunted by the mystery of his lost daughter, finds himself in the ruins of town abandoned as an underground mine fire burns for half a century; a high school principal struggles for words in the eerie aftermath of group suicide, all in the gloomy but beautiful backdrop of a forgotten, past-haunted part of America. Novelistic in its scope, In the Valley of the Kings reveals an intricate portrait of the complexities of a single place.

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Book SynopsisThe stories in Don't Make Me Do Something We'll Both Regret are linked by their exploration of queer evil. The mystery of desire and sting of rejection drive a child to violence. Boys enter the forest, naive to what lurks within. A pack of pop stars-turned-lovers strike a terrible bargain to preserve their youth. Its characters are gnostics and mystics, ogres and queens whose defiance of the normative both liberates and confines.from “Tim Jones-Yelvington is a Pretty Little Liar”My lovelies, I haven’t forgotten your secrets. Everything each of you told me in confidence. You said, Promise you’ll keep this to yourself. You said, Promise you’ll never tell a soul. You said, If anyone finds out, my life is over! I said, I’ll take it to the grave. Once, I came upon our frienemy in the marketplace. I said, I know what you’ve been up to! Don’t pretend your hemline’s clean! And she begged me, Keep your voice down! Don’t make me do something we’ll both regret. This is the new new me. Black feathered collar, black feathered cuffs, gold-threaded jacket, my shoulder plumage spills. I am a peacock. My chin is cocked. I am a libertine. I am a dandy. I am an emu, ready to stretch my neck. To sharpen my beak. Table of Contents Tim Jones-Yelvington is a Pretty Little Liar Old Testament Divine Decree Cathedral Ceilings Figures Up Ahead, Moving in the Trees New Testament We Are Going to Wilmington, North Carolina! Teenagers’ Need The Gospel Meet #AlexFromTarget, An American Boy Limelight Memories Daniel, Damned Apocrypha The Phantom Voice Apocrypha (2)

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Book SynopsisA collection of short stories by Texas author William Harrison. “Harrison is that rare novelist who can write equally well of action and ideas.” —John Leonard, The New York Times “Harrison is a compelling storyteller with a sure touch.” —Kit Reed, The Washington Post, Book World Trade ReviewHarrison is that rare novelist who can write equally well of action and ideas." - John Leonard, The New York Times "Harrison is a compelling storyteller with a sure touch." - Kit Reed, The Washington Post, Book WorldTable of Contents Eleven Beds 1 Tickets to Nowhere 13 Looking for Greywolf 25 Texas Heat 45 Two Cars on a Hillside 59 Dove Season 71 Money Whipped 81 Texas Hold ’Em 93 The Shadow That Lost Its Man 111

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Book SynopsisThe sixteen stories in this collection surround queer men of various ages—teenagers, young adults, men in middle age—trying to temper their expectations of the world with their lived experience. Using the lens of the bizarre and fantastic, these stories explore discontent, discomfort, and discovery.In "Melt With You," a twenty-something learns that his boyfriend can slip into walls, a trick that becomes a sticking point during tumultuous, challenging moments in their relationship; the main character in "Shearing" is a barber who can read the minds of his clients but must sacrifice his own bits of memory to do so; "There Won't Be Questions" features a young man who can summon lost animals to a shoebox, but suffers for it, both via physical illness and the crumbling of his relationship with his closest friend.In the title story, the Garden of Eden starts to appear in various places around the world, and the narrator, looking down at the Trees of Life and Knowledge, must make an impossible decision regarding the most important relationship he's ever had.

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Book SynopsisOf the twelve short stories appearing in Hà Nội at Midnight, ten are appearing in English for the first time. Bringing to life the full range of Bảo Ninh's inventive and poetic language, Quan Manh Ha and Cab Tran are granting to English readers Bảo Ninh's first book-length work since The Sorrow of War.Hà Nội and Midnight delineates the complex outpourings of war and the way it remakes our relation to each other.Bảo Ninh's stories accentuate the gamut of human emotions: nostalgia, anguish, desolation, melancholy, poignancy, and hope. His stories wistfully render pre-war Hà Nội, its peaceful alleys and streets, its courteous residents, and the cozy atmosphere when family members, neighbors, and friends gather around a fire or converse in a coffee shop, as in "Hà Nội at Midnight" and in "Reminiscences."Juxtaposed with this tranquility and geniality are the abandoned areas and defoliated forests occasioned by American bombardment and the American use of Agent Orange, as in "An Unnamed Star" and "A Farewell to a Soldier's Life." Images of polluted rivers and streams, the war-torn sky, the pungent air filled with the stench of decomposing human corpses, and the deafening roar of helicopters and bombers hovering in the gloomy sky dominate the settings of Bảo Ninh's stories.Intertwined with these horrific images are human tears shed during farewell ceremonies, when recruits are separated from their loved ones, when parents live in anxiety and hope at home while their children are fighting in a war in remote regions, and when soldiers bury their comrades and burden themselves with their fallen comrades' unfulfilled wishes.

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Book SynopsisThe conflict in Vietnam has been rewritten and reframed into many corners of American life and has long shadowed contemporary political science and foreign policy. The war and its aftermath have engendered award-winning films and books. It has held up a mirror to the twentieth century and to the wars of the twenty-first. Set in wartime Vietnam and contemporary Vietnam, in wartime America and in America today, the stories that comprise Memorial Days were written from 1973 to the present. As our continuing reappraisals of the war’s shadow have unspooled over the last half-decade, so too has Wayne Karlin returned to the subject in his fiction, collected and published together here for the first time. A girl in Maryland runs away from Civil War reenactors she imagines to be American soldiers in Vietnam, while a woman in Vietnam hides in the jungle from an American helicopter and another tries to bury the relics of the war. A man mourns a friend lost in Iraq while a helicopter crewman in Quang Tri loads the broken and dead into his aircraft. Extras playing soldiers in a war film in present-day Vietnam model themselves after other war films while a Marine in a war sees himself as a movie character. A snake coiled around the collective control of a helicopter in Vietnam uncoils in a soldier come home from Iraq. The chronology is the chronology of dreams or nightmares or triggered flashbacks: images and incidents triggering other images and incidents in a sequence that seems to make no sense—which is exactly the sense it makes. Some stories burn with the fresh experiences of a Marine witnessing war firsthand. Some stories radiate a long-abiding grief. All the stories reflect and reconfigure the Vietnam War as it echoes into the present century, under the light of retrospection.Trade ReviewSpanning half a century, these stories move backwards and forwards through time and space from wartime Vietnam to Vietnam and America today, revealing as they do the ways that old war and the new ones in the Middle East continue to rip at the soul of this country. Karlin is the most neglected and overlooked writer of my generation. I dearly hope this collection will bring him some of the recognition he and his work so richly deserve." —W. D. Ehrhart>, author of From the Bark of the Daphne Tree "With aching clarity, Memorial Days lets us see the ways wars have changed Vietnamese and Americans as well as our two countries. Wayne Karlin, as a firsthand witness of wars and a peace advocate, makes sure that the lessons we can learn from our past are never forgotten. This short story collection is a powerful call for world peace, a torch shining our way toward empathy, compassion, hope, and healing." —Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai, internationally best-selling author of The Mountains Sing and Dust Child.

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Book SynopsisBreaking a thirty-year silence, Bảo Ninh has permitted at last the publication of a new work in English. Ninh is perhaps Vietnam's foremost chronicler of the war, which he joined at age 17. Bringing to life the full range of his inventive and poetic language, Quan Manh Ha and Cab Tran are granting to English readers Bảo Ninh's first book-length work since The Sorrow of War, which catapulted him to fame and which was banned in Vietnam until 2006. In Hà Nội at Midnight, ten stories are appearing in the West for the first time.Juxtaposed with tranquility and geniality are abandoned landscapes and defoliated forests. Polluted rivers and streams, the war-torn sky, pungent air filled with the stench of decomposing human corpses, and the deafening roar of helicopters and bombers hovering in the gloom dominate the settings of Bảo Ninh's stories.Intertwined with these horrific images are human tears shed during farewell ceremonies, when recruits are separated from their loved ones, when parents live in anxiety and hope while their children are fighting in remote regions, and when soldiers bury their comrades and burden themselves with the fallen's unfulfilled wishes. Hà Nội at Midnight delineates the complex outpourings of war and the way it remakes human relationships.

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Book SynopsisA collection of noir, surreal stories, comicbook asides, hardboiled moments, fantasy, dystopia, sci-fi, snapshots of Japanese culture, and the existentialism of contemporary experimental electronic music. This is Bergen's baptismal short story collection, bringing together recent short stories, never-before-seen older material, new comicbook art, and a range of incisive pop-culture articles written about music and Japan from 1999 to 2013.

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Book Synopsis"It’s probably his age that makes the worrying worse. But he can’t help picking up on every detail that ruins his day, stoking his unease and filling him with fear and shame. After dinner he gathers up the empty wine bottles, shoves them in rubbish bags and drives two kilometres to dump them in a bin. He’s worried about being denounced by that red-haired guy who monitors the parking in his street, the one who’s let his beard grow and calls the girls at the private school bitches and whores. “We should marry them off whether they like it or not, right professor?” Amine does not reply. Amine says nothing." Leïla Slimani This collection brings together three short volumes of work by Goncourt-winning author Leïla Slimani. The stories and essays in The Devil is in the Detail approach questions close to Slimani’s heart: Islam and fundamentalism, the importance of literature, and Paris as a symbol of freedom and tolerance. On Writing is an illuminating dialogue in which Slimani discusses her writing approach and techniques, and My Heroine: Simone Veil is a homage to Veil, a feminist pioneer who fought tirelessly for women’s rights. From everyday restrictions to national tragedies, Slimani grapples with important and eternal issues, and is unafraid to face them head on.Table of ContentsIntroduction“A shared story, full of humanity”: Freedom and commitment in Leïla Slimani’s writingThe Devil is in the DetailThe Devil is in the DetailAn army of pensWaiting for the Messi-ahOne soldier, one citizenOur gods and our homelandsElsewhereOn WritingMy Heroine: Simone Veil

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Book Synopsis"It’s probably his age that makes the worrying worse. But he can’t help picking up on every detail that ruins his day, stoking his unease and filling him with fear and shame. After dinner he gathers up the empty wine bottles, shoves them in rubbish bags and drives two kilometres to dump them in a bin. He’s worried about being denounced by that red-haired guy who monitors the parking in his street, the one who’s let his beard grow and calls the girls at the private school bitches and whores. “We should marry them off whether they like it or not, right professor?” Amine does not reply. Amine says nothing." Leïla Slimani This collection brings together three short volumes of work by Goncourt-winning author Leïla Slimani. The stories and essays in The Devil is in the Detail approach questions close to Slimani’s heart: Islam and fundamentalism, the importance of literature, and Paris as a symbol of freedom and tolerance. On Writing is an illuminating dialogue in which Slimani discusses her writing approach and techniques, and My Heroine: Simone Veil is a homage to Veil, a feminist pioneer who fought tirelessly for women’s rights. From everyday restrictions to national tragedies, Slimani grapples with important and eternal issues, and is unafraid to face them head on.Table of ContentsIntroduction“A shared story, full of humanity”: Freedom and commitment in Leïla Slimani’s writingThe Devil is in the DetailThe Devil is in the DetailAn army of pensWaiting for the Messi-ahOne soldier, one citizenOur gods and our homelandsElsewhereOn WritingMy Heroine: Simone Veil

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Book SynopsisA brilliant collection of micro-fiction, reflecting our fragmented times. With quirky humor and wry insight, Swiss author Judith Keller’s micro-fictions unravel the fabric of daily life. She delves into the aporia of language by taking idiomatic expressions literally, unpacking the multiple meanings of words, and confounding expectations. Seven Zurich tram stops provide the framework for these familiar yet absurd portraits of passers-by, fellow passengers on the tram, the unemployed and the overemployed, the innocent and the suspicious, young mothers and confused elderly. The reader is taken on a journey through the city and offered glimpses of people going more or less successfully about their lives. These deceptively banal glimpses, however, show us more than we expect—they turn the lens back on us, puncture our complacency and ask, "Who are you to judge?" The characters are hapless and far-fetched, trying to find their footing on shifting ground and grateful for what happiness they can find. In just a sentence or two, Keller unlocks metaphysical trapdoors. The Questionable Ones offers a collection of snapshots that reveal the extraordinary lurking inside the ordinary and the ordinary at the core of the extraordinary. Table of ContentsBucheggplatz SchwertMicafilElektrowattGlattWaldgartenGlattWaldgartenSucculent Collection

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Book SynopsisA collection of unique, profound, and witty stories that relate animals’ peculiarities to human attitudes.Animals is a collection of short stories in which each story takes a peculiar item about animals that appears, like fables, to shine a spotlight on different aspects of human behavior—like caterpillars digging their own graves, sharks in need of artificial respiration, ducks that keep an eye out for hungry predators even in their sleep. It is a treat to watch Eva Menasse spin these observations into scenes of people battling their everyday anxieties and doubts. An old tyrant realizes that he is unable to prevent his wife’s worsening dementia from erasing his own past as it erases hers. A mother who tries to protect a Muslim child from hostile accusations finds that her own boundaries between good and evil begin to blur. A woman realizes how starkly her father’s traumatic past has shaped her quirky habits and deepest fears. Combining biting wit, mystery, and melancholy, these tales are the work of a masterful storyteller.Table of Contents1.Butterfly, Bee, Crocodile2.Caterpillars3.Hedgehog4.Sheep5.Opossum6.Sharks7.Snakes8.Ducks

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Book SynopsisMore modern fairy tales and archaic breakthroughs for grown-up children.

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Book Synopsis"Jesus Outside the Box" is a re-released, re-titled version of the author's previous book "The Magician's Tale". It a short book of twelve incredible stories written from the perspective of some of the lesser known characters of the New Testament. Each story offers an exciting and radical new portrait of the one we call The Christ. The author's intention was to present a picture of Jesus, without the 2,000 of Christian doctrine and dogma that have put him some great ecclesiastical box (and suffocated him the process). The Jesus of these tales has broken free from that box of Churchianity and will help readers do the same. This Jesus is human yet magical, gentle yet dangerous, distrustful of religion, yet unconditionally loving. He is exciting beyond our dreams. You may just discover that you'd thrown the divine baby out with the holy water.Trade ReviewMark is the master of the short story. These are powerful tales which speak directly to the heart and soul, allowing us to eavesdrop on events which were to shape the destiny of the world. (Barbara Erskine, International Bestseller) If these stories and others like them were to be told, or even read, in Church, perhaps in place of sermons, we might see a tide of joyful renewal sweep through the old institutions. Full of fresh inspiration these enchanting stories bring the ancient wisdom to life. (Rt Revd Alistair Bate, Independent Liberal Catholic Fellowship)

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Book SynopsisA superbly original collection of short stories with an esoteric bias. Each story explores in different situations, often humorous, a paradoxical edge of experience, when the inner and outer life is about to transform; at any stage in life. These stories, light-hearted and profound, were rough hewn by the well known mind-body-spirit author Alan Jacobs, and turned into literary gems by Jane Adams, an artist, poet and author. They express this fertile dialogue, in the inner life. They include two childrens' stories for the ever young in spirit. Major influences are Gurdjieff-Ouspensky, Douglas Harding, J.Krishnamurti, and a rich blend of wisdom from the east and west.Trade ReviewThe creative union of artist and author, Jane Adams, and philosopher, Alan Jacobs, has produced an exquisite collection of short stories that are quite simply spellbinding. Examining profound truths through the art of charming and beguiling storytelling, they have composed a beautiful and utterly unique compendium of eccentric tales that may be enjoyed by both children and adults alike. A sheer delight! (Paula Marvelly, author of Women of Wisdom, Teachers of the One) 0-Books, the publishers of The Dreamer in the Dream, set out to produce works that challenge the academic and public norm. This text evokes that strange Alice in Wonderland world that many people live in, in their day and night dreams, except here the implication is that it is not one of fantasy, but the frontier between external and internal reality, which gives access to what is really true to the Self. (Zev ben Shimon Halevi,Kabbalah Society)

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Book SynopsisThe success of the Caine Prize for African Writing and the growth of online publishing have played key roles in putting the short story in its rightful place within the study and criticism of African literature. African writers have, much more than the critics, recognized the beauty and potency of the short story. Always the least studied in African literature classrooms and the most critically overlooked genre in African literature today, the African short story is now given the attention it deserves. Contributors here take a close look at the African short story to re-define its own peculiar pedigree, chart its trajectory, critique its present state and examineits creative possibilities. They examine how the short story and the novel complement each other, or exist in contradistinction, within the context of culture and politics, history and public memory, legends, myths and folklore. Ernest Emenyonu is Professor of Africana Studies at the University of Michigan-Flint, USA; the editorial board is composed of scholars from US, UK and African universities Nigeria: HEBNTable of ContentsEditorial Article - Ernest N. Emenyonu 'Real Africa'/'Which Africa?': the Critique of Mimetic Realism in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Short Fiction - Eve Eisenberg Writing Apartheid: Miriam Tlali's Soweto Stories - Mary Jane Androne Articulations of Home & Muslim Identity in the Short Stories of Leila Aboulela - Lindsey Zanchettin Ugandan Women in Contest with Reality: Mary K. Okurutu's A Woman's Voice & the Women's Future - Iniobong I. Uko Snapshots of the Botswana Nation: Bessie Head's The Collector of Treasures & other Botswana Village Tales as a National Project - Louisa Uchum Egbunike Widowhood: Institutionalized Dead Weight to Personal Identity & Dignity: A Reading of Ifeoma Okoye's The Trial & Other Stories - Regina Okafor Feminist Censure of Marriage in Islamic Societies: A Thematic Analysis of Alifa Rifaat's Short Stories - Juliana Daniels Diaspora Identities in Short Fiction by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie & Sefi Atta - Rose A. Sackeyfio Exposition of Apartheid South African Violence & Injustice in Alex la Guma's Short Stories - Blessing Diala-Ogamba Locating a Genre: Is Zimbabwe a Short Story Country? - Tinashe Mushakavanhu Mohammed Dib's Short Stories on the Memory of Algeria - Imene Moulati Ama Ata Aidoo's Short Stories: Empowering the African Girl Child - Hellen Roselyne L. Shigali Interview with Ama Ata Aidoo - Maureen N. Eke and Vincent O. Odamtten Reviews - James Gibbs

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Book SynopsisSet in a turbulent British empire, these historical stories brim with energy and emotion, taking readers to the remote reaches of early twentieth century Burma to an Ireland in flux. These interconnected stories are filled with humor, insight, and unexpected moments of revelation.

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Book SynopsisKnown for tense and often troubling stories in her award-winning debut, When Black Dogs Sing, Farrelly enters darker and murkier places in her second collection. In these stories, a girl witnesses her mother’s breakdown following the murder of her sister while backpacking around Europe; a teenage girl befriends a homeless girl with disastrous consequences; an EFL teacher fantasizes about a colleague; a couple fear for their lives when their neighbor begins making threats. Unsettling, often disturbing, these stories follow the lives of characters who, finding themselves in fearful situations, triumph against the odds.

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Book SynopsisLove is the central force in Birdie, a collection of sixteen historical and out-of-time flash fictions that sing with the voices of women loving and losing and learning. The characters here find strength, despite the sorrows of death and deceit: a ghost-child returns to Massachusetts to comfort her grieving mother; the daughter of a Spanish orange tycoon regrets her mother’s terrible choices; an English maid longs for, but can’t be with, her mistress’s son. Birdie contains Nuala O’Connor’s signature ekphrastic work, drawing on artists as diverse as Matisse, da Vinci, and American painter Edwin Romanzo Elmer. The natural world looms large too: sheep and foxes roam these pages, as much as seawater washes through them. Described by the Toronto Star as a writer of ‘magical imagination’ and by the Washington Post as ‘soaring’, O’Connor’s collection of historical flash will delight her readers, old and new.Table of ContentsBirdie RedDog Eleanor’s Last Menagerie Ébauche, Esquisse, Étude, Tableau American Wake Pearl Aquarium La Gioconda Claims Her Name The Day Léopoldine Hugo was Lost Snowdrops Sappho’s Apple Naranjito’s Daughter Mourning Becomes Shelburne Falls The Forgotten Front Hulda’s Tears

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Book SynopsisIf one aspect of their consciousness characterizes the Spanish, it is the prevailing philosophy that life is worth what it does to you. ""Fiestas"" is a collection of short stories about modern Spain, beginning with a tale of true love versus romance in the years just before the Spanish Civil War of 1936. The collection takes the reader into the Civil War and Spain's darkest and most wretched times and continues through the twentieth century, with stories of ordinary Spaniards living the fiestas of their lives - the loves, deaths, miseries, and minor triumphs of a people determined to make the most of whatever life can throw at them.

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Book SynopsisHere is a collection of short stories by the contemporary woman writer Masuda Mizuko, who has been writing actively since the late 1970s and is anthologized in major collections of Japanese women's literary writing, such as Josei sakka shirizu. Throughout her writing, Masuda examines themes of selfhood and autonomy, loneliness and desire, and the deep tensions in female-male relations. Her fiction explores issues of female subjectivity and female biology in ways that are unique and intriguing. These collected stories illustrate the powerful way Masuda's fiction taps into an undercurrent of disquiet and loneliness that pervades contemporary urban society in Japan.

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Book SynopsisThe characters within these fifteen stories are in one way or another staring into the abyss. While some are awaiting redemption, others are fully complicit in their own undoing.We come upon them in the mountains of West Virginia, in the backyards of rural North Carolina, and at tourist traps along Route 66, where they smolder with hidden desires and struggle to resist the temptations that plague them.A Melungeon woman has killed her abusive husband and drives by the home of her son's new foster family, hoping to lure the boy back. An elderly couple witnesses the end-times and is forced to hunt monsters if they hope to survive. A young girl ""tanning and manning"" with her mother and aunt resists being indoctrinated by their ideas about men. A preacher's daughter follows in the footsteps of her backsliding mother as she seduces a man who looks a lot like the devil.A master of Appalachian dialect and colloquial speech, Monks writes prose that is dark, taut, and muscular, but also beguiling and playful. Monsters in Appalachia is a powerful work of fiction.

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Book SynopsisThe characters who populate Jenn Scott’s debut collection are both trapped and adrift. Stuck in dead-end jobs or stagnant relationships or simply caught in the grip of their own inertia, they opt out, act out, and strike out, searching for emotional sustenance in a landscape of pointless patterns and dwindling hopes. Cuttingly clever remarks and excoriating observations act as shields—thrown up to protect an aching vulnerability, a bewildering sense of loss . . . of being lost in a world rife with expectations, where responsibility is ritualistic and meaning elusive. “The beauty of being young was, in fact, the ability to project all that might happen. She recognizes, suddenly, how less grandiose the projection of her plans has become. It’s like she was once standing looking an expanse of field, but now she’s trapped in a hallway hung with too many pastel prints of landscapes that refuse to interest her. It’s as if she’s moved her entire life inside a dental office, minus the gas that sings a person to sleep while their cavities are filled, their roots fixed.” Assumed identities, Russian mail-order brides, pie theft, lost (and found) cleavers, coworkers who commit murder, the sudden ballooning of breasts, conversations with the (surprisingly opinionated) vegetables in a restaurant’s walk-in cooler: in stories sharply funny and deeply poignant, situations that delight and discomfit, Scott explores “the complicated, or simple, ways in which we settle.”

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Book SynopsisNancy Au’s debut collection is rich with scents, sounds, imaginative leaps, and unexpected angles of vision. These seventeen stories present the challenges facing characters whose inner and outer lives often do not align, whose spirits attempt flight despite dashed hopes and lean circumstances. Marginalized by race, age, and sexuality, they endeavor to create new worlds that honor their identities and their Chinese heritage. Au excels at inhabiting the minds and hearts of children and the elderly. In the title story, Sophie Chu dresses daily in her increasingly shabby elephant costume to ensure her missing parents recognize her upon their return. In “The Unfed,” a village elder seeks to revive, with her dimming magic, a mountain community struck by tragedy. “Louise” follows, with deceptive hilarity (involving a one-eyed duck), the nuanced give and take between May Zhou and Lai, dissimilar yet passionate partners considering parenthood. The volume also offers sparkling speculative work that taps into the strength of nature—fox spirits and fire beetles, swollen rivers and rippling clouds—to showcase the sometimes surreal transformations of Au’s protagonists.Spider Love Song and Other Stories treads the fault line that forms between lovers, families, friends, cultures—exposing injuries and vulnerabilities, but also the strength and courage necessary to recast resentment and anger into wonder and power. Au’s lyrical style, humor, and tender attention to her characters’ fancies and failings make this powerful debut a delight to read.

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Book SynopsisGrace for Grace brings celebrated cult filmmaker Steve De Jarnatt’s distinctive voice and cinematic vision to the page. Lush inner lives, idiosyncratic syntax, and sweeping scale characterize these wildly imaginative stories, which present characters in search of meaning and belonging, and often, at the same time, redemption and revenge. “Rubiaux Rising” (a Best American Short Stories selection) is a tale of triumph amid calamity during Hurricane Katrina, while “Her Great Blue” a surreal interspecies love story. “Mulligan” reveals the private pain of parents traveling across the country to give away their children, and “Wraiths in a Swelter” is both a ghost story and a confessional memoir—following a deliriously exhausted EMT through a deadly Chicago heat wave. Many of the stories in Grace for Grace are set against the backdrop of natural or manmade catastrophes. These disasters test the characters’ limits as they confront sudden changes and extremes, discovering through their unexpected resourcefulness and endurance something beyond suffering. . . something that approaches the sublime.

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Book SynopsisFollowing his acclaimed debut novel, The Last Cowboys of San Geronimo, the eleven stories of Ian Stansel’s Glossary for the End of Days explore today’s cultural and political climate with a disarming blend of speculation and realism. Whether faced with tragedy, approaching disaster, or an all-too-familiar uncertainty, Stansel’s protagonists—siblings, lovers, executives, drifters—reveal complex and often startling turns of mind, surprising themselves as well as the reader. In Boulder, a man calls into a radio program with an altered tale of his brother’s murder—and faces the consequences when the story goes viral. In Tampa, a woman attends a convention of people believing themselves to be targets of clandestine government agencies. In Houston, a family with many secrets attempts to escape an oncoming tropical storm. In an East Coast college town, a professor has a charged run-in with a young woman from the radical right. And in Iowa, a cult suicide spurs the lone survivor to create a “glossary” in an effort to come to terms with his experience. ​ Simultaneously gritty and lyrical, grounded and visionary, Glossary for the End of Days gives us characters grappling with how to push on through dark days and dark times. This arresting, relevant collection tunes into and seeks to illuminate shared anxieties about the present—and future—of our world.Trade Review"A collection of stories in search of an America that resists road mapping. In nine stories and two short 'interludes,' Stansel presents protagonists from all over the country in search of their identities (from sexual orientation to musical category), attempting to come to terms with mortality (their own and others), trying to find meaning and order in a world of chance and chaos. . . . [Stansel] is a writer who thinks hard and deep about the country that forges his fiction." * Kirkus Reviews *"Shot through with the exquisite ache of being human, Glossary for the End of Days explores how we continue after our worlds seem to have ended; how we make new worlds for ourselves—via relationships, spirituality, even music—and learn how to live in them. What a gorgeous, imaginative, and needed-in-this-moment book." * Maggie Smith, author of Keep Moving and Good Bones *"Wildly entertaining stories that are also strangely prescient. Ian Stansel writes with patience, grace, and insight." * Craig Finn, songwriter and lead singer of The Hold Steady *"A collection of short stories that perfectly captures the anxiety of our times and the ways in which we can lose ourselves as we try to make sense of a disordered world." * Authorlink *"Glossary for the End of Days...is a collection long on the expert skill I mentioned earlier—its prose precise and elegant, its protagonists convincing and engaging, its storylines compelling and unpredictable. It will not only hold your interest; it will impress you as well." * Post Road *

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Book SynopsisHugh Sheehy’s riveting new collection draws heavily from the genres of horror, mystery, science fiction, and myth. These are tales of seekers, often damaged, who find themselves caught up in skewed realities, facing lurking threats, violent deaths, strange entities, and alienating technologies. Confronted with unsettling, escalating, circumstances, the disparate cast of characters are driven toward self-revelation and perverse moments of poignancy. A troubled high schooler traps a peer in an underground storage space. A traumatized felon returns home to rob the man who molested him as a child. A videogame help-line operator suspects a regular caller, obsessed with a disturbing role-playing game, of real-life misdeeds. In the title story, an unhappy couple adopts a “designer animal,” a genetic hybrid created to be the perfect pet. But the “grot” makes trouble in the neighborhood, becoming emblematic of a deeper problem. “Something is wrong with the world,” the narrator’s husband explains. “A design flaw. It’s so thoroughly corrupted, I’m not sure how to fix it.” Inventive and unpredictable, these thirteen stories are wholly immersive, showing Sheehy at his captivating best.Trade Review"Sheehy delivers a dark and dazzling collection pocked with surface tension and an undercurrent of menace. . . . Artfully imagined and written with a distinctly devilish edge, these beguiling yarns plumb the depths of humanity and explore how human behavior can be twisted and modified by science. Often murky and mysterious, with some only a few pages long, Sheehy’s curious tales never fail to enchant and entertain." * Publishers Weekly, starred review *"In this eclectic, second short-story collection, Sheehy draws on the genres of horror, fantasy, and [science fiction], blending speculative and literary styles. . . . Sheehy has assembled stories spotlighting complex characters as they struggle with events both real and imagined and what that tells us about human nature." * Booklist *"Suffused with pain, foreboding, and occasional humor, the stories in Hugh Sheehy’s Design Flaw are emotionally charged minithrillers. . . Approaching moral quandaries with a scientific detachment, stirring in the mixed emotions of his characters, and employing techniques and tropes from various genres, the experiments Sheehy has conducted make Design Flaw a collection of short masterpieces." * Rain Taxi *"Hugh Sheehy's compelling new collection Design Flaw is, as the title suggests, an examination of what it means to be human, particularly what it means to be male, Sheehy’s lens moving between male violence and vulnerability. Prescient and compassionate, funny and frightening, Design Flaw is the work of a masterful storyteller who understands deeply the world we currently live in, which makes his view of the future all the more unsettling." * Lori Ostlund, author of 'After the Parade' and 'The Bigness of the World' *“The stories in Design Flaw are masterful as both straight-up naturalism and the most arresting sort of speculative fiction. They present with both wit and compassion schlumpy and self-aware protagonists contending with their worlds turning ever-more apocalyptic in both emotional and literal terms. These characters’ lonely passivity seems to them heightened by their emotional acuity, and they’ve made their peace with all they’ve pretended they can’t see, while conceding that caring for people like them is an endurance test that others can’t pass. Yet they cherish those moments when, against all odds, they are there for one another.” * Jim Shepard, author of 'The Book of Aron' *“Here we have Hugh Sheehy’s absorbing latest—these intricate, often eerie stories, at turns lonely and longing, suffused with subtle melancholy. A deep and rewarding collection.” * Amelia Gray, author of 'Isadora' *

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Book SynopsisLinked stories trace the vocational and emotional bargains made by workers at a Colorado sausage factory. It’s almost a decade after the Great Recession, and in Colorado, St. Anthony Sausage has not recovered. Neither have its employees: a laid-off railway engineer, an exiled computer whiz, a young woman estranged from her infant daughter, an older man with cancer who lacks health care. As these low-wage workers interact under the supervision of the factory’s owner and his quietly rebellious daughter, they come to understand that in America’s postindustrial landscape, although they may help or comfort each other, they also have to do what’s best for themselves. Over the course of these twelve interrelated stories, Rachel King gives life to diverse, complex, and authentic characters who are linked through the sausage factory and through their daily lives in a vividly rendered small town in Boulder County. The internal and external struggles ofBratwurst Haven’s population are immediately and intimately relatable and resonant: these people seek answers within the world they inhabit while questioning what it means to want more from their lives.Trade Review“Often hovering on the cusp of some potential change, the characters in Bratwurst Haven’s beautifully written stories share a yearning for more—a better relationship or job or simply a chance to feel content. These all-too-relatable struggles make the stories not only engrossing but also an intriguing and tenderly rendered study of this flawed world we call home.”- Rajia Hassib, author of A Pure Heart“In these twelve linked short stories, Rachel King captures the magic of the American mountain west and the people who call it home. Her characters take work in a sausage factory, pull shifts at a bar to fund their art, struggle with booze and pills, or end up with a haircut after losing at poker. They also care for one another, offering kindnesses both large and small. In Bratwurst Haven, King uncovers the complicated ways humans connect, and she gives it to us in prose that is as crystal clear as a bright Colorado day. It is a collection that builds with each story revealing more and more of the friendships and family that bind us all together—and that we cannot escape from, even when we try.”- Wendy J. Fox, author of What If We Were Somewhere Else and If the Ice Had HeldTable of Contents Railing Visitation Day A Friendship A Deal Poker Night Childrearing Murals At the Lake Strangers Middle Age Pavel Bratwurst Haven

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Book SynopsisJust Like Being There is the first collection of science fiction stories by award-winning author and aerospace engineer Eric Choi spanning his 25 year writing career. The stories are “hard” science fiction in which some element of engineering or science is so central there would be no story if that element were removed. Story topics include space exploration, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, cryptography, quantum computing, online privacy, mathematics (statistics), neuroscience, psychology, space medicine, extra-terrestrial intelligence, undersea exploration, commercial aviation, and the history of science. A special feature of the book is that each story is followed by an "Afterword" that explains the underlying engineering or science. This collection will entertain and inform all aficionados of science and science fiction.Trade Review“There are many forms of science fiction, all equally worthwhile, but Eric is a master of the hard science approach. This is classic science fiction at its best. Highly, highly recommended.” (R. Graeme Cameron, amazingstories.com, August 19, 2022)Table of ContentsPreface.- Introduction.- Just Like Being There.- Raise the Nautilus.- Decrypted.- Crimson Sky.- From a Stone.- Fixer Upper.- Most Valuable Player.- She Just Looks That Way.- The Son of Heaven.- Plot Device.- A Man’s Place.- Divisions.- The Coming Age of the Jet.- Dedication.

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Book SynopsisFor over two thousand years, jātaka—tales of the Buddha’s previous lives—have been popular as teaching and entertainment. Apart from the classical Indian jātaka, many others in Southeast Asia were assembled in collections known as the “Fifty Jātaka” (Paññāsa Jātaka). They are now acclaimed as the lifeblood of the region’s literature. This book offers the first published English translations of twenty-one stories from the Thailand collection, including some of the best-known Thai stories: Sudhana-Manoharā, the Golden Conch, and Rathasena, among other quests, moral tales, strings of riddles, and story cycles. Here the tales are translated fully and faithfully with notes and accompanying information on the Thailand collection.

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Book SynopsisSitor Situmorang, one of the most celebrated Indonesian literary voices of the twentieth century, claimed that all his work dealt with a single theme—“love and wanderlust,” which are “two aspects of one and the same experience.” His remarkable short stories are celebrations of modern life, dealing with subjects such as seeking, belonging, identity, masculinity, and sensual interaction with the world at large. The characters are both introspective and physical, the settings sparse but evocative, the circumstances ordinary yet unexpected. The publication of this volume of fourteen stories is the culmination of a request Sitor once made of Harry Aveling to render his stories in English. The translation of his complete short stories now shares the exceptional creative prose of Sitor Situmorang with audiences around the world.

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Book SynopsisJaroslav Hasek is a Czech writer most famous for his wickedly funny, widely read yet incomplete novel "The Good Soldier Svejk", a series of absurdist vignettes about a recalcitrant soldier in World War I. Hasek - in spite of a life of bufoonery and debauchery - was remarkably prolific. He wrote hundreds of short stories that all display both his extraordinary gift for satire and his profound distrust of authority. Here, in a new English translation, is a series of short stories based on Hasek's experiences as a Red Commissar in the Russian Civil War and his return to Czechoslovakia. First published in the "Prague Tribune", these nine stories are considered to be some of his best, and they provide delightful entertainment as well as important background and insight into "The Good Soldier Svejk". This collection, by a writer some refer to as a Bolshevik Mark Twain, is much more than a tool for understanding Hasek's better-known novel; it is a significant work in its own right. "Behind the Lines" focuses on the Russian town of Bugulma and takes aim, with mordant wit, at the absurdities of a revolution. A hidden gem remarkable for its modern, ribald sense of humor, "Behind the Lines" is an enjoyable, fast-paced collection of great literary and historical value.

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Book SynopsisAn inclusive collection of modern Czech short fiction that features overlooked women writers. Bringing together Czech fiction published by women between 1890 and 1910, Beyond the World of Men presents works that confront pivotal issues of the time, including the “woman question” and women’s rights, class conflict, lesbian love, and the relationship between the aristocracy and the Czech peasantry (as in two stories originally written in German by the aristocrat Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach). The collection contains stories that are of literary merit, but also hold historical value. In these works, the authors offer trenchant social commentary while injecting both comic and sentimental elements into their writing, employing humanity and subtlety. As a whole, the collection suggests a revision of the critical understanding of Czech literary modernism; these writers represent voices that were not usually heard in the male writing of the period. They also demand evaluation in their differing (but constant) reactions to earlier women’s writing in Czech and in other European languages, but particularly that of the central figure of Božena Nemcová, to whose canonic novel Babicka they constantly return.Table of ContentsAcknowledgments and sourcesCzech Women’s Fiction at the Fin de Siècle: Beyond the World of MenBiographical notes on authorsBibliographyMarie von Ebner-Eschenbach He Kisses Your Hand (1885)Tereza Nováková A Kaleidoscope (1890)Božena Viková-Kunetická Confirmed Bachelors (1891)Ružena Svobodová Life’s Sorrow (1891–5)Tereza Svatová A Visit to His Parents (1894)Tereza Svatová The ‘Práže’: A Prague Bastard (1894)Vladimíra Jedlicková Tale About Nothing, no. 5 (1903)Vladimíra Jedlicková Tale About Nothing, no. 14 (1903)Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach Daily Life (1904)Anna Maria Tilschová A Widow (1905)Anna Maria Tilschová A Rose for Uncle: An Unserious Tale of a VeryYoung Coquette, with a Moral (1906)Božena Benešová Theories (1906)Marie Majerová A Tale from Hell (1907)Marie Majerová Marriage (1907)Božena Benešová A Loyal Wife (1908)Anna Lauermannová-Mikschová Solitude (1908)Helena Malírová Three Points of View (1908)Ružena Svobodová ... And Music will be Playing Outside YourWindows Every Day! (1908)Ružena Jesenská The Death of Ophelia (1909)Ružena Jesenská A Truthful Tale of a Stone Statue (1909)Lila Bubelová The Child (1912)Marie Majerová A Thorny Question (1917)Anna Maria Tilschová A Remarkable Incident (1924)Lida Merlínová Marie and Marta (1933)

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Book SynopsisThis bilingual edition in Chinese and English contains some of Xiao Hong's most famous short stories, such as: ""On the Oxcart"", ""Spring in a Small Town"", ""The Family Outsider"", ""Flight from Danger"", ""Vague Expectations"", ""The Bridge"" and ""Hands"" . Xiao Hong died in 1942 at the age of only 31, but she has written many other works including novels, essays and poetry. These short stories were translated by Howard Goldblatt, who has also written a biography of Xiao Hong.

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