Anthologies & Short Stories

Book SynopsisWriting towards the close of the nineteenth century, Chekhov - himself a country doctor - recorded in his fiction the symptoms of a diseased society. The seven stories collected here are a bleakly savage indictment of a society paralysed by spiritual malaise, and morbidly conscious of evils which can neither be killed nor cured. This volume also contains an Introduction by Ronald Hingley. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.Table of ContentsThe Butterfly ; Ward Number Six ; Ariadne ; A Dreary Story ; Neighbours ; An Anonymous Story ; Doctor Startsev

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Book SynopsisThree Tales offers an excellent introduction to the work of one of the world''s greatest novelists. A Simple Heart is set in the Normandy of Flaubert''s childhood, while Saint Julian and Herodias draw on medieval myth and the biblical story of John the Baptist for their inspiration. Each of the tales invites comparison with one or other of Flaubert''s novels, but they also reveal a fresh and distinctive side to the writers''s genius. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World''s Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford''s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.Trade Review`A. J. Krailsheimer's new translation adheres more faithfully to Flaubert's idiosyncratic sentence structures...authentically captures the original's elliptical nature, with its ghostly authorial voice.' * Sunday Telegraph *`Intensely brilliant prose from the acclaimed author of Madame Bovary. These classic tales reflect Flaubert`s talent as a witty narrator and in particular A Simple Heart presents a wonderfully evocative portrait of 19th Century France.' * Wales on Sunday *Table of ContentsA Simple Heart ; The Legend of Saint Julian The Hospitaller ; Herodias

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Book Synopsis''Excellent, entertaining and ingenious ... from Oscar Wilde to Arthur Conan Doyle, this fine anthology celebrates one of the richest moments in Britain''s literary history'' Sunday TimesThe quarter century between 1890 and the outbreak of the First World War saw an extraordinary boom in the popularity and quality of short stories in Britain, fuelled by a large, eager new magazine readership. The great writers of the age produced some of their finest work, and literary genres - the ghost story, science fiction - took shape. This richly varied, endlessly entertaining anthology brings together authors from Katherine Mansfield to Rudyard Kipling, James Joyce to Saki, H. G. Wells to Rebecca West. It celebrates a teeming, innovative world of literary achievement.Edited with an introduction by Philip HensherTrade ReviewExcellent, entertaining and ingenious ... Outstandingly displays the imaginative zest and subtlety of what Hensher rightly hails as "one of the richest and most accomplished moments in literary history". -- Peter Kemp * Sunday Times *

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Book SynopsisIn Switch Bitch four tales of seduction and suspense are told by the grand master of the short story, Roald Dahl.Topping and tailing this collection are The Visitor and Bitch, stories featuring Dahl''s notorious hedonist Oswald Hendryks Cornelius (or plain old Uncle Oswald) whose exploits are frequently as extraordinary as they are scandalous. In the middle, meanwhile, are The Great Switcheroo and The Last Act, two stories exploring a darker side of desire and pleasure.In the black comedies of Switch Bitch Roald Dahl brilliantly captures the ins and outs, highs and lows of sex.''Dahl is too good a storyteller to become predictable'' Daily TelegraphRoald Dahl, the brilliant and worldwide acclaimed author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, Matilda, and many more classics for children, also wrote scores of short stories for adults. These delightfully disturbing talTrade ReviewOne of the most widely read and influential writers of our generation * The Times *Dahl is too good a storyteller to become predictable * Daily Telegraph *

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Book SynopsisSweeping through crumbling towns, travelling fairs and windswept ports, Gabriel García Márquez introduces a host of extraordinary characters and communities in his mesmerising tales of everyday life: smugglers, bagpipers, the President and Pope at the funeral of Macondo''s revered matriarch; a very old angel with enormous wings. Teeming with the magical oddities for which his novels are loved, Márquez''s stories are a delight.Gabriel García Márquez''s Collected Stories are re-issued on Gabriel García Márquez ''s birthday to celebrate the publication of his books as ebooks for the first time.Trade ReviewMarquez writes in this lyrical, magical language that no-one else can do * Salman Rushdie *

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Book SynopsisDelmore Schwartz became the voice of a new generation, when In Dreams Begin Responsibilities was published in the debut issue of 'Partisan Review' in 1937. The title story tells of an unnamed young man who has a dream that he is in an old-fashioned movie theatre in 1909. As he sits down to watch the film, he starts to realize that it is a motion picture documenting his parents' courtship. At turns he becomes engrossed, upset and outraged, in a story that set the stage for the arrival of an acclaimed literary voice.

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Book SynopsisA trio of intertwined novellas from the 2014 Nobel laureate for literatureTrade Review“Vividly translated by Mark Polizzotti . . . [and] as good a place as any to enter the long, slow-moving river of Modiano’s fiction.”—Alan Riding, New York Times Book Review“Elegant . . . quietly unpretentious, approachable. . . . Though enigmatic and open-ended, Modiano’s remembrances of things past and his probings of personal identity are presented with a surprisingly light touch. He is, all in all, quite an endearing Nobelist.”—Michael Dirda, Washington Post“A timely glimpse at [Modiano’s] fixations. . . . In Mark Polizzotti’s spare and elegant translation, the writing conveys a sense of dreamy unease in which the real, the hypothesized, and the half-forgotten blend into a shimmering vagueness.”—Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal“Mr. Modiano writes clear, languid, and urbane sentences in Mr. Polizzotti’s agile translation. . . . These novellas have a mood. They cast a spell.”—Dwight Garner, New York Times“An excellent place to begin. . . . Here is the bracing darkness at the heart of Modiano’s vision of memory and modern day Paris, . . . a traveling back to travel forward, a journey these novellas pace with the elegance of a solitary walker, moving through a city’s streets, his collar up against the cold.”—John Freeman, Boston Globe“The three novellas that make up Suspended Sentences offer a fine introduction to Modiano’s later work.”—The Economist“Modiano is a pure original. He has transformed the novel into a laboratory for producing atmospheres, not situations—where everything must be inferred and nothing can be proved.”—Adam Thirlwell, The Guardian“A series of meditations on the mutability of memory . . . [that] accumulates force quietly and veers without warning into the dark precincts of Modiano’s life. . . . The writing, translated crisply by Mark Polizzotti, is laced with investigations and speculations, false leads and dead ends.”—Bill Morris, Daily Beast“These three atmospheric novellas demonstrate the range of reading pleasure afforded by Modiano’s approach and the dark romance of his Paris. . . . Each first-person novella is also a portrait of the artist.”—Publishers Weekly“[The novellas] are an excellent introduction to the writer, not least because they show quite how much he retreads the same territory. . . . Modiano is as accessible as he is engrossing.”—Jonathan Gibbs, The Independent“The very resonance of the novellas resides in the way Modiano resists supplying easy solutions or proposing a didactic position. The Nobel laureateship has drawn attention to a writer whose work is engaging and thought-provoking.”—Alexander Adams, Spiked Online“There are few modern writers as pleasurable or interesting to read. Modiano is one of the great writers of our time.”—David Herman, Jewish Chronicle“In poetic prose, Modiano evokes a Paris that no longer exists, yet lingers in the light and shadows of memory.”—Jane Ciabattari, BBC.com“A sympathetic translation of three of Modiano’s novellas . . . reveal the unique qualities of his fictional world which has given rise to an adjective in France, ‘Modianoesque,’ meaning an ambiguous person or situation. . . . These stories are a kind of mood music, frustratingly inconclusive but unexpectedly stirring.”—David Sexton, Evening Standard“Suspended Sentences goes to the heart of Modiano’s technique, his way of setting up a structural skeleton, then allowing imagination (and imaginative uncertainty) not only to fill in the blanks, but to overlay a new, sometimes alternative narrative on that structure: to create words out of silence and, perhaps, a silence out of words.”—West Camel, 3AM Magazine“There are few modern writers as pleasurable or interesting to read. Modiano is one of the greatest writers of our time.”—David Herman, Jewish Chronicle“[The] three novellas published as Suspended Sentences (trans. Mark Polizotti) are terrific, uncanny strange pieces of work about experiencing the past and how to make sense of events.”—Jerome de Groot, History Today“Possess a dreamlike quality, skilfully conveyed in English by Mark Polizzotti. . . . All three novellas, though written as separate works, read like variations of the same wistful melody: each one is a detective story of sorts, in which the narrator attempts to uncover a truth about the past.”—Giulia Miller, Jewish QuarterlyPatrick Modiano is the winner of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Literature“Reading Modiano is like experiencing a very specific flavor you don’t encounter every day—saffron or asafetida, say. He’s direct and precise, but also gently melancholy, like the squeezed essence of passing time. Mark Polizzotti’s translation expertly catches the timbre of his voice.”—Luc Sante“Haunting. Like a master perfumer, Nobel Prize winner Patrick Modiano has crafted a signature scent: his unmistakable blend of nostalgia, grief, love, disquiet, Paris. In any translation, exotic décor comes easy but to capture the atmosphere of the words is much harder—Polizzotti succeeds beautifully in creating the impalpable magic of Modiano’s world in English.”—Damion Searls“Completely, insouciantly, Modiano describes the interiors and essential matter of the French literary imagination. In these fictions, the sworn bewilderment of intimacy as cause and quest and actual topography of narrative becomes an inexhaustible source. And from that source there flows a riverine voice of legends and documentary legerdemain: always candid, always fitly perplexed. In the three novellas gathered as Suspended Sentences, this voice elapses across Paris as it never was, yet somehow must have been. Otherwise, there could be no accounting for acrobats, for Edith Piaf, for collaboration and liberation and the spring of 1968. All of these and more Modiano addresses with a luminous bewilderment more intimately exacting and more precise than any certainty could be.”—Donald Revell, author of Pennyweight Windows: New & Selected Poems“The three novellas included in this volume by this year’s Nobel Prize winner Patrick Modiano offer eloquent testimony to the writer’s remarkable gift for evoking the power of the past over human lives and destinies, and the ephemeral and ultimately mysterious nature of human relationships. They also capture Modiano’s unrivaled ability to describe in limpid and haunting prose the power of a place, Paris, and to make its history and geography come alive in new and unexpected ways. Beautifully translated by Mark Polizzotti, this small volume will familiarize Anglophone readers with the talent and genius of France’s best- kept literary secret.”—Richard J. Golsan, Texas A&M University“The Nobel Prize committee’s abrupt elevation of Patrick Modiano to international prominence makes the publication of these three works particularly valuable; not only has very little of the author’s work appeared in English, but Mark Polizzotti’s long experience as editor, publisher, and translator, together with his truly astonishing familiarity with the French language, has advantageously equipped him to execute his finely-tuned English renderings of these discreetly complex texts. Modiano belongs to one of the great traditions of French fiction, inaugurated by Madame de Lafayette’s The Princess of Cleves, continued (this is a very short list) in Marivaux’s novels, later in Laclos’s Dangerous Liaisons and Flaubert’s Three Tales and A Sentimental Education, in the 20th century variously developed by its three great Raymonds—Radiguet, Roussel, and Queneau—and, greatest of all, Marcel Proust, and in our own time flourishing anew in the pages of Patrick Modiano and Jean Echenoz. To the thousands of French readers of Modiano, declaring him a great writer is obvious, necessary, and inexplicable: he and his tradition depend on intimacy, precision, and a ruthless avoidance of reassuring conclusions—that is, modest qualities. Modiano’s tales are mostly centered on life in outlying parts of Paris during and after World War II; place and time are rendered with alluring exactness, as are their fugitive inhabitants, and all are then inevitably lost in a blur of evanescent clues that leave nothing but an hallucinatory melancholy behind: a melancholy that enchants a rediscovered world with mysterious, hopeless magic. Modiano has said of his work, “I have always felt that I’ve been writing the same book for the past 45 years”; but each novel is unflaggingly fresh, with writing of exemplary purity, depending on nothing but itself for the reality it creates. Now, with Suspended Sentences in hand, you can enter this hauntingly vivid new world. I strongly urge you not to let the opportunity pass you by.”—Harry Mathews

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Book SynopsisA new collection of stories by the acclaimed Ludmila Ulitskaya, masterfully translated into EnglishTrade ReviewA New Yorker Best of the Week Pick“[A] magnificent collection . . . [by] a writer of boundless tenderness.”—Geneviève Brisac, Le MondeA World Literature Today Notable Translation of 2023“[A] collection of economical, honest stories. They are all tinged with a sense of loss, but her spirited characters are determined to spit in the eye of bad faith.”—Eithne Farry, Daily Mail“Magnificent. . . . The Body of the Soul enhances [Ulitskaya’s] reputation as one of the most important Russian writers of her generation. . . . Each story provokes questions about the human condition that take readers far beyond the subject matter. . . . In this brilliant collection, Ulitskaya manages to convey the inexpressible, dazzling readers with her insight.”—Elizabeth Fifer, World Literature TodayPraise for Ludmila Ulitskaya: “One of the most important living Russian writers.”―Gary Shteyngart “Ulitskaya resists reductive ideological thinking, in her fiction as in life. She specializes in swerves of fate, not lockstep plots. Ulitskaya’s signature narrative perspective—a self-consciously feminine eye and ear intently at work—takes in matchmaking possibilities, mundane coincidences, and unexpected human chemistry. . . . The women in Ulitskaya’s work come off as strong and resilient, even magical.”—Leonard Bershidsky, The Atlantic “[Ulitskaya] has become a voice of moral authority for differently minded Russians.”—Masha Gessen, New Yorker

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Book SynopsisBefore Freakonomics and The Tipping Point there was this classic by the 2005 Nobel Laureate in Economics.Trade Review"Schelling's [book] transformed the way many economists think about the relationship between competition and social welfare." -- Robert H. Frank - New York Times

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Book Synopsis*Includes the winner of the 2021 BBC National Short Story Award*''Smart, nuanced and sometimes heart-stopping.'' Anne EnrightOutstanding.' GuardianEleven perfect stories.' Irish IndependentGlorious.' The TimesMy FAVE collection ever.' Pandora SykesIn eleven stories, Intimacies exquisitely charts the steps and missteps of young women trying to find their place in the world. From a Belfast student ordering illegal drugs online to end an unwanted pregnancy to a young mother's brush with mortality, and from a Christmas Eve walking the city centre streets when everything seems possible, to a night flight from Canada which could change a life irrevocably, these are stories of love, loss and exile, of new beginnings and lives lived away from home'.Embedded in these stories are exquisite, often moving descriptions where everyday moments mix with the monumental.' Financial TimesTable of Contents'Heart-stoppingly good.' - Lisa McGee, writer and creator of Derry Girls'Caldwell explores what it means to be a woman with devastating honesty, warmth and compassion. She manages to get underneath the skin of her characters exploring situations which are unique, yet heartbreakingly familiar.' - Jan Carson

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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. This heart is sore and sad. Crossed in love?The manuscript of Giacomo Joyce', written in James Joyce's best handwriting and folded between the covers of a school notebook, was discovered in Trieste. Most likely written in 1914, some of it served as a rehearsal for passages in Ulysses. Had Joyce meant to pillage it or publish it? Either way, this fragmented evocation of unrequited desire is, in the words of Joyce's biographer Richard Ellmann, a work of small, fragile, enduring perfection'.With a new introduction by Colm Tóibín.Bringing together past, present and future in our ninetieth year, Faber Stories is a celebratory compendium of collectable work.

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Book SynopsisLONGLISTED FOR THE JHALAK PRIZE''Wonderful writing.'' SARAH HALL''Dazzlingly good.'' DANIELLE McLAUGHLIN ''Precise, surreal and emotionally devastating'' LUCY CALDWELLHow do you know this is all real and happening? How can you be sure you haven't already died in the earthquake and are just living in the afterlife?'In her highly anticipated English-language debut, Yan Ge explores isolation in nine iridescent, witty and wondrous tales. Both contemporary and ancient, real and surreal, the stories in Elsewhere range from China to Dublin to London and Stockholm.From a group of writers lounging on the edge of a disaster zone to a mandarin ostracised from his old court trying to avoid assassination, and from a woman who inexplicably loses her voice to a couple who meet all too fleetingly at a cinema in Dublin, these are strange and beguiling stories of dispossession, longing and the diasporic experience.'Trade Review'I loved Strange Beasts of China - charged with melancholy surrealism, its preoccupations with being and loneliness are both timeless and all too timely.' - SHARLENE TEO'A fascinating glimpse into the life of a dysfunctional family in modern China.' - MARINA LEWYCKA (on The Chilli Bean Paste Clan)

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Book SynopsisA collection of some of the most famous stories from the master of tomb-dark fear

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Book SynopsisThis collection of fourteen stories corrals plots centred around cats, dogs and insects alongside more exotic incidents involving gorillas, parakeets and serpents – complete with a customary shoal of red herrings.

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Book SynopsisPERFECT for fans of Roald Dahl.Think you know Dahl? Think again. There''s still a whole world of Dahl to discover in a newly collected book of his deliciously dark tales for adults . . . ''Cruelty has a human heart . . .''Even when we mean to be kind we can sometimes be cruel. We each have a streak of nastiness inside us. In these ten tales of cruelty master storyteller Roald Dahl explores how and why it is we make others suffer.Among others, you''ll read the story of two young bullies and the boy they torment, the adulterous wife who uncovers her husband''s secret, the man with a painting tattooed on his back whose value he doesn''t appreciate and the butler and chef who run rings around their obnoxious employer.Roald Dahl reveals even more about the darker side of human nature in seven other centenary editions: Lust, Madness, Deception, Innocence, Trickery, War and Fear.Trade ReviewFrom Roald Dahl, the master of the sting in the tail, a newly collected book of his darkest stories * from publisher's description *One of the most widely read and influential authors * The Times *That absolute master of the twist in the tale * Observer *

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Book SynopsisFeatures a collection of sixteen stories.Trade Review"If one were never to read any other literature about South Africa, Gordimer's work would be enough. For more than thirty years she has delineated each shift and change in the system in novels and short stories that intertwine the personal with the political. As a literary keeper of records, she has no peer." Penny Perrick, Sunday Times.

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Book SynopsisMines literary gold from the wind-scrubbed landscape of the American West - and from the guarded hopes and gnawing loneliness of the people who live there. This is a story collection about ordinary women, men and children.Trade Review'Stunning ... one of the most compelling and eloquent story tellers of his generation' New York Times 'A collection of stunning impact which marks Ford's arrival at the pinnacle of his craft' Sunday Times 'A marvellous book of short stories ... Rock Springs confirms Ford's place among our finest writers' The Times 'These are beautifully imagined and crafted stories. By turns heart-rending and wickedly funny - and just plain wicked. Ford is a born storyteller with an inimitable lyric voice - and Rock Springs is the very poetry of realism' Joyce Carol Oates

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Book SynopsisSurfacing from the literary underground, Bukowski's wild and immortal stories have become cult favourites. This collection of anecdotal short stories demonstrates Bukowski's compelling semi-autobiographical style and his mastery of visceral language and the depiction of seamy underworlds.Trade ReviewNot since George Orwell has the condition of being down-and-out been so well recorded * New York Times *

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Book SynopsisGirl in Hyacinth Blue tells the story of an imaginary painting by Vermeer, and the aspirations and longings of those whose lives it illuminates, and darkens. From a proud father regretting his lost love to a compromised French noblewoman, from a hanged girl to Vermeer''s own gifted daughter, Susan Vreeland''s beautiful and luminous tales link to form an evocative jewel.Trade ReviewThis is not just another book with a Vermeer on the dust jacket...[but] an illuminating meditation on the nature of art....This beautifully imagined and written book...is a work of art itself' * Sunday Telegraph *UK REVIEWS:'This is not just another book with a Vermeer on the dust jacket...It is an illuminating meditation on the nature of art....This beautifully imagined and written book...is a work of art itself' Sunday Telegraph'Susan Vreeland's...imaginitive, deeply moving triumph' Ms LondonSubtle and atmospheric...an impressive debut. * Publishers Weekly *`...celebrate the skill with which Susan Vreeland evokes the diverse owners of the picture across the ages' IndependentWonderful...Extraordinarily skilled...deft, perceptive, full of learning, deeply moving * Kirkus Reviews *Intelligent, searching and unusual, the novel is filled with luminous moments; like the painting it describes so well, it has a way of lingering in the reader's mind * Katy Emck, New York Times Review of Books *US REVIEWS:A work of art * New York Post *'A work of art' New York Post'Intelligent, searching and unusual, the novel is filled with luminous moments; like the painting it describes so well, it has a way of lingering in the reader's mind' New York Times Book Review'Subtle and atmospheric...an impressive debut' Publishers Weekly'Wonderful...extraordinarily skilled...deft, perceptive...deeply moving' Kirkus Reviews'Wonderful' Salon.com

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Book Synopsis''Immensely entertaining . . . combines the anarchy of Douglas Adams with a Wodehousian generosity of spirit'' Susanna Clarke''Extraordinary, complicated, hilarious, melancholy and terrifying'' Independent---Let me tell you a story. No, wait. One''s not enough. I''ll begin again . . .Let me tell you stories of the months of the year, of ghosts and heartbreak, of dread and desire. Or after-hours drinking and unanswered phones, of good deeds and bad days, of trusting wolves and how to talk to girls. There are stories within stories, whispered in the quiet of the night, shouted above the roar of the day, and played out between lovers and enemies, strangers and friends. But all, all are fragile things made of just twenty-six letters arranged and rearranged to form tales and imaginings. NEIL GAIMAN. WITH STORIES COME POSSIBILITIES. Trade Review'Predominantly dark, the stories are occasionally whimsical and satirical, and at times humorous, but the book's underlying theme is fragility and how people, dreams and hearts are so easily broken' * Sun Herald *'The collection also boasts lush prose...and a winning faith in the enchantment of stories. Expect the unexpected. Then savor the luscious chills.' * Kirkus Reviews *'Gaiman has a deft touch for suprise and inventiveness, and there are inspired moments' * Publishers Weekly *'Immensely entertaining ... Combines the anarchy of Douglas Adams with a Wodehousian generosity of spirit' * Susanna Clarke *

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Book SynopsisA brand new collection from the master of the spine-tingling taleTrade Review'Both noirish and sinister, with violence broiling beneath the calm... Schweblin, at her best, has a knack for eeriness.' -- Sunday Telegraph'[Schweblin's] particular genius lies in the fact that there’s something inherently savage and ungovernable about her work.' -- Financial Times'A quiet, off-centre gem... Disquieting and dark it may be, but it is lifted with sly humour and sharp observation.' -- Marie Claire'The Argentine writer Samanta Schweblin loves Franz Kafka and Elizabeth Strout. It’s hard to conceive of two more different writers. But imagine a fusion between their styles — dreamlike surrealism and taut domestic drama — and you’ll have some idea of Schweblin’s uniquely weird storyscapes.' -- The Sunday Times'Schweblin seems capable above all else of helping us reconsider what stories can be while always making them feel tense, uncomfortable, exhilarating.' -- Los Angeles Times'Schweblin’s characters lose themselves in webs of greed, loss and violence, and their unsettling tales remind us that we are all shaped by the physical spaces that we inhabit and come from.’ -- Monocle'Seven Empty Houses... takes aim at the place we feel safest: home. Darker and more tinged with terror than her breakthrough novel, Fever Dream, this is Schweblin at her sharpest and most ferocious.' -- New York Times Book Review'Samanta Schweblin writes at the very end of the possible. Her stories are mesmerising, exquisitely crafted and deeply unsettling. Each sentence is as precise and invasive as an expertly wielded scalpel.' -- Jan Carson, author of The Raptures‘These seven eerie, uneasy stories seem peculiarly pertinent to the present post-pandemic financial crisis mood of uncertainty… the stories may be spare and pared back, but their cumulative effect is a heightened sense of fear and a disrupted sense of safety.’ -- Daily Mail‘These curiously addictive, tightly wound stories are as compelling as they are alienating... An original and provoking contribution to the literature of unease.’ -- Guardian'Seven Empty Houses sneaks dread like a cursed gift through its pages. In Megan McDowell's translation from the original Spanish, Schweblin's prose is pared to a fine edge… The collection's power is in its capacity to speak to the danger that is waiting, if you would only peer in through the keyhole.' -- Big Issue'Schweblin's newest collection may be her most unsettling... Spectacular and strange... The most disquieting realization of all is perhaps the fact that any of these scenarios could arrive at any moment.' -- Washington Post'Uniquely satisfying.' -- LitHub'The Argentinian author of Fever Dream deftly manipulates expectations in stories of secrets and buried resentments... Part of the pleasure of Schweblin's fictions is how she subverts expectations... Her fractured worlds make compelling reading.' -- Observer'Savage and surreal, the inhabitants of these fictions are on a journey deep into the self – but what they discover is not what they, or the reader might expect... Schweblin’s narrators are gloriously unreliable; her stories have the scope of cinema.' -- The Irish Times'The sinuous, sinister tales that make up Seven Empty Houses are set in the intimate sphere, precisely where we might expect to feel most protected. But the houses of the title are not homes, and some of them do not even belong to their occupants... Marvellously apprehensive.' -- TLS

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Book SynopsisJordan Peele is an Oscar and Emmy Awardwinning writer, producer, and director. His debut feature, Get Out, was released in 2017 to widespread acclaim, earning four Academy Award nominations, winning Best Original Screenplay for Peele. In 2019, Peele wrote, produced, and directed his second feature, Us, which instantly became a smash hit with audiences and critics alike, posting the largest box-office opening for an original horror movie ever. In the summer of 2022, Peele released his third feature, the sci-fi horror epic Nope, which also opened to number one at the box office. Also in 2022, Peele and Monkeypaw released the Henry Selick directed stop-motion film Wendell & Wild for Netflix, which Peele co-wrote, produced, and provided a voice. Prior to Get Out, Peele was the co-creator of Comedy Central's Key & Peele. Across five seasons, the show's unique take on sketch comedy became a viral sensation online. In 2012, Peele formed his filTrade ReviewNot only likely to be the best anthology of the year, but one for the ages. * The Guardian *These tales are all both gruesomely imaginative and firmly rooted in the realities of anti-Black racism and brutality—and there isn’t a weak one in the bunch. This is essential reading for any horror fan. -- Publisher’s Weekly (starred review)Something special in time for Halloween. * Evening Standard *What could be more cathartic than this thoroughly chilling collection of tales featuring spirits, monsters, sinister technology, foreboding hallucinations and more? Running the gamut from grounded-in-reality shocks to fully supernatural thrills there's something for horror fans of all varieties. * Sight & Sound *Real life (traffic stops) and real history (Freedom Riders, lynch mobs) meet speculative fiction and the supernatural in this bone-chilling collection. * Time *An important work in the history of black horror fiction. * Far Out Magazine *In Out There Screaming, [Peele] curates a roster of established names and breakthrough talent to showcase the abundant variety of macabre Black storytelling. It’s clearly conceived as a landmark collection * Esquire, The Best Horror Books of 2023 Will Scare You Sh*tless *

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Book SynopsisIlluminates a place and people and describes the overlapping worlds of an extended Pakistani landowning family. This title includes stories that reveal the complexities of Pakistani class and culture, as they describe the loves, triumphs, misunderstandings and tragedies of everyday life.Trade Review'In Other Rooms, Other Wonders may be fiction but it is of such an authentic stamp that it is history as well, more so by the day, and deserves to be read as such' The Times 'An astonishing collection of tales' William Dalrymple 'These stories are so engrossing that there is a wrench when one ends and the next must begin ... Mueenuddin's stories are intense with emotion' Sunday Times 'Each of the stories opens a door on to a life you had never expected, shines a light for a while and quietly closes the door again ... Mueenuddin writes with the freshness of an exile and the intimacy of an insider about Pakistani culture' Observer

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Book SynopsisLONGLISTED FOR THE DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE 2012Along Cornwall''s ancient coast, from time to time, the flotsam and jetsam of the past can become caught in the cross-currents of the present and a certain kind of magic floats to the surface... Straying husbands lured into the sea can be fetched back, for a fee. Houses creak, fill with water and keep a fretful watch on their inhabitants. And, on a windy beach, a small boy and his grandmother keep despair at bay with an old white door. In these stories, hopes, regrets and memories are entangled with catfish, wreckers'' lamps and baying hounds as Cornish folklore slips into everyday life.Trade ReviewUtterly different in every way from Keret, in their Angela Carter-ish Englishness, but equally compelling -- Erica Wagner * The Times *Wood's finely wrought collection has touches of a benign Angela Carter and recalls the playful yet political transmogrifications of Atwood and Byatt * Guardian *[A] refreshing debut collection about seasiders young and old ... A winning combination of spooky mystery and toast-and-tea cosiness, with much warmth and tenderness, even as an unsettling quality remains, as if Wood might be enjoying a joke you can't quite figure out * Metro *These stories are brilliantly uncanny: not because of the ghosts and giants and talking birds which haunt their margins, but because of what those unsettling presences mean for the very human characters at their centre ... A startling, and startlingly good, debut * Jon McGregor *Wood's imagination is extraordinary; she has an instinct for the inner meanings of myths that echoes the great Angela Carter. Superb -- Kate Saunders * The Times *Cornish folklore for the modern day done in a beautiful, spooky way * Harper's Bazaar *Lucy Wood has an intensity and clarity of expression, deeply rooted in a sense of place. Her stories have a purity and strength, and an underlying human warmth; they resonate in the mind * Philip Hensher *Each year, book blurbs tell you that a thousand new writers have fresh, distinctive voices. But fresh, distinctive voices are actually very rare. Lucy Wood has one * Michel Faber *These are stories from the places where magic and reality meet. It is as if the Cornish moors and coasts have whispered secrets into Lucy Wood's ears and, in response, she has fashioned exquisite tales of mystery and humanity. In her prose, the fabulous moves across the everyday like the surf moving over the shore, shifting it in subtle measures, leaving it altered in its wake * Ali Shaw, author of The Girl with Glass Feet *A vibrant new voice * Tatler *Magical and bewitching * Vogue *Just when you think the world must be running out of good titles for books, along comes the lovely and intriguing Diving Belles - and the book doesn't disappoint, either. Lucy Wood's twelve short stories bring an offbeat magic-realist touch to modern Cornwall ... Throughout the collection, Wood pulls off a careful balancing act between fantasy and reality, folkloric past and prosaic present -- Phil Baker * Sunday Times *This bewitching short story collection draws its power from a deft blend of Cornish folklore and everyday contemporary cares ... magic encroaches upon their narratives as slowly but surely as the incoming tide, so that even the most outlandish goings-on come to seem natural -- Hephzibah Anderson * Daily Mail *Steeped in enchantments and shimmering with an infusion of the area's folklore and landscape ... excellent -- Daneet Steffens * Independent on Sunday *

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Book SynopsisWINNER OF THE 2022 WINGATE LITERARY PRIZEA BOOK OF THE YEAR IN THE FINANCIAL TIMES, ESQUIRE, O, THE OPRAH MAGAZINE, TIME MAGAZINE, LITHUB AND BUSTLE Superb' New York TimesMasterful Supremely intelligent' GuardianDazzling A marvel' Mail on SundayDeftly weaving from one end of life to another from ageing parents to newborn babies, from a young girl's coming-of-age to an old woman's unexpected delivery of a strange new second youth, from mystery and wonder at a life at its close or at a future waiting to unfold, Nicole Krauss's stories illuminate the moments in the lives of women in which the forces of sex, power and violence collide. Beautiful, taut and dark, spinning across the world, from Switzerland, Japan and New York to Tel Aviv, Los Angeles and South America, To Be a Man fearlessly delves into questions of masculinity and violence, regret and regeneration, control and desire. How much do we really know ourselves and each other? These questions linger long after the final paTrade ReviewAn astounding read … A timeless one, too * i *Krauss still somehow seems to have invented a new form for each novel, each story – their characters so fully realized that Krauss’s deft authorial hand is rarely evident * New York Times *A supremely intelligent collection … The question of who we are at different times and places, and with different people, comes masterfully to the fore -- Aminatta Forna * Guardian *Through her beautifully detailed and immersive portrayals, novelist Nicole Krauss explores gender, power and ageing ... Together, the ten stories reflect on what does - or doesn't - make men and women different * Time, Books of the Year *Dazzling … Themes of power, desire and familial crisis are probed unflinchingly and, at times, with eerie prescience * Financial Times, Books of the Year *The acclaimed novelist’s first short story collection is a marvel * Mail on Sunday *Recent first collections of short stories from established novelists such as Zadie Smith (Grand Union, 2019), Joseph O'Neill (Good Trouble, 2018) and Jeffrey Eugenides (Fresh Complaint, 2017) have provided a concentration of high-quality writing, their tales cherry picked from decades of successful publication. Nicole Krauss's debut collection, To Be a Man, joins those ranks * Times Literary Supplement *From a contemporary master comes an astounding collection of ten globetrotting stories, each one a powerful dissection of the thorny connections between men and women ... Each story is masterfully crafted and deeply contemplative, barrelling toward a shimmering, inevitable conclusion, proving once again that Krauss is one of our most formidable talents in fiction * Esquire *An intoxicating blend that plumbs the depths of the human condition … As a calling card for the novels, this collection delivers a strong indication of how electrifying her writing can be. It also holds its own, however, as a powerful literary body in its own right - a nuanced, provocative exploration on what it means to be human * Irish Times *These ten stories – which focus on the relationships between daughters and their fathers, teenage girls and their older lovers, dancers and choreographers – show us that authority and control are subtle, slippery things, not permanently possessed by one gender * Stylist *A sustained shot of brilliance. By turns tight and exuberant, disciplined and expansive, the collection shimmers with insight and moments of perfectly realized beauty. It provokes unabashed laughter, it inspires profound thinking, it delights and disturbs in equal measure * Boston Globe *The acclaimed novelist’s first short story collection is a marvel * Herald *A collection of wonders ... To Be a Man offers the pleasure of being in the company of Krauss’ surprising, challenging mind, tugged along by an imagination that’s ever curious about the limits and possibilities of fiction, of time, and of love * San Francisco Chronicle *Nicole Krauss, one of the great novelists working today, has never shied away from asking the big questions. But as her new collection of short stories shows, her power lies not simply in her own ability to interrogate life - but in the way she calls on her readers to do the same ... One of Krauss’s gifts is her ability to instantly conjure up the intimacies of a world while probing it … Throughout To Be a Man, Krauss’s writing is as lyrical as ever; beautiful phrases just keep on coming’ * Financial Times *Stunning. Intellectually and emotionally intelligent and immaculately written -- LOUISE KENNEDYKrauss’s short stories feel like they could each be unspooled into novels of their own ... To Be a Man's tenseness and uncertainties are strangely suited to the current moment * Wall Street Journal, Best Books of the Autumn *Praise for Nicole Krauss: 'This is one of those novels that makes you miss your train stop, and I say that from experience. It's a beautiful story about two very different but intertwined lives, and it's told with depth, heart, and humour -- Kiley ReidDazzling … Finds Krauss at the top of her game. Blazingly intelligent, elegantly written and a remarkable achievement -- Emily St John Mandel * Guardian *A richly layered masterpiece; creative, profound, insightful, deeply serious, effortlessly elegant, both human and humane. Krauss is a poet and a philosopher, and this latest work does what only the very best fiction can do – startles, challenges and enlightens the reader, while showing the familiar world anew … A pleasure and a privilege to read -- Francesca Segal * Financial Times *A complex and rewarding novel that will linger long after you’ve reached the final page * Stylist *Lucid and exhilarating … A great gift * New York Review of Books *A brilliant novel. I am full of admiration -- Philip RothAs original and impressive a work of fiction as I have encountered in years; a welcome reminder of how a novel can be defiantly and brilliantly novel * New Statesman *A meditation on loss and transformation and an investigation of the mysteries of art and literature and family -- Erica Wagner * Observer *Flawless ... Forest Dark is accomplished, generous and unabashedly serious -- Cressida Connolly * Literary Review *She gives us a deft and mesmerising portrait of female midlife crisis and the desire to ground one’s self in the world … impossible to put down -- Sarah Hughes * Independent *A remarkable accomplishment * Times Literary Supplement *The sort of intelligent, serious novel seldom written nowadays. Those shards of gleaming insight are well worth gathering up * The Times *

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Book SynopsisA woman reports a crime to the police, with unexpected resultsThe grieving widow who finds that she''s about to lose more than just her husband When a man attempts the perfect murder, it''s not quite as easy as he thinksTwo men in prison play a deadly game of ScrabbleA young woman tries to trick an old man and gets more than she bargained forSometimes crimes are solved in ways you can''t explain A murderer about to be hanged finds that''s not the worst thing that can happenYou never know who''s going to turn up at your door Original stories from Mark Billingham, Clare Mackintosh, James Oswald, Jane Casey, Angela Marsons, Harry Bingham, Antonia Hodgson and CL Taylor - specially written for Quick Reads.

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Book SynopsisThe Saint is back - the thirty-five original books starring the debonair classic crime hero are being republished in print and ebook with new introductions and extra content.

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Book SynopsisBorn in Dublin in 1969, Emma Donoghue is an Irish emigrant twice over: she spent eight years in Cambridge doing a PhD in eighteenth-century literature before moving to London, Ontario, where she lives with her partner and their two children. She also migrates between genres, writing literary history, biography, stage and radio plays as well as fairy tales and short stories. She is best known for her novels, which range from the historical (Frog Music, Slammerkin, Life Mask, Landing, The Sealed Letter and The Wonder) to the contemporary (Stir-Fry, Hood, Landing). Her international bestseller Room was a New York Times Best Book of 2010 and was a finalist for the Man Booker, Commonwealth, and Orange Prizes.

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Book SynopsisA stunning new collection of stories from the Man Booker Prize and Whitbread Prize-shortlisted author.Trade ReviewA comic sensibility closer to Alan Bennett or Tom Sharpe. Woodward's rueful amusement isn't frivolity, it's a world view * Financial Times *Gerard Woodward falls squarely between the comic lunacy of American short-form virtuoso George Saunders and the everyday rhapsodies of Raymond Carver * Time Out *Woodward is a skilful writer, with a fertile imagination * Guardian *At his best, Gerard Woodward is one of our finest writers . . . he writes with subtlety and skill * Daily Telegraph *I thought Legoland was incredible. The stories are SO good at capturing the weird nuances of apparently straightforward, everyday interactions. It's not an exaggeration to say that reading them has made me look at the world more carefully. -- Rebbeca Wait, author of THE FOLLOWERSThere are echoes of Milan Kundera and Roald Dahl in these dark and gleeful explorations of the surreal . . . Woodward's stories astonish: they seem to offer a predictable direction, then swerve elsewhere. And just like the toy that lends the title story's playground its name, these narratives are meticulously designed, building into dazzling and surprising structures...the stories range in genre from realism to pseudo-fairytale and in geography from postwar Germany to Colorado...remarkable...a gifted writer * Guardian *

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Book SynopsisThis paperback will feature two Christmas-themed stories by the author: "A Christmas Dream, and How It Came to Be True," a tale inspired by Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol; and "How It Happened."

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Book Synopsis''Breathtakingly good'' Observer''One of the best twist-writers at work today'' Guardian---We are all wearing masks. That''s what makes us interesting. These are stories about those masks, and the people we are underneath them.Secure your own mask before reading. Before being transported to worlds filled with witches, watchers and big black bees, with deathless Kin and pirate girls, with things that prowl in the darkness beyond the circle fire, to find the Shadder lurking at your journey''s end. But then what happens? There''s always something waiting for you. There''s always more. Just keep turning the pages.This cornucopia of storytelling will open your eyes to the darkness around you, the magic and the monsters, the myths and the miracles, and the truths we find in the most extraordinary of places.''He masters fear like no other writer'' Independent on SundayNEIL GAIMAN. Trade ReviewThose unacquainted with the author's catalogue of work will doubtless appreciate his imagination and wit, especially in his efforts to air ideas that all too often remain undiscussed * Skinny *This month's big paperback... An essential purchase for anyone who loves Gaiman's work... he's frequently on top form **** * SFX *

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Book Synopsis''Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold.'' Zelda FitzgeraldLove is not a singular concept. In this collection, seven award-winning authors explore seven concepts of love: from Philautia, self-love, to Agape, love for humanity; and from Storge, a natural affection for family, to Mania, a frenzied, obsessive love. Seven authors; seven short stories; seven flashes of love. This paperback edition of How Much the Heart Can Hold includes the winning short story from the SceptreLoves short story Prize. Trade ReviewWith prose that is occasionally astonishing, these stories muddy the waters of the literature on love in the best possible way. * Financial Times *Startlingly original stories * Sunday Express S Magazine *All seven [stories] score an outright win in the battle to make the ethereal real. * Country Life *Together they assert that love is more heart-breaking and transforming than the word necessarily conveys. * Observer *

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Book SynopsisA sublime and provocative debut from one of the UK's most exciting new writers, for fans of Miranda July, Carmen Maria Machado and Lydia Davis.Trade ReviewA visceral collection ... There's an irresistible tautness to Tan's writing style, and she looks at her characters with such clear-eyed sensitivity that, as a reader, you can barely tear your eyes away. * AnOther magazine *

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Book SynopsisReaders and critics were scandalized by The Awakening when it was first published, but it is now regarded as among the boldest and earliest examples of feminist fiction. It is published here with a selection of Chopin’s strikingly perceptive short stories and introduced by Dr J. Michelle Coghlan, a specialist in American literature.Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket-sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. In The Awakening, Edna Pontellier is on holiday with her husband and two young children at a sleepy resort town on the Louisiana Gulf Coast. There, she is pursued by the charming and unmarried Robert Lebrun. Edna doesn’t play by the rules; flirtation turns into an affair that awakens in Edna her desire to break away from her passionless marriage, her children and the strict conventions of nineteenth-century society.Trade ReviewFrom the first pages of The Awakening we are pulled into territory that feels utterly current and familiar, with an undercurrent more dangerous than romantic comedy * Guardian *Kate Chopin is a pioneer in the treatment of sexuality in American literature . . . She does not speak only to women, but she speaks most powerfully about them * The Times *A Creole Bovary is this little novel of Miss Chopin’s -- Willa CatherChopin’s deceptively slight novel is the kind of book revolutions are made of * Harper’s Bazaar *This landmark feminist novel, first published in 1899, remains startlingly relevant -- Judy BlumeTable of ContentsIntroduction - i: Introduction by Michelle Coughlan Chapter - 1: The Awakening Chapter - 2: The Storm Chapter - 3: Lilacs Chapter - 4: Fedora Chapter - 5: Her Letters Chapter - 6: A Respectable Woman Chapter - 7: The Kiss Chapter - 7: A Shameful Affair Chapter - 8: Suzette Chapter - 9: A Mental Suggestion Chapter - 10: A Point at Issue! Chapter - 11: A Vocation and a Voice Chapter - 12: Madame Célestin's Divorce Chapter - 13: A No-Account Creole Chapter - 14: A Pair of Silk Stockings Chapter - 15: An Egyptian Cigarette Chapter - 16: Miss Witherwell's Mistake Chapter - 17: Wiser Than a God Chapter - 18: Elizabeth Stock's One Story Chapter - 19: A Matter of Prejudice Chapter - 20: Ozème's Holiday Chapter - 21: Miss McEnders Chapter - 22: The Story of an Hour Chapter - 23: The Recovery Chapter - 24: Désirée’s Baby Chapter - 25: La Belle Zoraïde Chapter - 26: Regret Chapter - 27: The Locket Chapter - 28: Athénaïse

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Book SynopsisBased on the popular Netflix series! In the early 20th century, esteemed writer Maurice Leblanc created Arsène Lupin, a French Sherlock Holmes-type who became known as the gentleman thief. Lupin's exploits, in pursuit of the rich, have been documented in more than twenty stories and books, as well as in film. In January 2021, Netflix released a major hit in the entertaining Lupin mystery-comedy series based on the stories.The Best Stories of Arsène Lupin is a collection of the most engaging of Leblanc's writing about Lupin, with a special foreword by West Point associate professor of English and writer Matthew Carey Salyer.

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Book SynopsisRomantic and Horrific Stories (2021) is a collection of short fiction by Bram Stoker. Although he is largely remembered as the author of Dracula (1897), one of the greatest horror novels of all time, Stoker was a versatile writer whose gift for transmitting terror is matched by his ability to craft convincing and moving tales of love. “The Crystal Cup,” first published in London Society in 1872, is the story of an artist who is forced to create a flawless crystal vase for the king. Having left his wife and home behind, he suffers under a series of constraints and grueling demands. “The Chain of Destiny” is a bestselling epistolary tale featuring hypnotism, magic, and supernatural elements that first appeared in The Shamrock in 1875. In Stoker’s 1898 tale “Bengal Roses,” A teenager from the country falls for a beautiful young woman, but soon discovers she loves an older cavalry officer. First published in Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper in 1899, “A Yellow Duster” is the story of two old men whose lifelong friendship is threatened by a mysterious secret. Curious about a dust rag found in his friend’s display case, the story’s protagonist asks the collector of rare and priceless objects why he has preserved something so seemingly worthless.Other stories collected herein include “Our New House,” published in the Boston Herald in 1895, as well as “The Burial of the Rats” and “A Dream of Red Hands,” both of which appeared in Dracula’s Guest and Other Stories (1914). Romantic and Horrific Stories compiles a dozen works of short fiction by Bram Stoker, the secretive and vastly underrated creator of Dracula, one of history’s greatest villains. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Bram Stoker’s Romantic and Horrific Stories is a classic of Irish literature reimagined for modern readers.

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