Anthologies & Short Stories

Book SynopsisOriginally hand-printed at her Hogarth Press in Richmond, Monday or Tuesday is the only collection of short stories that Virginia Woolf published during her lifetime, providing a fascinating insight into the early stages of development of themes that would blossom in her later masterpieces. From the impressionist description of four groups of people walking by a flowerbed in the botanic gardens at Kew to the soaring flight of a heron above the teeming life of towns and cities below and the reveries of a woman as she looks at a mark on the wall, the eight pieces included in this volume showcase Woolf's inimitable observational powers and her boldly modern style of writing.Trade ReviewShe was doing with language something like what Jimi Hendrix does with a guitar. -- Michael CunninghamTable of ContentsContains: A Haunted House, A Society, Monday or Tuesday, An Unwritten Novel, The String Quartet, Blue & Green, Kew Gardens, The Mark on the Wall

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Book SynopsisGiuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, the author of one of the most poignant and enduringly popular novels of the twentieth century, left only a few other pieces of fiction when he died prematurely at the age of sixty. Childhood Memories and Other Stories, here presented in a new translation by Stephen Parkin and including previously deleted passages and the unpublished fragment ‘Torretta’, collects all of Lampedusa’s extant shorter fiction and provides a revealing glimpse into the writer’s workshop and the background to the composition of his masterpiece. From the atmospheric recollections of the Palazzo Lampedusa and the Palazzo Filangeri Cutò at the turn of the twentieth century in ‘Childhood Memories’ to the delightful fable ‘The Siren’, from the gently humorous, bitter­sweet tones of ‘Joy and the Law’ to ‘The Blind Kittens’ – the first chapter of what was intended to be a sequel to The Leopard – this volume showcases Lampedusa’s unparalleled ob­ser­vational powers and narrative skills.Trade ReviewThis is a bundle of his short fiction and (the pearl) his memories of his childhood in a lost world of almost unimaginable privilege and beauty. * The Times *Handsome book... Parkin's translation does justice to Lampedusa's elegant, elaborate prose… The prose flows with the allegro and cadences of a Mozart piano composition. * TLS *[The Siren] is an enigmatic, tantalizing and haunting tale of rare beauty which glints like a finely cut diamond. * TLS *Lampedusa wrote two masterpieces and this, as bizarre as it sounds, is the other one. * The Telegraph *A man with the deep soul of an Old European, who was wise and witty. * The Lady *

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Book SynopsisWhile at a party organized by the local landowner for the officers of his brigade, the shy and awkward Ryabovich is suddenly kissed by an unknown woman in a dark room. This unexpected, electrifying encounter, which he relives in his mind day after day, marks a turning point for Ryabovich, showing him that everything in life – joy, sorrow, hope – is equally pointless and subject to chance. One of Chekhov’s most admired stories, ‘The Kiss’ is joined in this volume by six other celebrated tales in a new translation by Hugh Aplin: ‘The Lady with the Little Dog’, ‘Ward Six’, ‘The Black Monk’, ‘The House with a Mezzanine’, ‘The Bishop’ and ‘Peasants’ – making this an indispensable collection for those wanting to discover Chekhov at his creative best.Trade ReviewWhat writers influenced me as a young man? Chekhov! As a dramatist? Chekhov! As a story writer? Chekhov! -- Tennessee Williams The virtue of this story is its completeness, its summoning of human feelings perfectly matched to the events that produce them. * The Independent *Table of ContentsTHIS VOLUME INCLUDES: The Lady with the Little Dog The Kiss Ward Number Six The Black Monk The House with the Mezzanine The Peasants

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Book SynopsisDescribed by Herman Melville as being “as deep as Dante”, ‘Young Goodman Brown’ is set during the Salem witch trials and features the sort of narrative ambiguities and troubling uncertainties over the reality of events that Hawthorne was known for, leading readers to ponder what they have read long after the last page has been turned. Rich in allegory and symbolism, and suffused with darkness, tragedy, satire and the supernatural, the tales in this collection, written by a master of the short-story genre, delve into the conflict between good and evil, explore the concept of Original Sin and bring to life the moralistic and superstitious early days of the New England colonies.Trade ReviewHe has the purest style, the finest taste… the most touching pathos, the most radiant imagination. -- Edgar Allan PoeTable of ContentsContains: `The Gentle Boy’, `My Kinsman, Major Molineux’, `Roger Malvin’s Burial’, `The Canterbury Pilgrims’, `The Seven Vagabonds’, `The Grey Champion’, `Young Goodman Brown’, `Wakefield’, `The White Old Maid’, `The Ambitious Guest’, `The Maypole of Merry Mount’, `The Minister’s Black Veil’, `Dr Heidegger’s Experiment’, `The Man of Adamant’ and `The Great Carbuncle’.

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Book SynopsisA mysterious murder near Esher, a gruesome delivery of two human ears packed in coarse salt, the disappearance of secret submarine plans, the sudden descent into madness of two brothers – these are only some of the apparently unsolvable cases contained in this volume, which the great sleuth, assisted by his trusted friend Doctor Watson, is challenged to clear up with the aid of his sagacity and unrivalled analytical skills. Published a quarter of a century after the first book of Holmes adventures, and including the famous titular story His Last Bow: An Epilogue of Sherlock Holmes, this collection shows the detective’s powers of deduction at their most dazzling, proving that Conan Doyle’s ability to entertain and surprise remains undiminished.

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Book SynopsisUnique edition which brings together some of Scott''s best short stories, each containing an element of the supernatural.One of the main forces in early nineteenth-century literature, Sir Walter Scott was not only among the greatest novelists of his time, but influenced generations of writers, including literary giants such as Stendhal and Tolstoy. Though chiefly remembered for his historical epics Ivanhoe, Rob Roy and Guy Mannering, Scott penned a number of short stories which have been unjustly eclipsed by the enduring fame of his longer works.This volume brings together some of Scott''s best short stories, each containing an element of the supernatural a ghostly apparition in ''The Tapestried Chamber'', a tale of magic in ''My Aunt Margaret''s Mirror'', grotesque diablerie in ''Wandering Willie''s Tale'', the power of second sight in ''The Two Drovers'' and the inevitability of Fate in ''The Highland Widow'' all revealing the author''

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Book SynopsisFamous for his novels, Thomas Mann is more accessible through the shorter fictions which span his entire career. The most famous of these stories is one of the earliest. Death in Venice was made into the celebrated Visconti film, but all his mature preoccupations are present in this story: the need for a sense of meaning in existence, the relationship between life and art, the central role of sexual energy and the strange forms it can take, the place of death and disease, the importance of work, the individual's complex relations with his society and the dominant culture. These themes are developed in a series of brilliant stories, may of them very short and displaying the author's talent for macabre comedy. Dr Faustus and Buddenbrooks are already available in Everyman

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Book SynopsisThe Sea Cloak is a collection of 11 stories by the author, journalist, and campaigner, Nayrouz Qarmout. Drawing from her own experiences growing up in a Syrian refugee camp, as well as her current life in Gaza, these stories stitch together a patchwork of different perspectives into what it means to be a woman in Palestine today. Whether following the daily struggles of orphaned children fighting to survive in the rubble of recent bombardments, or mapping the complex, cultural tensions between different generations of refugees in wider Gazan society, these stories offer rare insights into one of the most talked about, but least understood cities in the Middle East. Taken together, the collection affords us a local perspective on a global story, and it does so thanks to a cast of (predominantly female) characters whose vantage point is rooted, firmly, in that most cherished of things, the home. Translated from the Arabic by Perween Richards.Trade Review'All the arts are close to us because they allow us to recontextualise, to understand where we are, what we are, who we are. The Sea Cloak by Nayrouz Qarmout re-contextualises things so we really understand the world from the point of view we always knew was there.' - Ali Smith; 'Explosive, resonant images are conjured in Qarmout's confident, arresting voice.' - The Guardian

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Book Synopsis“Nobody is going to buy the book if I say nice things about you, Werner.”— Klaus Kinski to Werner Herzog What are the things you can’t live with or without? What can we expect from relationships that refuse to resolve themselves one way or the other? You Again collects together accounts of ruinous tension and blighted passion, mixing extracts and cut-ups from famous works with fresh slivers of contemporary writing. There’s romance, of course – but other kinds of entanglement as well, all awash with delight and frustration, rage and joy, hope and perplexity.

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Book SynopsisWITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY NINA ALLAN Joel Lane (1963-2013) was one of the UK's foremost writers of dark, unsettling fiction, a frank explorer of sexuality and the transgressive aspects of human nature. With a tight focus on the post-industrial Black Country and his home city of Birmingham, he created a distinct form of British urban weird fiction. His debut collection, The Earth Wire was first published in 1994 by Egerton Press and is reissued in paperback by Influx Press for the first time in over twenty-five years. Love and death. Sex and despair. The Earth Wire is a thrilling, disturbing examination of the means and the cost of survival.

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Book SynopsisNo Presents Please is a vivid evocation of city life, exploring the sub-locales and spatial identities of Mumbai and the struggles of small-town migrants.Jayant Kaikini’s gaze takes in the people living on the margins – a bus driver who, when denied annual leave, steals the bus to travel home; a slum dweller who catches cats and sells them for pharmaceutical testing; a father at his wit’s end who takes his mischievous son to a reform institution. From Irani cafes to chawls, old cinema halls to local trains, the author seeks out and illuminates moments and feelings of existential anxiety, pathos and tenderness. In these sixteen prize-winning stories, cracks in the curtains of the ordinary open up to possibilities that might not have existed, but for this city, which surprises with its epiphanies, fantasies and ambitions.

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Book SynopsisThis new collection of rare and unpublished writing by the cult 1960s author Ann Quin explores the risks and seductions of going over the edge. The stories cut an alternative path across innovative twentieth-century writing, bridging the world of Virginia Woolf and Anna Kavan with that of Kathy Acker and Chris Kraus.

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Book Synopsis'A work of gorgeous, enduring prose' Washington Post 'Luminously elegiac stories... Complex and rueful... gives voice to internal struggles, catalogues of loss' New York Times Book Review A modern classic of American fiction: a haunting collection of stories that explore the lost loves and complex desires of Chinese-American immigrant families The novella and five stories that make up this collection tell of displaced lives, and exiled imaginations. Far away from their ancestral home, a grandmother tells her granddaughters stories of their river ancestors. Having relocated to the American Midwest, a young couple purposefully drive all remnants of their lives in China into the shadows. In the title novella, a woman recounts her tragic marriage to an exiled musician, whose own disappointments nearly destroy their two daughters. In exquisitely crisp, spare and subtle prose, Lan Samantha Chang untangles how an immigrant can hunger for love, for acceptance, and for what they have left behind. An undeniable classic of modern American literature, Hunger is a haunting collection of stories, suffused with quiet beauty and longing. Part of the Pushkin Press Classics series: timeless storytelling by icons of literature, hand-picked from around the globe Lan Samantha Chang is the author of the award-winning books Hunger and Inheritance, and the novel All Is Forgotten, Nothing Is Lost. Her work has been translated into nine languages and has been chosen twice for The Best American Short Stories. A recent Berlin Prize winner, she has received creative writing fellowships from Stanford University, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Samantha lives in Iowa City, where she is director of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Her most recent novel, The Family Chao, is also published by Pushkin Press and was one of Barack Obama's Books of Summer 2022.Trade Review'Luminously elegiac stories... Complex and rueful, her fiction gives voices to internal struggles, catalogues of loss' - New York Times Book Review'Her stories are most delicately and precisely written, and almost unendurably sad. However, there's compensation of a kind in the unobtrusive courage of the women she writes about' - Penelope Fitzgerald'A work of gorgeous, enduring prose' - Washington Post'Spare and haunting tales that ask ordinary questions about that extraordinary emotion: love' - Chicago Tribune'Intelligent in concept and stylishly executed'' - Tatler

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Book SynopsisWith nationalism and the far right on the rise across Europe and North America, there has never been a more important moment to face up to what we, in Britain, are doing to those who seek sanctuary. Still the UK detains people indefinitely under immigration rules. Bail hearings go unrecorded, people are picked up without notice, individuals feel abandoned in detention centres with no way of knowing when they will be released. In Refugee Tales III we read the stories of people who have been through this process, many of whom have yet to see their cases resolved and who live in fear that at any moment they might be detained again. Poets, novelists and writers have once again collaborated with people who have experienced detention, their tales appearing alongside first-hand accounts by people who themselves have been detained. What we hear in these stories are the realities of the hostile environment, the human costs of a system that disregards rights, that denies freedoms and suspends lives.

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Book SynopsisA group of teenage boys take turns assessing each other’s changing bodies before a Friday night disco… A grieving woman strikes up an unlikely friendship with a fellow traveller on a night train to Kiev… An unusually well-informed naturalist is eyed with suspicion by his comrades on a forest exhibition with a higher purpose… The stories shortlisted for the 2021 BBC National Short Story Award with Cambridge University take place in liminal spaces – their characters find themselves in transit, travelling along flight paths, train lines and roads, or in moments where new opportunities or directions suddenly seem possible. From the reflections of a new mother flying home after a funeral, to an ailing son’s reluctance to return to the village of his childhood, these stories celebrate small kindnesses in times of turbulence, and demonstrate a connection between one another that we might sometimes take for granted. The BBC NSSA is one of the most prestigious prizes for a single short story, with the winning author receiving £15,000, and four further shortlisted authors £600 each. James Runcie is joined on the judging panel by a group of acclaimed writers and critics including: Booker Prize shortlisted novelist Fiona Mozley; award winning writer, poet and winner of the Desmond Elliott Prize, Derek Owusu; multi-award winning Irish novelist and short story writer, Donal Ryan; and returning judge, Di Speirs, Books Editor at BBC Radio.

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Book SynopsisA Jewish woman has been having unnatural thoughts about the softness of another woman's skin. A feminist arranges to meet her online troll. A woman worries, under her duvet, whether she should sit content in a marriage that has turned comfortable...that is, until she falls in love with a tree... Short stories of midnight musings, of women itching to be heard and of delightful insanities.Trade Review"These eerie short stories themed around mental health, grief, and dysfunctional relationships are a strange delight to read. Victoria Richards' prose is artful, ethereal, and thrilling." - Golnoosh Nour; "If there is a better way to spend an evening than curled up on an armchair with this beautiful book, then I don't know about it and I don't want to. Richards is a master storyteller and a generous god - always tempting you further into the myriad worlds she creates. These are stories which demand to be read and then read again. They are stories which stay with you long after you've had to put the book down and get up from the chair. They are stories about love and womanhood and faith and loss and longing; about drowning and breathing; about being alive and what we can do about it." - Amelia Loulli, Poet

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Book Synopsis'Anyone can see darkness. It takes courage to look for light.' Across the small town of Henford, families are preparing for the holiday season. A teacher, pulled in every direction by family and work, forms an unexpected friendship following a collision; a mother and daughter unexpectedly forced to stay with the in-laws open themselves to new family; a carer on New Year's Eve brings something more than her nursing skills when she visits the client no one wants to see. Meanwhile, in nearby Ashdown House, an elderly woman hopes to bring her family and community together as they never have been before. Told through a series of heart-warming and uplifting short stories, 'Winter Lights' explores the complexities, struggles and joys of everyday life, showing that light can still bloom even in the darkest places.Trade Review'Beautifully and sensitively written...This is a brilliant book, and made me fall in love with short stories again' -Anne Booth, author of 'Small Miracles'; 'Delightful and surprising... funny and sharp' -Fran Hill, author of 'Cuckoo in the Nest'; 'Beautifully observed, warm-hearted and generous' -Sarah Jane Butler

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Book SynopsisWINNER OF THE 2013 WORLD FANTASY AWARD Episodes from the casebook of a police officer in the West Midlands: A young woman needs help in finding the buried pieces of her lover... so he can return to waking life. Pale-faced thieves gather by a disused railway to watch a puppet theatre of love and violence. Why do local youths keep starting fires in the ash woods around a disused mine in the Black Country? A series of inexplicable deaths uncover a secret cult of machine worship. When a migrant worker disappears, the key suspect is a boy driven mad by memories that are not his own. Among the derelict factories and warehouses at the heart of the city, an archaic god seeks out his willing victims. Blurring the occult detective story with urban noir fiction, Where Furnaces Burn offers a glimpse of the myths and terrors buried within the industrial landscape. First published in 2012, Joel Lane’s World Fantasy Award-winning collection is a true modern classic of weird fiction that cemented his place as one of the most important and distinctive British writers of the weird.

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Book SynopsisCardiff Writers’ Circle was formed in 1947 and is joined here by other local writinggroups, all lending their imaginations to a wide variety of styles, genres, and formats. You may laugh. You may cry. You may gasp at the sheer beauty contained within these pages. But above all, you will be holding a snapshot of the fantastic talent that exists today in Cardiff, city of the dragon.

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Book SynopsisThree great Canadian short story writers with a Welsh connection. Four mesmerising stories interwoven with words, images and memory as ideas of your place in the world shifts across tides of time and energy, people and place.

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Book SynopsisA new story collection focused on the Heartland from Michael Martone, one of America's most prolific and important contemporary authors.In Plain Air: Sketches from Winesburg, Indiana, Michael Martone places steady fingers on the arrhythmic pulse of the Flyover as he conjures Winesburg, Indiana, a fictional town and all of its inhabitants’ lyric philosophies, tales of the mundane, and the sensation of being “lost” in the heart of the heart of the country. But here, in over one-hundred and thirty short fictions, even as there is much sadness, the citizens continue to tinker and create, marvel and wonder in the midst of ruin and rust. These stories may capture lives of quiet desperation, but in so doing, they create a kind of hobbled poetry in the spontaneous sketches of the ordinary made extraordinary, the regular irregularities, the familiar knocked off-balance with a glancing blow. From the overly overworked City Manager, to Margaret Wigg’s obsessively collected collection of library stamps, to Blanche’s air-filled aluminum ice cube tray, the town is a community of everyday odd-balls rife with isolation and idiosyncrasy. They are people trying to get by; that question loss as well as passion, devotedness, childhood wonder, and kinship in their observations and daily routines. With undeniable humor, intelligent quirk, and earnest longing for a pastoral passing into the annals of deep Midwestern time, Michael Martone crafts an unforgettable panoply of characters whose perspectives invite us to alternatively interpret our own commonplaces.Trade ReviewBy the end of this collection, you’ve been to Winesburg, Indiana. You can recall its businesses and its citizens and whatever it is that is each person’s personal business—what makes them tick, individually—what makes them get up in the morning to try, again, to live with themselves and with each other—what makes the many of them so very individual in these vivid and intricate snapshots of their souls. — Molly Gaudry, We Take Me Apart Michael Martone is our curator of community, our impresario of Americana, our chandler of the national flame. Plain Air is a wonder. It offers history, wit, and wistfulness all at once—a portrait of a small town made whole by its citizens’ laughters and loves. — Alyson Hagy, Scribe Plain Air comprises a collage of municipal sadnesses—a poverty of tourists, an amalgam of quiet losses, a blank billboard, an abandoned floss factory, a low-grade apprehension in the face of something already passed, an inventory of forlorn hearts, a docufiction about the exceptional mundane. His Winesburg, Indiana, metaphorizes Flyover as an existential condition with innovative lyricism, meticulous intelligence, and an always-arched eyebrow. — Lance Olsen, Skin Elegies and My Red HeavenPlain Air puns and pranks, twists and turns with every new sketch on every page. A play on Sherwood Anderson’s classic collection, Martone takes us to Winesburg, Indiana, a post-industrial town with its dying eraser factory, and a cast of characters more alive in their passions, obsessions, and idiosyncrasies than any in contemporary fiction. What a great read. I laughed, cried, and was moved by the characters’ desire to finally take their place in the intricate web of Winesburg, all the way to their vanishing points in the mural on the post office wall. — Mary Swander, The Girls on the RoofMichael Martone's Plain Air sketches, like prose poems, erupt sharp with insight . . . They're really weird and profound. What more could you want? — Terese Svoboda, Great American DesertMisfits rejoice! Michael Martone's Plain Air gives voice, vision, and velocity to the ordinary and quiet lives of people overlooked, undervalued, and sometimes erased. Each sketch of humanity draws a reader in to the heart of the matter--a curation of basic being. I laughed, I cried, I held my breath, I felt at home. What beautiful little heart bomblettes. — Lidia Yuknavitch, Thrust & Verge

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Book SynopsisIn the Event of Contact chronicles characters profoundly affected by physical connection, or its lack. Among them, a scrappy teen vies to be the next Sherlock Holmes; an immigrant daughter must defend her decision to remain childless; a guilt-ridden woman is haunted by the disappearance of her childhood friend; a cantankerous crossing guard celebrates getting run over by a truck; an embattled priest with dementia determines to perform a heroic, redemptive act, if he can only remember how; and a young girl navigates crippling aversion to touch, even from her sisters. Amidst backgrounds of trespass and absence, the indelible characters of In the Event of Contact seek renewed belief in themselves, recovery, and humanity.Trade Review"These are characters who are desperate to feel, and Rohan’s keen sensitivity to the many textures of longing and loss bring their exquisite stories to life." —Arianna Rebolini, BuzzFeed "[Rohan's] work is imbued with the empathy of faith, with pain and heartbreak but not cynicism or despair. Her stories of hard-won resilience are welcome reading in these challenging times." —Rene Ostberg, U.S. Catholic Magazine "In the Event of Contact is a timely read about the importance of connecting with other people on our own terms." —Evette Dionne, BITCH Magazine Selected Feminist Reads for May, 2021 "In the Event of Contact is one of 2021's must-read collections." —BUSTLE “With In the Event of Contact, Rohan explores the literal edges of the human experience—what we desire to bring into contact with our bodies, and just as importantly, what we don’t. She counts herself among the excellent women writers who continue to unflinchingly explore the realm of the body, and through this lens, infuse the short story form with a pervasive loneliness and ambient anxiety that mirror the uneasiness of our times: authors like Carmen Maria Machado, Roxane Gay, Ottessa Moshfegh, Sarah Rose Etter, Amber Sparks, and Sara Lippmann. Add Ethel Rohan’s name to that list.” —Joe Kapitan, The Rumpus “Through her brilliant storytelling, Rohan explores the deep desire for human relationships, and the physical or psychological distances that affect them.” —Emily Park, Booklist “Social distancing marked the lonely horror that was this year; paradoxically a demonstration of how affection and empathy for our fellow humans required us to retreat into ourselves, connection now defined by the absence of contact. Ethel Rohan’s book of short stories examines something similar in its evocation of what connection or its lack can do to us. In the Event of Contact is a loving homage to humanity in all its complexity.” —The Millions "Cultures merge, too, in the collection, Rohan’s meticulously crafted stories reflecting emigration and identity struggles on top of clashing relationships...In the Event of Contact reverberates with this ultra-personal stake, made palpable in the cultures, characters, and relationships woven into its earnest, artful, and heartfelt stories." —J.A. Tyler, Ploughshares Magazine "A striking collection about loners." —Publishers Weekly “The stories straddle the faultlines of the lives of their characters and as a collection quietly and subtly accumulate a potency that by the end leaves the reader breathless.” —Tadhg Carey, The Westmeath Independent “Rohan’s plain prose helps to feature the emotional earthquakes these characters undergo while they’re navigating ordinary happenings, and her masterful use of Irish lilts and rhythms helps to reveal intricate emotional distances between those who left and those who stayed behind, even as it nestles the reader deep into her characters’ hearts and minds.” —Elaine Chiew, Foreword Reviews "Rohan excels in the movement of characters, positioning them as efficiently as a stage manager. She knows at precisely which scene the Peters and the Dohertys of the world should enter, and she understands the limited space she is working with. This control ensures that her stories are never at a loss for momentum...Rohan captures the emigrant experience for what it is, a process of becoming an alien in two countries — and as glad as her characters might be that they left, they understand that everywhere has become, in some way, a separate world, in which there will still also be men." —Connor Harrison, Necessary Fiction "Much of [Rohan's] work deals in the difficult, but it is of the emotional, spiritual sort—the prose itself flows swift, clear and beautiful, with the musicality of her literary ancestors, and also with ripples of something completely her own." —Alex Capdeville, Scoundrel Time "In each story, Rohan’s prose shines with deft eloquence, depicting her characters with compassion, leavened by insight." —Paul Wilner, Nob Hill Gazette

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Book SynopsisPrepare to be spooked by these chilling Japanese short stories!Strange Tales from Japan presents 99 spine-tingling tales of ghosts, yokai, demons, shapeshifters and trickster animals who inhabit remote reaches of the Japanese countryside.The captivating tales in this volume include: The Vengeance of Oiwa — The terrifying spirit of a woman murdered by her husband who seeks retribution from beyond the grave The Curse of Okiku — A servant girl is murdered by her master and curses his family, with gruesome results The Snow Woman — A man is saved by a mysterious woman who swears him to secrecy Tales of the Kappa — Strange human-like sprites with green, scaly skin who live in water and are known to pull children and animals to their deaths And many, many more! In his introduction, renowned translator William Scott Wilson explains the role these stories play in local Japanese culture and folklore, and their importance to understanding the Japanese psyche. Readers will learn which particular region, city, mountain or temple the stories originate from — in case you're brave enough to visit these haunts yourself!Trade Review"This was a really fun read!…The stories are a mix of folk, traditional, cautionary and campfire tales from all around Japan [and] range from one to two pages…There are some beautiful color illustrations included as well." --A Sunny Library, bookstagram

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Book SynopsisA series of short stories by Baroness Orczy known as The Old Man in the Corner includes an unnamed armchair detective. He studies and solves murders while talking with a female journalist in the corner of a posh London tea room. Will he be able to solve the new case he was appointed to? The collection of the character's early stories is titled with the character's name. It is a collection of thirty-six chapters where some are interesting and amazing, while others can create panic and thrill among the readers. The Old Man in the Corner by Baroness Orczy is a masterwork that sends the reader on an emotional roller coaster. Unlike other books, it shows tragedy in all of its savagery and spirit. The novel is gripping and fast-paced yet poignancy and sorrow are the defining characteristics of the classic.

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Book SynopsisFyodor Dostoevsky's psychological book Crime and Punishment examines the ethical and psychological consequences of committing a crime. The plot centres on Rodion Raskolnikov, an underprivileged young student from St. Petersburg who decides to murder a pawnbroker in order to get her money. Raskolnikov battles guilt and paranoia after the crime, and as he seeks to avoid the repercussions of his conduct, his mental and physical health suffers. Several individuals with connections to Raskolnikov, including as his family, acquaintances, and the police officer looking into the murder, are also followed throughout the story. Dostoevsky explores topics like poverty, morality, redemption, and the essence of justice via his short stories. Raskolnikov finally confesses to the crime and accepts his penalty, which results in his ultimate redemption as he becomes more and more isolated and tortured by his guilt. The book explores the human mind and the effects of moral failings in a nuanced and thoughtful manner. Ultimately, Crime and Punishment is a fascinating and challenging book that explores human nature and the effects of our choices, captivating and challenging readers in the process. It is regarded as a masterwork of psychological realism and one of the finest literary works in the Western canon.

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Book SynopsisA beautifully crafted, devastating short fiction collection from the Bram-Stoker finalist and author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke and Other Misfortunes. Includes an introduction from acclaimed bestselling author Chuck Wendig. Eight stories of dark fiction from a master storyteller. Exploring the shadow side of love, these are tales of grief, obsession, control. Intricate examinations of trauma and tragedy in raw, poetic prose. A woman imagines horrific scenarios whilst caring for her infant niece; on-line posts chronicle a cancer diagnosis; a couple in the park with their small child encounter a stranger with horrific consequences; a toxic relationship reaches a terrifying resolution... A beautifully crafted, devastating short fiction collection from the Bram Stoker Awards (R) finalist and author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke and Other Misfortunes.Trade ReviewPraise for The Trees Grew Because I Bled There: Collected Stories"The stories collected here are by turns confident, brutal, and breathtaking... must-read horror" The New York Times“These stories are body horror at its best—but they also enter the realms of dark relationships, intrusions that change our lives forever, obviously not for the best, the fear of illness, of taking care, of love, of obsession, of attachment. They are nightmarish and they are deeply human. I loved them and also my jaw dropped at how daring they are, how far they go. Eric LaRocca is not only good: there’s courage in his literature.” Mariana Enriquez, author of The Dangers of Smoking in Bed“The Trees Grew Because I Bled There holds you in thrall until the final transgressive act. Here is a collection of stories at once sophisticated and deeply unsettling, each bolder and more spellbinding—and more revelatory—than the last. Eric LaRocca is one of the horror genre’s most vital voices.” Andy Davidson, author of The Hollow Kind“With The Trees Grew Because I Bled There, Eric LaRocca has woven a tapestry of some of the grimmest and most unsettling stories I have read in a long time, though he does so with a poet’s touch and a surgeon’s steady hand. Terrifying, poignant, and assured, this collection has opened up a wound only to climb inside and fester. Highly recommended.” Ronald Malfi, author of Come With Me“Eric LaRocca’s The Trees Grew Because I Bled There is a staggering, in-depth study of the restless ghosts that haunt the human heart. The stories within this book are emotionally violent, psychologically bruising. What impresses me most is how LaRocca uses carnage of the flesh as a means for exposing the howling spirit trapped within each one of us, crucified to the page for our pleasure.” Philip Fracassi, author of A Child Alone with Strangers“This collection is sublime grounded horror. These stories could be happening in your neighborhood or in the lives of one of your friends, which makes it even more disturbing. Every story is unique in the way it builds aching tension. I read it in one day. Definitely a must read.” V. Castro, author of The Queen of the Cicadas and The Haunting of Alejandra“A powerful collection of eight startling stories. Highly recommended.” Ellen Datlow, editor of the annual series The Best Horror of the Year"LaRocca’s sharp, incisive writing shines a bright light on the disgust, pain, and trauma wriggling under conventional behavior and polite speech... deeply unsettling, beautifully crafted, and difficult to put down once it’s started." Booklist, starred review"LaRocca displays his signature style of rendering grotesque and brutal subject matter in exquisite prose... visceral depictions of unhinged psyches and unflinching body horror throughout will please LaRocca’s fans—and ought to earn him some new ones." Publishers Weekly“Magnificent stories that explore the darkest depths of the human soul. Lyrical, heartbreaking, devastating—this is literary horror at its finest.” Tim Waggoner, author of Your Turn to Suffer“Sometimes you meet someone and within a few minutes you know you're going to be the best of friends. That's how I felt about this book within a few sentences. For such a slim volume it packs a huge punch, touching on Ray Bradbury and Roald Dahl, but completely its own. I felt a pain in my chest during some of the stories, a visceral anxiety to some of the writing. Eric LaRocca is truly original, truly subversive, and truly talented.” Priya Sharma, author of Ormeshadow“Something is rotten at the heart of LaRocca’s literary world. An unease, a disquiet, a world-spanning cancer. Grief and horror unfold in tandem in one of the most original and startling collections I’ve read in a long while. The Trees Grew Because I Bled There is a dark elegy and not one to be taken lightly. Don’t miss it.” John Hornor Jacobs, author of A Lush and Seething Hell

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Book SynopsisA deluxe edition of new writing and tales rooted in ancient culture, this volume explores the deep-seated supernatural element in African storytelling: from the spirits and ancestors of folklore to the vibrantly modern ghosts of today's horror. New and contemporary stories from African voices complement poignant folktales from around the continent.

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Book SynopsisFollowing the great success of our Gothic Fantasy deluxe edition short story compilations, including Cosy Crime, Murder Mayhem and Lost Worlds, this exciting title in the series is packed with amateur detectives solving mysterious murders, suspicious butlers and terrifying encounters set in locked rooms, stately mansions, haunted castles and eerily silent libraries. This collection contains our usual mix of classic and brand new writing, with delightful tales of dastardly dealings from authors such as Wilkie Collins, Anna Katharine Green, Gaston Leroux, Edgar Wallace and Oscar Wilde. Of course, new stories from contemporary authors give a voice to new writers through our open submission windows. The modern writers chosen from submissions and included here are: Steve Carr, Deborah L. Davitt, Lucy Ann Fiorini, Sahara Frost, Philip Brian Hall, Amanda Justice, Felicia Lee, Tom Mead, Wendy Nikel, Patsy Pratt-Herzog, Louise Taylor, and E.G. Thompson.

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Book SynopsisThis hilarious collection of short stories from the award-winning humorist Simon Rich includes the story that inspired the Seth Rogen comedy An American Pickle. Having skewered the problems of falling in and out of love in The Last Girlfriend on Earth, Simon Rich's next book is another subject we can all relate to: parents and their kids. From the perils of raising an actual monster in Manhattan - it's pretty hard to find teachers who really understand the talents of a five-year-old with horns and a taste for blood - to Sell Out, the story of Simon's ancestor, returned to life decades after an industrial accident involving pickling brine, these stories are inventive, witty and sometimes a bit too much like real life.Trade ReviewSimon Rich is outrageously, lavishly gifted -- Caitlin MoranRich is seriously funny * GQ *Arguably the wittiest American humourist of his generation * Guardian *A James Thurber for our times, in Borges' suit, wearing Flann O'Brien's hat -- Ian McMillan * BBC Radio 3 The Verb *I lolled - how fabulously funny [on Twitter] -- Lauren LaverneSimon Rich is a comedic shape shifter, adopting the plights of hamsters and hipsters alike, and Spoiled Brats is vividly hilarious in the way Woody Allen and Donald Barthelme are vividly hilarious. Simon Rich is also much taller in real life than you'd think. Like the reverse of an actor. -- Sloane Crosley, author of I Was Told There’d Be Cake and How Did You Get This NumberI can't recommend any Simon Rich book - especially this one - highly enough. From the hyper-competitive rituals of Scrabble players to the laments of a grieving, widowed hamster in an elementary school classroom, each story in Spoiled Brats opens with a brilliant comedic perspective that only gets funnier, more fascinating, more surprising, and more insightful from there. First-rate comedy with a heartbeat, this is one of my favorite books from one of my favorite authors. -- B.J. Novak, author of One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories and star of "The Office"Simon Rich is the funniest writer alive -- Matt Haig * Twitter *If you don't yet know about Simon Rich, you just got lucky. If you do, you'll need no encouragement from me to get hold of his latest collection of short stories ... His sheer invention is captivating. Rich has a wonderful way of making a familiar situation strange and then presenting it in deceptively simple language, within a perfectly lucid, concise structure ... Genius ... He is a Thurber, even a Wodehouse, for today. Who could ask for more? You can give his books to people and just watch them laugh. Only after you've snorted through them yourself, though. -- David Sexton * Evening Standard *I discovered myself reading Spoiled Brats with a broad grin, only interrupted with an equally broad laugh ... A mix of gentle surrealism and smiley satire, the stories are bright, witty and occasionally tart. -- Sam Kitchener * Sunday Telegraph *Simon Rich...is in the 'Blazing Saddles' phase of his writing career... as hilarious a portrait as you'll find of the self-involved, easily outraged, post-post-post-ironic world into which we've dumped the next generation. -- Patton Oswalt * New York Times Book Review *Simon Rich is very much laugh-out-loud funny. He can conjure authentic, from-the-abdomen laughter on almost every page. He stacks surrealism on top of slick satire on top of pure childish silliness in such a brilliant and condensed way, there are sometimes three laugh-out-loud moments within the same paragraph ... He is exactly the right kind of writer for the internet: funny, high-concept, accessible, short, sharable, a James Thurber for the Twitter age ... this collection of stories isn't simply the funniest book of the year. It might just make us think about the spoiled brats we've become. -- Matt Haig * Guardian *Spoiled Brats reads like Kafka with jokes...It bounces from the ridiculous to the sublime: every page bursts with a new gag or three, but despite its seemingly bright, zingy, occasionally (and deservedly) tart tone, you'll be struck by a tender humanity, and like the best satire, a deep sense of morality. -- Sunil Badami * Sydney Morning Herald *The American novelist and screenwriter Simon Rich writes the kind of humorous books you dearly wish that editors on this side of the Atlantic would be more frequently brave enough to commission: loose, chaotic collections of essays, united by the vaguest of themes (in this case, children who are thoroughly oblivious to just how good life in the 21st century is for them) whose point, above all, is to raise as many laughs as possible ... Spoiled Brats cements Rich's reputation as a James Thurber for the iPhone generation. Best of all are two essays where the 30-year-old Rich pokes fun at his own privileged upbringing: one narrated by the neglected hamster at his prep school, another where his ancestor, a pickle-factory worker, wakes up in the modern world, having been preserved in brine, and proceeds to illustrate just how trifling Rich's (and by extension 21st-century New York's) day-to-day problems are. This is the work of a joyous, untrammelled imagination, with a level of self-awareness beyond its years. -- Tom Cox * Guardian *

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Book SynopsisWinner of the 2022 OCM Bocas Prize for Fiction.Shortlisted for the Society of Authors' McKitterick Prize 2022.Finalist of the 2022 Firecracker Award in Fiction.Coconut trees. Carnival. Rum and coke. To many outsiders, these and other sunny images are all they know about life in the Caribbean. However, if you want to learn how the locals truly live and experience the dark and often harrowing truths that lurk behind the idyllic imagery of Caribbean culture, then come visit the town of Pleasantview.Come during election season, and see how one candidate sets out to slaughter endangered turtles - just for fun. Or come on the day the other candidate beats his "outside-woman," so badly she ends up losing their baby. Then come on the night of the political rally, where this grieving woman exacts a very public revenge. Stay a while, and see how this single event has a trajectory far beyond the lives of the immediate actors, with often tragic and heartbreaking consequences.Written in a remarkable combination of Standard English and Trinidad Creole, Pleasantview showcases the entrenched political, racial, and class dichotomies of life in Trinidad: the generosity (yet cruelty) of the average Trini; the sense of optimism (and yet, despair) which permeates everyday interaction; and the musicality of Caribbean creole (kriol) expression that masks an ingrained and frequently violent patriarchy.Merging the vibrancy and darkness of recent Caribbean writers such as Ingrid Persaud and Claire Adam with the linguistic experimentation of Marlon James's A Brief History of Seven Killings, Pleasantview is a landmark work in international fiction.Trade ReviewCeleste Mohammed forces you to travel with her characters. You see their lives and their world as they do, on foot. You walk in her characters' shoes. Mohammed is a skillful storyteller, so the journey educates and exhilarates you, Mohammed invents a clear, crackling town/district, Pleasantview, a bustling, hustling side of Trinidad, where few of us have ever been, or will ever go. Pleasantview forces us to look at how we behave when uncontained, when unconstrained, when our lack of morality unmoors us. * A.J. Verdelle, author of The Good Negress *These stories are full of unexpected twists and connections and infused with humor. They herald the arrival of an intriguing new voice. * Ingrid Persaud *Pungent and searing, this is a refreshing portrait of island life told in stories that are crafted with candor and movement. Bursting with wisdom and humanity, it's hard to believe that this book is Mohammed's debut. * Candice Iloh *The residents of the fictional Trinidadian town of Pleasantview are divided by mistrust and racial and ethnic tension, but they are forever bound to each other by their shared histories and secrets. From Omar who is forced to confront his boss's corruption, to Miss Ivy in her employer's hand-me-down fur coat outside the police station, Mohammed's characters demand to be acknowledged. In this beautifully written debut, Mohammed gives voice to the silenced and the overlooked. Pleasantview sizzles with originality and heart and introduces a fearless new writer. * Hester Kaplan, author of Unravished *Pleasantview offers the reader a sharp and fearless view of the dark underbelly of life in Trinidad, filled with unforgettable characters that we meet in do-or-die situations. Marked by male violence, political underhandedness, and economic desperation, Pleasantview also demonstrates Mohammed's remarkable range as a writer as she moves seamlessly from callousness to tenderness, humor to sorrow, lyricism to minimalism in a work that lingers in the reader's mind long after the final page. This is a thrilling debut. * Laurie Foos, author of Ex Utero and The Blue Girl *As James Joyce did for Dublin, Celeste Mohammed holds up a polished mirror to the inhabitants of the fictitious Trinidadian town of Pleasantview and dares the reader to take an unflinching look at a multi-ethnic society that is vibrant and joyous but riddled with corruption and the exploitation of women, the young, and the vulnerable. Mohammed's writing is smart, funny, and enlivened by everyday Trinidadian vernacular, creating rich and lively portraits of a range of Trini characters. A formidable debut, Pleasantview's razor-sharp observations of misogyny and the abuse of power are leavened by humor and a pitch-perfect ear for the language of human foibles. * Tony Eprile, author of The Persistence of Memory *In one of Chekhov's stories, a character says that every happy man should have someone who taps at his door with a little hammer, reminding him that there are unhappy people in the world. Reading Celeste Mohammed's novel-in-stories makes me think of that magical little tap-except that the door opens not to a vision of unhappiness, but to a world crammed with life that you never knew existed. * Claire Adam, author of The Golden Child *The residents of Pleasantview come to vivid light in this extraordinary debut from Celeste Mohammed. Each slice of life in this Trinidadian village cuts clean to the bone, revealing how people are both complicated and complicit in the way we break each other's hearts and bodies. From the riveting opening to the aching end, Mohammed's gift for giving voice to each character is glorious. * Tracey Baptiste *

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Book SynopsisJun’ichirō Tanizaki is one of the most prominent Japanese writers of the twentieth century. This book presents three powerful stories of family from the first decade of Tanizaki’s career. Written in different genres, they are united by a focus on mothers and sons and a concern for Japan’s traditional culture in the face of Westernization.Trade ReviewThough Tanizaki was prolific, by now most of his major works have found their way into English. That there are still delights to be uncovered, however, is confirmed by the arrival of Longing and Other Stories . . . the stories are satisfying in themselves and additionally pleasing for their hints of an emergent mastery. -- Brad Leithauser * Wall Street Journal *Tanizaki enthralls with sharp, human(e) observations. -- Terry Hong * Booklist *A kind of master class in voice . . . The world of literature is much richer now that Longing and Other Stories is available for English readers. -- Marissa Moss * New York Journal of Books *This is a beautiful and immaculate Japanese short story collection from one of Japan’s greatest writers. -- Willow Heath * Books and Bao *A fine and nicely varied little sampler of Tanizaki's early writing. -- M.A. Orthofer * Complete Review *These three early works by Jun’ichirō Tanizaki explore family bonds—the mother-son relationship in particular—using different angles and styles: dreamy and lyrical, painfully realistic, tragically fraught. In stories rendered with elegant precision by the veterans Anthony H. Chambers and Paul McCarthy, Tanizaki masterfully probes the complexities of the human heart. -- Juliet Winters Carpenter, translator of Minae Mizumura’s An I-NovelAmong the most original and insightful novelists of twentieth-century world literature, Tanizaki creates richly idiosyncratic characters embodying the paradoxes of modern life. As deftly translated by veteran Tanizaki specialists Chambers and McCarthy, his short fiction will fascinate and delight readers. -- Keiichiro Hirano, award-winning author of A ManChambers and McCarthy capture well distinctly different voices in these early Tanizaki stories exploring three modes of storytelling. Lyrical dream-memory, naturalistic fictionalized self-revelation, and ironic commentary on conventional social morality presage the author’s later writing. The afterword draws on the translators’ deep knowledge of Tanizaki’s work to enhance our understanding. -- Phyllis Lyons, translator of Tanizaki’s In Black and White: A NovelVivid yet hazy, nostalgic and soothing yet disturbing, Tanizaki’s tale of longing for the mother is made available in this beautiful translation, together with two other strikingly different “mother” narratives. This book expands and enriches the Tanizaki corpus in English. -- Tomoko Aoyama, author of Reading Food in Modern Japanese LiteratureIn all of these three very different stories we hear Tanizaki’s distinctive voice and enjoy the products of his overwrought imagination. This translation is a valuable addition to the canon. -- Lesley Downer * Times Literary Supplement *There’s a tremendous sense of loss shared by all three of the stories collected in this volume, with regret lurking close behind. Whether focusing on a dreamer wandering through a mythic landscape or a man becoming acutely aware of his own flaws, Tanizaki creates characters whose psychologies resonate and whose flaws are engaging. -- Tobias Carroll * Words Without Borders *A brilliantly efficient introduction to [Tanizaki’s] work. -- Anna Hollingsworth * Shiny New Books *Longing and Other Stories provides not only three thematically-linked stories to the canon, the afterword also adds an excellent resource of accessible scholarship and close-reading. -- Alison Fincher * Asian Review of Books *Such brilliant storytelling . . . Tanizaki’s luminous and lucid prose forces the reader into an existential dilemma faced by the author and his characters, one of children torn between the old world and the new. -- Ella Kelleher * Asia Media International *A heady accomplishment . . . Longing and Other Stories blends artful translation, gorgeous prose, and round, imperfect human people that are truly terrifying. -- Caren Gussoff Sumption * Locus Magazine *Tanizaki was a master of different styles and voices, a skill in evident display in these new translations by Anthony H. Chambers and Paul McCarthy . . . this short collection really runs the gamut of mother-son relationships, allowing these disparate stories to achieve something close to unity of theme. Authors often return to the same topic over the course of their careers but few have the breadth of talent to take such fresh approaches each time. -- Iain Maloney * Japan Times *The translators … have rendered the English seamlessly. Moreover, by taking all three stories from early in the author’s career, they give us a valuable window on to his development. They also showcase his inventiveness in tackling entirely different modes of narrative. -- Mark Robinson * Mekong Review *This is literature for the soul at its finest. * Asia Media International *Table of Contents1. Longing2. Sorrows of a Heretic3. The Story of an Unhappy MotherTranslators’ AfterwordAcknowledgments

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