Anthologies & Short Stories

Book SynopsisA boy wins $100,000 in a box of Frosted Flakes - only to discover that claiming the winnings may unravel his family. An acclaimed ambulance driver seeks the courage to follow his heart and throw it all away to be a singer-songwriter. A school principal unveils a bold plan to permanently abolish arithmetic. A new arrival in heaven, overwhelmed by infinite options, procrastinates over his long-ago promise to visit his grandmother. We meet a vengeance-minded hare. We learn why wearing a red T-shirt is the key to finding love; how February got its name; and why the stock market is sometimes just . . . down.Finding inspiration in questions from the nature of perfection to the icing on carrot cake, from the deeply familiar to the intoxicatingly imaginative, ONE MORE THING finds its heart in the most human of phenomena: love, fear, family, ambition, and the inner stirring for the one elusive element that might make a person complete. The stories in this collection are like nothing Trade ReviewPlayful and inventive ... One More Thing is a special read Shortlist A teller of funny, skew-whiff tales ... Novak has, like, totally been compared to David Sedaris and Woody Allen, which is insane but also kinda true New Statesman Lively, sweet-natured ... Novak is best when he reaches beyond a punchline... My favourite piece, 'Dark Matter'... feels profound Sunday Telegraph One More Thing is very funny ... Novak adds emotional depth to some well-crafted, often explosive pay-offs Financial Times Remarkably good. There's a wildly eclectic range on display, from personal meditations to flights of absurdist whimsy Guardian Brilliant surreal stories, full of unexpected twists and turns The List B.J. blew me away. He just keeps kicking short fiction in the rear, making it run ahead clutching its ass, and then he runs up and kicks it some more, and the result is one of the most aggressively, insanely awesome debuts in a while Gary Shteyngart, author of Super Sad True Love Story Everyone knew that B.J. Novak was smart and sexy, but funny, too!? Wow, screw that guy. I haven't laughed at words this hard since I read Joshua Ferris author of The Unnamed and Then We Came to the End ONE MORE THING is a funny and inventive debut collection, infused with a deadpan absurdist wit reminiscent of Woody Allen and Ian Frazier. B.J. Novak's stories are sly and playful, but they can pack a real emotional wallop Tom Perrotta, author of Nine Inches Dark and hilarious, like the fudge Grandma used to make during her 'special' period. Deliciously funny! Jack Handey, author of Deep Thoughts and The Stench of Honolulu A funny writer with a great ear, but also a genuine storyteller with an observant eye and finely tuned emotional radar New York Times - Michiko Kakutani

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Book SynopsisIn a spirited opening piece, John Irving explains how he became a writer. There follow six scintillating stories written over the past twenty years, inlcuding The Pension Grillparzer, previously only to be found inside The World According to Garp, and now given its first independent airing.Trade ReviewInventive incident, deft characterization and vivid language are all here -- Irving Weinman * The Times Literary Supplement *

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Book SynopsisTo Build A Fire and Other Stories is the most comprehensive and wide-ranging collection of Jack London's short stories available in paperback. This superb volume brings together twenty-five of London's finest, including a dozen of his great Klondike stories, vivid tales of the Far North were rugged individuals, such as the Malemute Kid face the violence of man and nature during the Gold Rush Days. Also included are short masterpieces from his later writing, plus six stories unavailable in any other paperback edition. Here, along with London's famous wilderness adventures and fireband desperadoes, are portraits of the working man, the immigrant, and the exotic outcast: characters representing the entire span of the author's prolific imaginative career, in tales that have been acclaimed throughout the world as some of the most thrilling short stories ever written.

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Book SynopsisEdited by award winning novelist and short story writer Kevin Barry, this volume will once again mix established names with previously unpublished authors, and will seek to offer fresh renditions to the Irish story - new angles, new approaches, new modes of attack.Published in 2011, New Irish Short Stories, edited by Joseph O''Connor, has sold over 10,000 copies to date and featured Kevin Barry''s ''Beer Trip to Llandudno'' - winner of the 2012 Sunday Times EFG Short Story Prize - as well as stories by William Trevor, Dermot Bolger and Roddy Doyle which went on to be Afternoon Readings on BBC Radio 4.Trade ReviewA strong and thought provoking collection. Sunday Business Post Sharp, lively and varied selection ... The range of themes, characters, locations and moods covered in these pages is impressive; there is an inventive uncertainty in its mix of established voices and highly promising new ones, such as those of Mary Costello, Andrew Meehan, Colin Barrett andLisa McInerney. And Barry's creative editing has ensured that, as promised, we can discern here the shape of Irish fiction to come. -- Giles Newington Irish Times Town & Country flaunts its diversity. The "great, mad and rude new energies" Barry touts in his introduction are certainly present. At its best, this collection sings as well as soars. An unruly chorus of unalike minds. -- Tom Adair The Scotsman Bursting at the seams with literary talent Hot Press

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Book SynopsisThis new collection of stories offers a candid peek at infidelity in all its guises. These are tales of lust, deceit, resentment and regret - and of the secrets and lies that can chip away at human relationships.In a series of interwoven dramas, we find mothers yearning for adventure, for the exhilaration of the open road or the anonymity of the forest; fathers absent in body or mind; husbands who look the other way; complacency turned to spite and apathy turned to betrayal. At the same time Gunn pursues the glorious rush of a snap decision, the liberty of answering that siren call of a better life elsewhere.Written with Gunn''s trademark attention to nuances of behaviour, motive and even landscape, Infidelity is a temptingly beautiful work that asks ''What if?'' and dares to find out.

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Book SynopsisA New York Times Book of the YearChosen by Barack Obama as one of his books of the year Meet Kailash. Also known as Kalashnikov. Or AK-47. Or just plain AK. His journey from India has taken him to graduate school in New York where he keeps falling in love: not just with women, but with literature and radical politics, the fuel of youthful exuberance. Each heady affair brings new learning: about himself, and about his relationship to a country founded on immigration a country that is now unsure of the migrant's place in the nation's fabric. But how can AK learn to belong when he's in a constant state of exile

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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. In perhaps the most magnificent of what he called his strange stories', Robert Aickman blurs the lines between memory, premonition and the hallucinated life.Lene, a woman now recovering from the losses of the Second World War, recalls a gothic dolls' house of her childhood and the way in which its uncanny inhabitants entered her dreams. Most chillingly, the geometries of the house didn't add up; there had to be a secret room inside it.Years later, she comes across a life-size version in a wood not marked on any map . . .Bringing together past, present and future in our ninetieth year, Faber Stories is a celebratory compendium of collectable work.

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Book Synopsis''[Lippman] only seems to be getting better.'' Entertainment WeeklyA first-rate collection.' BooklistFROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF SUNBURN AND DREAM GIRLThe award-winning master of psychological suspense is in top form in this collection of diverse and diabolically clever stories.A married couple longing for that old romantic spark creates a playful diversion that comes with unexpected consequences. A husband's secret cell phone proves to be a dicey temptation for a suspicious wife. Lippman's beloved Baltimore PI Tess Monaghan keeps a watchful eye on a criminally resourceful single father.In eleven brilliantly crafted stories of deception, murder, dangerous games, and love gone wrong, Laura Lippman's sharp and acerbic stories explore the contemporary world and the female experience through the prism of classic crime, where the stakes are always deadly.Readers love Seasonal Wo

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Book SynopsisNine intriguing and astonishing stories by one of the most outstanding storytellers of our time. Stories include: Man from the South, Lamb to the Slaughter, The Landlady, The champion of the World, Galloping Foxley, Mrs Bixby and the Colonel's Coat, The Ratcatcher and The Hitchhiker.

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Book SynopsisA new selection of 30 tales to mark the 200 year anniversary of Andersen''s birth in 2005. Tiina Nunnally''s sparkling translation captures the rawness and immediacy of Andersen''s style, for the first time enabling English readers to be as startled and amazed as his original readers were, and revealing the unique inventiveness of Andersen''s genius.At a time when children''s stories were formal, moral and didactic, Hans Christian Andersen revolutionized the genre, giving an anarchic twist to traditional folklore and creating a huge number of utterly original stories that sprang directly from his imagination. From the exuberant early stories such as ''The Emperor''s New Clothes'', though poignant masterpieces such as ''The Little Mermaid'' and ''The Ugly Duckling'', to the darker, more subversive later tales written for adults, the stories included here are endlessly experimental, both humorous and irreverent, sorrowful and strange. This book - beautifully illustrated with a selection of Andersen''s amazing paper cut-outs - will bring these magical tales to life for readers of any age.

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Book SynopsisRose Tremain's novels and short stories have been published in thirty countries and have won many awards, including the Orange Prize (The Road Home), the Dylan Thomas Award (The Colonel's Daughter and Other Stories), the Whitbread Novel of the Year (Music & Silence) the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Prix Femina in France (Sacred Country) and the South Bank Sky Arts Award (The Gustav Sonata). Her most recent novel is Lily, a Richard and Judy Book Club selection. Rose Tremain was made a CBE in 2007 and a Dame in 2020. She lives in Norfolk and London with the biographer, Richard Holmes.Trade ReviewA master class in the art of storytelling * Observer *Tremain is elegant, cool and teasing...she is an extremely accomplished writer, ingenious and acute, compassionate and always in control * Daily Telegraph *A perfect demonstration of Rose Tremain's beguilingly original and quirky mind and her ability to set words on paper in the most spellbinding way * Daily Mail *In this superb collection of short stories she displays a dazzling versatility... Rose Tremain's writing has a rare subtlety. And her imagination is extraordinary * Harper & Queen *

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Book SynopsisTraditional tales with strong messages retold with relevance for the 21st century

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Book SynopsisThe book every George R.R. Martin fan has been waiting for: a magnificent collection of the best-selling author's most evocative short fiction

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Book SynopsisA FARMER and his wife fall on hard times. They haven''t lost everything the way others have, but they have lost enough. Their hope for a better future comes under threat when they discover an intruder on their land. A WOMAN from a small town marries an outsider. Her love for him battles with her suspicions that he is the source of the fires ravaging the mountains.A YOUNG BOY, neglected by his parents, sits in the remains of a crashed plane and lovingly tends to two frozen bodies.These remarkable stories and many more can be found in Burning Bright, an award-winning collection that captures the complexities of a place and conjures characters that will burn bright in your mind long after you have finished reading.Trade ReviewThe dozen stories [in Burning Bright]...have led to justifiable comparisons with Raymond Carver and Cormac McCarthy. ... These are tales that put you in another place, another kind of life. Recommended * * Daily Mail * *Rash tells great stories, raw and powerful, but he is above all, an instinctive writer. These narratives, whether told in his laconic first person, or in a detached third-person voice, are well served by his flawless use of language. Every word carries meaning and intent . . . Rash possesses a realist's vision that resounds with truth * * Irish Times * *Rash's prose is at once strong and supple, masculine and poetic, and lit up by a wealth of precise physical detail. ... His power of conveying landscape is exemplary, and he has a sure understanding of the measure and constraints of the short-story form * * Sunday Times * *An exciting collection of short stories . . . delivered with such a surety of hand and such a considered distillation of the human spirit as to warrant the comparisons to Faulkner and Carver * * Independent on Sunday * *Technically absolutely beautiful - incredibly well-wrought...[Rash] is a real storyteller, a real craftsman. -- Nadine O'Regan * * Judge of the Frank O'Connor Short Story Award and books editor of the Sunday Business Post * *Superb; the great American short story at its best * * The Times * *Searing...A nicely varied feast from a master of the form. * * Kirkus Reviews (starred review) * *Rash's evocative rendering of the blighted landscape and the tough characters who inhabit it recalls both John Steinbeck and Cormac McCarthy. * * New Yorker on SERENA * *Could sit comfortably on any bookshelf beside Cormac McCarthy or Charles Frazier * * Guardian on SERENA * *What superb stories come from Ron Rash's pen, the kind that truly put all others in the shade. His stories buck the trend for "moments" in a life that go unexplained: Rash wants you to understand, urgently and fully, what has taken place -- Lesley McDowall * * Independent on Sunday * *

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Book SynopsisYou will want to read this book at least three times: once in a headlong rush of fandom; then with an internet connection and a dictionary of poetic terms; and finally in a darkened room with the phone switched off and time to savour Smith''s delicious, playful use of language. A truly bewitching collection - Katy Guest, Independent on SundaySmith is a trickster, an etymologist, a fantasist, a pun freak, an ontologist... a wordsmith to the very smithy of her soul, she is at once deeply playful and deeply serious - The New York TimesIn four short stories fusions of poetry Ali Smith pays tribute to the sources, the people and the places which produce and nurture life and art. In an opening up of norths and souths, she traces unexpected conduits between Cambridge and the north of Scotland. Like all of Ali Smith's work, here spot-lit by Sarah Wood's delicate art, this is a book that will blow fresh air through the mind and set readers' pulses racing.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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Book SynopsisThis handsome paperback anthology brings together the classic short fiction of M.R. James, one of the most acclaimed ghost story writers of all time who influenced the likes of Stephen King and H. P. Lovecraft. M. R. James'' tales have bewitched and terrified readers for over a century. Set among dark cathedrals, remote inns, and rural estates, with ancient artifacts of awful power lurking in the shadows, a sense of dread and unease builds until some terrible force is unleashed. These haunting tales by one of the genre''s all-time greats will keep you transfixed even as your blood turns to ice. Tales include: • Oh, Whistle and I''ll Come to You, My Lad • Casting the Runes • Count Magnus • Lost Hearts • The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral • And many more. Presented with a striking gothic cover design and featuring an insightful introduction, this makes is a wonderful gift or collectible for any love

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Book SynopsisA prince who was lost for wordsA sister who worried far too muchA brother who walked differently through the worldA girl who had to be seen to be believedJoin Krish and Miriam Kandiah on another adventure through 10 retellings of stories from the Bible!While many people with disabilities, differences and disadvantages are often under-valued in our society, under-acknowledged in history and under-represented, Krish and Miriam Kandiah team up again with illustrator Andy Gray to show how God gives people with disabilities a special mention, special honour and very special jobs.Come onboard for the next instalment of Whistlestop Tales! Sometimes we can focus on the stories of miraculous healing in the Bible, but this can make people with disabilities and differences feel like they have nothing to offer the world. But Krish and Miriam introduce us to people in the Bible of all shapes and sizes who go on incredTrade Review'A wonderful and long-overdue book, full of stories from the Bible that showsdifference through God's lens.' * Kay Morgan-Gurr *'A book to help all children (and their grown-ups) know they are loved and treasured just the way they are!' * Revd Kate Bottley *'This rich and inspiring collection of stories calls each of us to a greater sense of justice, belonging and inclusion.' -- Andy Wolfe, Executive Director of Education, Church of England

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Book SynopsisDuring WW2 there was a rumour that German spies were landing by parachute in Britain, dressed as nuns...''Spy-masterful storytelling'' Sunday Post''Delightfully old-fashioned and prudent of prose, McCall Smith unspools his tales'' Daily Mail''[Adds] another treasure to McCall Smith''s already glittering library'' New York Journal of BooksConradin Muller was an unusual spy. He was recruited in Hamburg in June 1943, much against his will, and sent on his first, and only, mission in late September that year. He failed to send a single report back to Germany, and when the War came to an end in May 1945, he fell to his knees and wept with relief.From a highly reluctant German spy who is drawn to an East Anglian nunnery as his only means of escape, to the strange tale of one of the Cambridge spy ring''s adventures with a Russian dwarf, these are Alexander McCall Smith''s intriguingTrade ReviewSpy-masterful storytelling * Sunday Post *Marvellous... shows off Alexander McCall Smith's accomplishment as a storyteller as its very best * Undiscovered Scotland *There's nothing not to like about Alexander McCall Smith when you read his latest collection of six short stories on the business of spying... These are a half dozen beautifully shaped, delicious morsels, which I devoured even faster than McCall Smith could write them... full of character and detail * Australian *Massively entertaining and thought-provoking * Booklist (starred review) *Based on extensive research and with a fine grip on the slippery nature of the world of espionage, these underhand dealings range from Algeria in 1924 to a modern-day clerical cabal in the Vatican... Delightfully old-fashioned and prudent of prose, McCall Smith unspools his tales * Daily Mail *Taken together, the two parts echo each other. Each story provides a unique cast of characters and distinctly different plots, each offers a gentle portrait of people and society. And each is guided by the mastery of a consummate storyteller, offering another treasure to his already glittering library * New York Journal of Books *

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Book SynopsisA timely reissue of the extraordinary stories by JT LeRoy/Laura Albert that won international acclaim, to be timed with the theatrical release of the documentary Author: The JT LeRoy Story.''A startling achievement'' Publishers WeeklyThis book of interconnected stories depicts the chaotic life of a young boy on the run with his teenage mother. When Sarah reclaims Jeremiah from his foster parents, he finds himself catapulted into her world of motels and truck stops, exposed to the abusive, exploitative men she encounters. As he learns to survive in this harrowing environment, Jeremiah also learns to love his mother, even as she descends into drug-fueled madness.Told in spare, lyrical prose, rich with imagination and dark humor, The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things transforms the savagery of Jeremiah''s world into an indelible experience of compassion. This special edition includes an additional seven stories, previously uncollectTrade ReviewA startling achievement * Publishers Weekly *An eyewitness's imagination burns in his language ... as vivid as a match held close to the face * New York Times *[The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things] is a fascinating book, a book that instantly stirs the emotions and involves the readers in the lives of the people. It did not take long for the judgments to come fast and furious. That's what can be so deceitful about this book: you get so caught up in the circumstances and lives of the people you can easily overlook the quality of the writing, which is exceptional. One of the reasons this book is so powerful and effective is because it is beautifully structured and written. JT LeRoy should have a most remarkable future as a writer * Hubert Selby, Jr., author of Last Exit to Brooklyn *JT LeRoy's first two books, Sarah and The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, will prove to be among the most influential books of the last ten years. This is not because they are read and understood by everyone; it's because they are read and loved, rabidly, by thousands of young and very sensitive people who believe that JT speaks for them. He does speak for them, and does so without knowing that he does, and does so with a perfect and bizarre eloquence * Dave Eggers, author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius *JT Leroy has succeeded in writing the perfect novel * Shirley Manson (Garbage) *a genuinely authoritative voice ... truly remarkable * Booklist *JT's stories are like stitches, like exit wounds, dispatches, depositions. He is the brilliant, gifted, and profound fly on the wall * Tom Waits *One of the most honest and distinctive voices in American fiction * Nan Goldin *Good Lord, what a book! JT LeRoy's writing is savagely authentic and appallingly beautiful. They don't make 'em like this anymore. Christ, he's good. He's a born writer * John Waters, writer/director of Pink Flamingos *I'm reading The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things by JT LeRoy. It's blowing my mind, just the directness of the prose * Bono Vox (U2) *

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Book SynopsisIn the stunning title story ''Strange Highways'', a failed author returns to his hometown after many years to attend his father''s funeral, only to find himself suddenly and inexplicably thrust back through time to relive a traumatic event from his past. One rain-swept Sunday night when he was twenty years old, on his way back to college after a weekend with his family, Joey Shannon took the wrong highway - and from that moment, nothing ever went right for him again. Now, exactly twenty years later, on another rain-swept night, Joey finds himself at the same crossroads, looking down the road never taken. Which is odd. Because that road no longer exists. A superhighway replaced it nearly twenty years ago, and the old state route - which had crossed a web of perpetually burning, abandoned coal mines - was condemned as too dangerous and was torn up. But now the highway is exactly as it was on that long-ago night, and when Joey turns on to it, he begins an eerie, terrifying jour

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Book SynopsisMasterly collection of short stories by an American novelist at the height of her powersIt is the stories upon which Cynthia Ozick''s literary reputation rests. She writes about bitterness, cruelty and compulsion with brutal acuity and tenderness. She has created a timeless collection in which Greek mythology, superstition and the religious and cultural experience of the Jewish diaspora in America collide. The Pagan Rabbi is seduced by a tree sprite after seeing his daughter rescued from drowning by a water sprite. Such ecstasy is not permitted to mortals and so the scholar must die. He hangs himself with his prayer shawl as he watches the strangely beautiful nymph decay. In Envy, a Yiddish poet who watches the success of a contemporary, becomes very like a character in an I.B. Singer story entrapped by his anguish and haunted by the memory of a child. In the Doctor''s Wife, the most gentle of the stories, a poor doctor not unlike Chekhov endures family life inTrade Reviewthis anthology underlines her status as a genuinely brilliant modern writer * GUARDIAN *It should be read by everyone * Daily Telegraph *

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Book Synopsis'In this thrilling debut collection Alexia Arthurs is all too easy to love.' Zadie Smith'Impressive' Observer'A summer must-read' StylistOne of Oprah Magazine's 15 Favourite Books of 2018.‘There is a way to be cruel that seems Jamaican to me.’Tenderness and cruelty, loyalty and betrayal, ambition and regret – Alexia Arthurs navigates these tensions to extraordinary effect in her debut collection of short stories, How to Love a Jamaican, about Jamaican immigrants and their families back home. Sweeping from close-knit island communities to the streets of New York City and Midwestern university towns, these eleven stories form a portrait of a nation, a people, and a way of life.In ‘Light Skinned Girls and Kelly Rowlands’, an NYU student befriends a fellow Jamaican whose privileged West Coast upbringing has blinded her to the hard realities of race. In ‘Mash Up Love’, a twin’s chance sighting of his estranged brother – the prodigal son of the family – stirs up unresolved feelings of resentment. In ‘Bad Behavior’, a mother and father leave their wild teenage daughter with her grandmother in Jamaica, hoping the old ways will straighten her out. In ‘Mermaid River’, a Jamaican teenage boy is reunited with his mother in New York after eight years apart. In ‘The Ghost of Jia Yi’, a recently murdered international student haunts a despairing Jamaican athlete recruited to an Iowa college. And in ‘Shirley from a Small Place’, a world-famous pop star retreats to her mother’s big new house in Jamaica, which still holds the power to restore something vital.The winner of the Paris Review’s Plimpton Prize for ‘Bad Behavior’, Alexia Arthurs emerges in this vibrant, lyrical, intimate collection as one of fiction’s most dynamic and essential young authors.Trade ReviewAlexia Arthurs' How to love a Jamaican is sharp and kind, bitter and sweet. It stays in the yard, delicately attentive to the ways of country folks, and it leaves home with them, too, as they head to 'foreign' - that place across the water where barrels get filled to be sent back home and people are never quite as happy as they expected to be. In these kaleidoscopic stories of Jamaica and its diaspora we hear many voices at once: some cultivated, some simple, some wickedly funny, some deeply melancholic. All of them convince and sing. All of them shine. In this thrilling debut collection Alexia Arthurs is all too easy to love. -- Zadie SmithAlexia Arthurs is a writer of beauty, wit, and precision; these stories will grab you by the heart. This is a boss collection. -- NoViolet Bulawayo, author of We Need New NamesI am utterly taken with these gorgeous, tender, heartbreaking stories. Arthurs is a witty, perceptive, and generous writer, and this is a book that will last -- Carmen Maria Machado, author of Her Body and Other PartiesWhat a thrill to recognize myself and the women I love in Alexia Arthurs’ stunning debut story collection, How to Love a Jamaican. This fantastic young writer conjures the fierce wit of Jamaica Kincaid and the deft storytelling of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Entrancing and unforgettable. -- Naomi Jackson, author of The Star Side of Bird HillAlexia Arthurs is a voice so many of us have been waiting for — funny, achingly specific and wonderfully universal. She explores what it means to belong, what it means to recognize yourself in the most unexpected places, and what humans do with the pain of longing. -- Kaitlyn Greenidge, author of We Love You, Charlie FreemanFrom a world weary Jamaican pop star in desperate need of the restorative powers of home to a queer woman returned to the Island after decades in the US, a host of seekers and sojourners fill the pages of Alexia Arthurs' sweeping debut. This collection is brimming with tenderness, hard realities and an intimacy that will stay with you long after you've turned the last page. -- Ayana Mathis, author of the The Twelve Tribes of HattieI really enjoyed this gorgeous collection of short stories from Jamaican-American author Arthurs, which move between Jamaica and the US. Particularly affecting is "Mash Up Love", where a successful elder son still strives to impress his mother although his deadbeat brother is seen as the prodigal son, and "Bad Behaviour", where a wild Brooklyn teenager is sent back to Jamaica to live with her grandmother. Zadie Smith is also a fan. -- Alice O'Keeffe * Bookseller *This absorbing, engaging collection is the kind of book you rave about to your friends because you see so much of yourself, and them, in its characters . . . Arthurs's debut is vivid and exciting, and every story rings beautifully true. * Marie Claire *A must-read this summer * Elle.com *In this exploration of Jamaica and its diaspora, Arthurs masterfully teases out the joys and sorrows of cultural bifurication. The result is a symphony of voices for a generation * Financial Times *In her riveting debut collection of short stories, Arthurs explores a vast range of issues, from race and class to gender and family. A Jamaican immigrant who moved to Brooklyn at the impressionable age of 12, she tells vivid stories that keep readers on their toes. * Essence *While the stories have a rawness to them, exploring topics such as sexual orientation, parental relationships, self-discovery, and drug use, Arthurs also offers a sure feel of the mysticism of the Caribbean . . . Stylistically reminiscent of Toni Morrison’s Paradise, this successful literary debut will appeal to readers of literary and Caribbean fiction. * Library Journal *Jamaican immigrant and return-migration stories told with unsentimental honesty. Eleven short stories examine the immigrant experience through the prism of place, food, gender, and generations . . . thankfully devoid of violin-swelling nostalgia, these stories unravel the knot of being in a place but not quite belonging and the sense of missing but not quite understanding what was lost . . . [a] strong debut collection, which beckons the reader back, again and again. A lovely collection of stories that rewards subsequent readings. * Kirkus Review *Sometimes the best kind of summer reads are those you can dip in and out of in-between dips in the pool. Alexia Arthurs’ debut collection of eleven short stories is a patchwork blanket of tales, voices, emotions and experiences. Dancing between sadness, humour, heartbreak, longing and belonging, Arthurs’ offers up an observant, poignant and lyrical portrait of the lives of Jamaican immigrants and the families they’ve left behind, as well as the nation as a whole. * Culturefly *A timely exploration of multigenerational waves of immigration, the impact separating families has on children and the desire to be included . . . The stories hum with tension and nuance, creating characters desperate to be understood but wary of being defined simply by their race or origins * AP News *As vibrant and full of life on the inside as it is on the outside. You won’t believe that it’s Arthurs' debut * Hello Giggles *A vibrant, wrenching, and expansive short story collection that illuminates the nuances of the immigrant experience * Bustle *This distinctive debut story collection features protagonists of Jamaican descent, on the island and in the U.S, mostly as young people struggling to find themselves in the tangle of their roots. Arthurs infuses these excellent stories with melodic patois, and characters from pop stars and athletes to students segue between immigration and return-migration . . . wonderful * National Book Review *How to Love a Jamaican amplifies a perpetual wrestling between the old world we knew and the new world we know, and how one navigates life’s obstacles with, without or in spite of love * Hazlitt *Vivid, atmospheric and also recommended by Zadie Smith, How To Love A Jamaican has left me hungry for a full-length novel from this debut author. -- Sarra Manning * Red *A cool, savvy, rich and colourful pleasure, delivered by an ‘immigrant’ writer as tuned into Lena Dunham as she is to old-wives’ tales in rural Jamaica. * Big Issue *Beautifully written and absorbing . . . a complex and rich collection of stories that is quite simply unmissable. * Emerald Street *The stories in the collection are searing and deeply moving; Arthurs does not shield the reader from the pain and generational trauma of her characters . . . Arthurs’ stories are tender but unapologetically raw. How To Love A Jamaican is delicate in its storytelling, and powerful in its centring of the voices and narratives of women and girls in an urgent and sensitive critique of inequality. -- Leah Cowan * Wasafiri *Devastating * Oprah Magazine *Zadie Smith has lavished praise on this collection and it’s no wonder – Arthurs’s stories share Smith’s tender and melancholic nostalgia. * Prospect *

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Book SynopsisA New Statesman, Irish Times and Guardian Book of the Year 'A masterclass . . . Bold, irreverent and agonisingly funny' Sally Rooney A young, broke Irish woman narrates her relationship with a successful comedian in New York; two hapless university students take to the stage in a bid to assert their autonomy; a school teacher makes her way through a series of dead-end dates, gamely searching for love or distraction as the world teeters towards ruin. The characters in these magnificently accomplished stories are haunted as much by the future as they are by their pasts. Urgent and unforgettable, Show Them a Good Time marks the arrival of a strikingly original new voice in fiction. ‘Demands repeated reading' Jon McGregor 'Explores difficult questions about self-worth, agency and intimacy with thrilling sharpness' Sunday Times 'Announces the arrival of a brilliant talent' Financial Times Winner of the Irish Book Awards Short Story of the Year 2019Trade ReviewHighly addictive * Observer *These stories are very funny, and very sad, usually at the same time. Which, as Flattery shows us brilliantly, is the best time -- Jon McGregorExhilarating. Flattery’s judgments crackle with cruel, clear sight ... Flattery writes with empathy, freedom and virtuosic technique * Financial Times *Smart as a whip, unusual, and very very funny, Flattery's distinctive prose is a real treat -- Claire-Louise BennettFilled with dark, daring and compassionate fables of womanhood * Stylist *Flattery tells the truth but tells it slant, so that from her sentences, to her symbolism, to her zany, often surrealist plots, her stories fizz with humour and surprise * Irish Independent *Reverberates with a strange tension and fine sentences -- Hisham MatarI truly love and admire Nicole Flattery’s writing. Show Them a Good Time is a masterclass in the short story – bold, irreverent and agonisingly funny – and it does full justice to its author’s immense talent -- Sally RooneyA bright new voice in Irish literature. Think early Lorrie Moore, or the stories that launched Anne Enright’s career. Flattery brings the reader through this world with ease, mixing the absurd with the workaday, trauma with humour * Irish Times *At its best, which is often, Flattery’s prose has a thrilling relentlessness and rhythmical snap to it; it pummels and excites * Guardian *Startling, daring and dazzlingly dark -- Colin BarrettFlattery is the latest wave of a recent dam burst of Irish talent, including Sally Rooney, Kevin Barry and Danielle McLaughlin. She has a true storyteller’s ability to make a few words do a lot. The stories in Show Them a Good Time explore difficult questions about self-worth, agency and intimacy with thrilling sharpness * Sunday Times *Like Sally Rooney, Flattery is adept at capturing millennial culture, but her voice is more distinctive in its daring, eccentric intelligence. This is a collection which lives up to its hype * Spectator *Brutal, disorientating and bold … Filled with appetite, anger and compelling characters … Flattery is 29, and the themes that run through the work of many of the young Irish writers currently exhibiting such brilliant form – from Sally Rooney to Sinead Gleeson – also flit through her collection … Some of these pieces reminded me a lot of Deborah Levy, and particularly her earlier stories: brutal, disorientating, filled with appetite, anger and characters who seem to spring from nowhere and everywhere at the same time * New Statesman *There’s laughter in the dark and darkness in the laughter in these fabulously astute stories that are at once surreal and more real than reality. Nicole Flattery is so good -- Melissa Broder, author of 'The Pisces'If tradition is the kitchen sink, Flattery removes it from the wall, smashes it to pieces, and dances all over it with delight. With a literary voice that is as sophisticated and erudite as it is spiky and hilarious, Flattery has taken the short story format into an exciting, energetic, and multifaceted dimension * Sunday Independent *An urgent and exuberant debut short story collection * Guardian *Not only distractingly brilliant, it will make you wild with envy -- Caroline O’DonoghueOne of the best short story collections I’ve read in a long while … Bleakly hilarious, dark, weird. Read it! -- Rhiannon Lucy CosslettThis collection woke me up and sucked me in. By turns absurdist, frightening and funny, Flattery's writing is never less than dazzling -- Julia ArmfieldIrish women writers are on fire, and Nicole Flattery is yet a further brilliant example … Ten smart stories about dating, relationships and the absurdities of modern life -- Ones to Watch * Elle *In recent years a vanguard of Irish writers, mostly women, has emerged to continue an Irish tradition: that of punching above its own literary weight. Flattery is its latest lodestar ... Flattery's work is striking from the get-go: exuberant, absurd, relevant but often oblique ... Tonally, [the stories] are at times reminiscent of the Greek film director Yorgos Lanthimos’ deadpan, uncanny valley absurdism * Totally Dublin *This tour de force lurches into outright absurdism, and is reminiscent of acclaimed US author Nell Zink at her most playful. Flattery is a fresh new voice and I can’t wait to see what she does next * The Crack *The first time I read Nicole Flattery I was captivated - the voice, the word choice, the oddest dramaturgical line. I thought, my god, she could be the Irish Miranda July -- Gavin Corbett * Irish Times *A ridiculously fantastic, funny and daring writer -- John Patrick McHughShow Them A Good Time by Nicole Flattery is enthralling from start to finish … Flattery is assured in her words, her style evident from page to page * Storgy *I first encountered Nicole Flattery's work through the Stinging Fly, and I'm forever grateful I did -- Sally Rooney

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Book Synopsis'One of the significant writers of her generation.' Saul Bellow'Her prose is cooler than a cocktail and sharper than a Japanese knife . . . Nora Ephron meets Lorrie Moore, which is about as good as it gets.' Rachel Cooke, Observer'We should be glad to have her back . . . Howland has the pinpoint vision that can make any sentence into a jewel.' John Self, The TimesBlue in Chicago brings together the bittersweet short stories of the remarkable American writer Bette Howland. Hailed as a major talent before all but disappearing from public view, this tenderly compiled collection restores her vital voice to our shelves. Bette Howland was an outsider: an intellectual from a working-class neighborhood in Chicago; a divorcee and single mother, to the disapproval of her Jewish family; an artist chipped away at by poverty and self-doubt. Her stories radiate a passionate commitment to the lives of ordinary people and the humble grace of everyday.From city streets to the hospital to the public library to the mundane family outing, her sly humour, aching melancholy and tender insight illuminate every page. Here is an astonishing literary voice rediscovered. Blue in Chicago features an afterword by Honor Moore and was published in the US under the title Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage.'Beautifully bittersweet . . . funny, ruefully poetic and effortlessly perceptive.' Daily Mail'Captivating writing: rhythmic, alert, empathetic . . . I haven’t enjoyed another book more this year.' Telegraph'Profound . . . To read Bette Howland is to be handed a gift you didn't know you needed.' Irenosen Okojie, author of NudibranchTrade ReviewThe work of a woman who has invested her life in her art, and who will, I think be remembered as one of the significant writers of her generation. -- Saul BellowShe holds the city's humanity in an uneasy but affectionate embrace, and her voice is unlike any other. Fiercely straightforward, honest, angry, warmhearted. * New York Times *Her prose is cooler than a cocktail and sharper than a Japanese knife. It’s zippy, witty and sometimes deeply sad: Nora Ephron meets Lorrie Moore, which is about as good as it gets. -- Rachel Cooke, ObserverWe should be glad to have her back . . . Howland also has the pinpoint vision that can make any sentence into a jewel you’d be proud to put on display. -- John Self * The Times *Remarkable . . . Captivating writing: rhythmic, alert, empathetic . . . Cool satirical swing . . . I haven’t enjoyed another book more this year. * Telegraph *She sees those most of us like to forget: the impoverished, the old, the lost, forlorn and unhappy . . . Howland doesn’t shy away from the bloody sinews of life. Blue in Chicago is truthful, compassionate and absolutely devastating. -- Lucy Scholes * TLS *These are stories both intimate and universal, populated with recognisable characters, from a grieving widower to overlooked delivery men and set in a busy, bustling world that is brought vividly to life. -- Sarah Hughes * iNews *An ode to Chicago winters and the places that keep us warm when we have nowhere else to go. -- Simon Han * Lit Hub *Howland’s sense of humor illuminates every page, and even her sharpest barbs glint with wisdom and humanity . . . Her lyrical passages approach not merely poetry, but something like the sacred, almost holy in their cadences . . . At last Howland’s claim has been re-staked, hopefully with a degree more permanence this time, for the rightful (after)life that awaits her work is that she be recognized as a Chicago writer of near-universal delight. -- Kathleen Rooney * Chicago Tribune *Loving, lacerating sketches . . . With her flexible stance toward reality, her eye for the amusing, curious, minutiae of existence, and her tonal range, Howland recalls the short-story writer Lucia Berlin. * Harper's Magazine *Beautifully bittersweet . . . She’s funny, ruefully poetic and effortlessly perceptive -- Eithne Farry * Daily Mail *Howland’s portrait of Chicago reminds us of how collapsed and violent inner-city life could feel in the 1970s. -- Tessa Hadley * Tessa Hadley *Profound. A masterful, layered portrait of city life, womanhood and the chaotic beauty of families. To read Bette Howland is to be handed a gift you didn't know you needed. -- Irenosen Okojie, author of NudibranchSharp, wry, entirely of their city; confidingly cynical, then with a sudden soulfulness that sends you reeling - I loved these stories. -- Lucy Caldwell, author of MultitudesBlue In Chicago is a complex and incisive masterpiece but actually every paragraph of Bette Howland’s is a complex and incisive masterpiece. A phenomenal writer. -- Nicole Flattery, author of Show Them a Good TimeBrilliantly percipient and darkly witty stories that go memorably and feelingly deep into life and come out with something like hard-won wisdom -- David Hayden, author of Darker with the Lights onGrippingly good . . . an insanely sane mix of the hard-to-fight city in the '70s and the accidental poetry of families stumbling through time. * Vogue *If there's a Howland bandwagon (and there should be), hold me a seat, or I'll stand. No problem, I'll stand. * Paris Review *The stories of Bette Howland return to you like friends met once in a dream—strange, familiar, roughing up the texture of your days. These are stories that defy classification, but seem as fresh and vital as though they were written last week. The revival of Howland’s work is one of the best things to have happened in recent memory. -- Madeleine Watts, author of Inland SeaThis achingly beautiful book throbs with life, compassion, warmth, and humor; hums with an undercurrent of existential despair; and creeps into your soul like the slushy-gray-yellow light of a wintry Chicago morning. * Kirkus *That Bette Howland produced any books at all is a testament to her determination, for until she won the MacArthur she lived nearly always at or below the poverty line . . . Given such circumstances, one might assume that Howland’s writing would present a kind of literature of grievance, but one would be wrong. The energy in her fiction comes instead from a ferocious sense of engagement . . . A stubborn avidity crowds out despair. -- Donna Rifkind * Wall Street Journal *There is the long slow boil of lives lived. There are lives, piled over top of and inside of, brushing up against one another . . . lives that perhaps the myopic mechanisms of fiction-writing have not often worked hard enough to make space for. -- Lynn Steger Strong, author of WantBette Howland's stories are built of wry, handsome, heart-wrecking sentences and rooted in a cool intensity of observation. Like Grace Paley, she writes about loss, poverty, aging, the friction of family, and failure—both personal and bureaucratic—yet the work is full of delight. -- Kathryn Scanlan, author of The Dominant AnimalWhether you call it fiction or memoir, essay or reportage, Howland’s work manages to feel both rooted in its twentieth century milieu and absolutely at home among today’s genre-agnostic writing. -- Laurie Muchnick * Kirkus *Howland’s eye is that of a camera. She sees the things most folk are in too much of a rush to notice . . . Comedy sparks on every page but so does something sadder. -- Rosemary Goring * Herald *A perceptive, poignant and astute collection of stories from a 20th-century writer whose rediscovery is long overdue. -- Charlotte Heathcote * Sunday Express *

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Book Synopsis‘Brilliant . . . These stories are sly and prescient, a nuanced reflection of the world we are living in.’ – Roxane Gay‘Evans is blessed with perfect pitch.’ – Tayari Jones‘Sublime short stories of race, grief, and belonging . . . an extraordinary new collection.’ New YorkerDanielle Evans is widely acclaimed for her blisteringly smart voice and X-ray insights into complex human relationships. With The Office of Historical Corrections, Evans zooms in on particular moments and relationships in her characters’ lives in a way that allows them to speak to larger issues of race, culture, and history.We meet Black and multi-racial characters who are experiencing the universal confusions of lust and love, and getting walloped by grief – all while exploring how history haunts us, personally and collectively. Ultimately, she provokes us to think about the truths of American history – about who gets to tell them, and the cost of setting the record straight.In ‘Boys Go to Jupiter’ a white college student tries to reinvent herself after a photo of her in a Confederate-flag bikini goes viral. In ‘Richard of York Gave Battle in Vain’ a photojournalist is forced to confront her own losses while attending an old friend’s unexpectedly dramatic wedding. And in the eye-opening title novella, a Black scholar from Washington DC is drawn into a complex historical mystery that spans generations and puts her job, her love life, and her oldest friendship at risk.

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Book Synopsis*WINNER OF THE 2023 LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD FOR LESBIAN FICTION**A New York Times 100 Notable Book of 2022*'These stories glitter and pulse' Dantiel W. MontizIn her singular, electrifying style, K-Ming Chang peels back questions of body, power and identity, and the relationships of Asian American women, with vivid imagination.A stream of women adjust to American life by sneaking kisses from women at temple and buying tubs of vanilla ice cream to prepare for citizenship tests. Ghost-cousins cross space, seas and skies to haunt their living cousin. Two girls explore each other's bodies for the first time in the belly of a plastic shark.Brimming with moths and mothers, nine-headed birds and storm-chasers, these queer, fabulist tales delve viscerally into myth and memory, corporeality and ghostliness, beauty and the grotesque.ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR in New York Times, NPR, Them and Book Riot, from the National Book Award '5 under 35' honoree and author of Bestiary.'Wild and lyrical, visionary and touching. Read her!' Sharlene Teo'A voracious, probing collection, proof of how exhilarating the short story can be' New York Times'Stunning and moving... One of our most brilliant authors' Bryan WashingtonTrade ReviewAlert to the ways reality can buckle and contort, Chang conjures fiction that is almost fairytale-like, mythical, unsettling - yet at the same time blisteringly alive and unapologetically queer * Guardian *These stories glitter and pulse -- DANTIEL W. MONIZ, author of Milk Blood HeatA voracious, probing collection, proof of how exhilarating the short story can be... Each one is possessed of a powerful hunger, a drive to metabolize the recognizable features of a familiar world and transform them into something wilder, and achingly alive -- Alexandra Kleeman * New York Times Book Review *Constantly illuminating and thoroughly astounding... a stunning and moving work by one of our most brilliant authors. -- BRYAN WASHINGTON, author of Lot and MemorialThese stories by the Taiwanese American author of the gutsy 2020 debut novel Bestiary are obsessed with the vagaries of emigration and adolescence. Populated by ghosts and spirits, they dissolve the rigidities of American life into a slipstream of folkloric myth and transform the familiar world into something wilder. -- 100 Notable Books of 2022 * New York Times *

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Book SynopsisLove and marriage, children and family, death and grief. Life touches everyone the same, but living under lockdown? It changes us alone.A man abroad wanders the stag-and-hen-strewn streets of Newcastle, as news of the virus at home asks him to question his next move. An exhausted nurse struggles to let go, having lost a much-loved patient in isolation. A middle-aged son, barred from his mother's funeral, wakes to an oncoming hangover of regret. Told with Doyle's signature warmth, wit and extraordinary eye for the richness that underpins the quiet of our lives, Life Without Children cuts to the heart of how we are all navigating loss, loneliness and the shifting of history underneath our feet.'Life Without Children is boldly exhilarating, with its revelations of quiet love and the sheer charm of the characters' voices' Sunday Times'Quietly devastating...shivers with emotion' Financial Times'In the stripping away of everyday anxieties, the virus reveals what matters most, those qualities that are always at the heart of Doyle's fiction: love and connection' Observer'Moving...and beautiful' Daily MailTrade ReviewA quietly devastating collection of short stories that brilliantly portrays the pervasive sense of hopelessness that immobilised us during the dog days of Covid... Silver linings have been hard to find lately, but in Life Without Children Doyle has given us just that * Sunday Times *[A] gem of a collection... Roddy Doyle's greatest gift has always been for dialogue. He can command the full range of Irish voices and registers, but he has lately put his gifts to use in painting a picture of characters in...their "third age". * Daily Telegraph *Quietly devastating... Doyle's clipped, plain dialogue shivers with emotion. * Financial Times *Life Without Children...displays Doyle's remarkable talent for conveying the strongest of emotions in the simplest of words and the shortest of sentences... It bristles with quietly sharp insights into the shape of a human life. * Reader's Digest *There is an immediacy to the stories in Life Without Children, an emotional charge that comes with writing in real time, and an optimism too. In the stripping away of everyday anxieties, the virus reveals what matters most, those qualities that are always at the heart of Doyle's fiction: love and connection. * Observer *

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Book Synopsis‘A mesmerisingly powerful book’ SALLY ROONEYIlluminating the lives of outcasts, misfits and malcontents, this is the darkly funny and moving second book from the award-winning author of Young Skins.A quiet night in the neighbourhood pub is shattered by the arrival of a sword-wielding fugitive. A funeral party teeters on the edge of this world and the next, as ghosts won't settle. A shooting sees an everyday call-out lead a policewoman to confront the banality of her own existence.In his new collection of stories, Colin Barrett takes us to the barren backwaters of County Mayo, via Canada – always with an eye for the abrupt and absurd.'Superb... There is so much life in these pages' DOUGLAS STUART'Fierce, tender...unforgettable' BRANDON TAYLOR'Addictive, stylish and violently funny... Outstanding' KEVIN BARRYTrade ReviewA mesmerisingly powerful book, full of the strangeness and beauty of life. I've learned so much from Colin Barrett's work as a reader and writer...these stories are his best yet -- Sally RooneyFull of humour and small-town Irish colour... His [Barrett's] second collection confirms him as one of the very best short-story writers in the business * New Statesman, *Books of the Year* *A masterwork - by turns hilarious and heartbreaking... What fierce, tender stories. Totally unforgettable -- Brandon TaylorThe stories in Homesickness are crafted with skill and flair. Colin Barrett anchors the work with emotional accuracy and careful delineation of character, and then, using metaphors and beautifully made sentences, he lets his narrative soar -- Colm ToibinLyrical and tough and smart... His stories are set in a familiar emotional landscape, but they give us endings that are new -- Anne Enright

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Book Synopsis

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