Anthologies & Short Stories

Book Synopsis‘The god of small stories … A set of polished gems from a master craftsman’ Sunday Times ‘An American master’ Daily Telegraph A woman and man, parted a quarter of a century, reunite in a bar in New Orleans as the St Patrick’s Day parade goes by. A group of friends, all once promising, reunite for dinner when one of their number loses her husband, but the gathering splinters when bitter revelations about their shared past emerge. Two teenage boys sit in a drive-in, the air thick with the scent of gin and popcorn and longing. A visionary collection of luminous stories, imprinting landscape, and great moments in small lives – and of the people we carry with us long after they are gone – Sorry For Your Trouble reconfirms Richard Ford as the master of contemporary American fiction. ‘He writes about human beings and their disappointments with unfailing insight and, while he never mocks his characters, is keenly aware of the absurdity involved in being alive … Exemplary in its nuanced understanding of the relationships between men and women’ ObserverTrade ReviewFord has a gift for nimble interior monologues and a superb ear for the varieties and vagaries of human speech. His prose can strike a Hemingwayesque cadence … One page later, a sparkling note of Fitzgerald … Acutely described settings, pitch-perfect dialogue, inner lives vividly evoked * New York Times Book Review *I can't think of many other writers, living or dead, who have given me so many reasons over the years to slow down on the page and pay attention * Times Literary Supplement *The god of small stories … A set of polished gems from a master craftsman … The prose is terse, the craftsmanship, as always, fine. The reader feels cradled in the capable hands of an expert * Sunday Times *One of the great masters of American literature -- Andrew Marr, BBC Radio 4 ‘Start the Week’He writes about human beings and their disappointments with unfailing insight and, while he never mocks his characters, is keenly aware of the absurdity involved in being alive … Sorry for Your Trouble , is exemplary in its nuanced understanding of the relationships between men and women * Observer *Finely crafted * Mail on Sunday *American master * Daily Telegraph *Late style, in Ford, is loose-limbed, allusive, jokey in a rueful way, and mutedly elegiac … A marvellous writer -- John Banville * Guardian *As you read Richard Ford, the harder you look, the sadder and funnier it gets * Observer *Work of understated power, intelligence and not a little mischief, but one that leaves one wanting – craving – more * Independent *The incomparable Mississippian Richard Ford is a great writer, no question about that. More importantly, he is a great American writer. Throughout his novels and short stories, as well as his astute critical reading of literature, he has fulfilled the main objective of art: the exploration of the self. He has also consistently chiselled away, ever closer to the heart of the United States … He is a writer who has nailed exactly what it is to be alive – no mean feat – and to be alive in the US -- Eileen Battersby * Irish Times *His journalistic eye for the revealing detail, his knack for tracing the connections between the public and the personal, his gift for capturing the precariousness of daily life * The Times *

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Book SynopsisA ground-breaking anthology of the best contemporary northern writing, showcasing the wealth of literary talent in the North of England. 'Test Signal ... is testament to the fact that there is no singular prescription of what it means to be a northern writer and no such thing as a definitive northern voice; instead it celebrates a community of writers, each telling a different story in their own words' JESSICA ANDREWS bridges over the Tyne / crumbling coastlines / influencers’ online worlds / asylum applications / packed train carriages / forgotten village social clubs / family in Nigeria / holidays in Greece / shining university campuses / ghosts in city cemeteries / jobs in London / teenage explorations / monstrous graffiti / suburban woodland We are the North With ground-breaking new authors, a thriving independent publishing scene and vibrant grass-roots networks, the North is driving a revolution in new literature. This anthology showcases the best of its talent, from every corner of the region and across all its vibrant genres. Some contributors are well-known established names, others are newcomers; all of them are part of the new northern writing scene. This is Test Signal Adam Farrer / Amy Stewart / Andrew Michael Hurley / Carmen Marcus / Crista Ermiya / Désirée Reynolds / Jane Claire Bradley / Jenna Isherwood / J. A. Mensah / Kit Fan / Lara Williams / Laura Bui / Matt Wesolowski / Melissa Wan / Naomi Booth / Rebecca Hill / Robert Williams / Sammy Wright / Sara Sherwood / Sharon Telfer / Tawseef Khan / Tricia CresswellTrade ReviewTest Signal portrays northern identity as diverse and multi-faceted. It is testament to the fact that there is no singular prescription of what it means to be a northern writer and no such thing as a definitive northern voice; instead it celebrates a community of writers, each telling a different story in their own words. -- Jessica Andrews

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Book SynopsisA joyful, freewheeling, funny and profound new collection from ‘one of the most inventive, adventurous and accomplished fiction writers in the US today’ (Lionel Shriver) For one woman, a cross-country train ride becomes a parallel journey into the dark psyche of American manhood. An old man and his neighbour enter strike up a friendship that might a more sinister battle of wits than he first thinks. A man, waiting for his wife in a bar on Valentine's Day, is plagued by a stranger who claims to be clairvoyant. In electric prose T. C. Boyle explores myriad facets of society: greed and excess, parenthood and responsibility, the digital world and the way we understand our mortality. Roaming unrestrainedly through the present and near future, he inhabits his characters’ minds with a ventriloquist’s flair, skewering human motivations and revealing us to ourselves with empathy and wry humour.Trade ReviewThe prolific Boyle continues to have fun and make literary mischief with his latest story collection ... There's no reason why these 13 stories should seem so funny, as most of them confront individual mortality and some sort of cultural collapse. They run the gamut from the subversively real to the surreal in such a way that they blur the distinction between the implausible and the inevitable ... A playful virtuoso with a deadly seriousness of purpose * Kirkus, Starred Review *Praise for T. C. Boyle: Some of the best, funniest, bleakest, most unsettling short stories I’ve ever read * THE TIMES *Always enjoyable, virtually incapable of dullness or slack sentences … His stories reveal truths about modern life while still feeling beautifully invented * NEW YORK TIMES *

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Book SynopsisRadical, witty and inventive, Katherine Mansfield is one of the twentieth century’s most accomplished short-story writers and this selection of stories showcases her dazzling skill. 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. Prelude & Other Stories is edited and introduced by Professor Meg Jensen.This selection of stories by Katherine Mansfield showcases her remarkable ability to delve into the human mind; in stories such as ‘The Garden Party’ she reveals the tension between innocence and corruption, the dark side of love and romance are explored in ‘Bliss’ and ‘Love à la Mode’, and in the title story, ‘Prelude’, inspired by her own childhood, her concern is for the isolated and the lonely. Collected together for the first time, this selection of short stories by Katherine Mansfield showcase her remarkable ability to delve deep into human psychology.Trade ReviewHer writing was as impenetrable as she was: romantic, excitable, sharp-edged, malicious and cold, charming and funny, lonely, proud, vulnerable, a wearer of masks * Guardian *Mansfield’s work displays a quick, sardonic wit that sharply interrogates romantic concepts of genius and ironizes naïve expectation * The Paris Review *

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Book SynopsisA luminous selection of short stories from the Booker prize-winning A. S. Byatt, celebrating over thirty years of writingWith an introduction by David MitchellByatt takes her readers to a place that is rich in ideas, vivid in colour and wholly unforgettable. Mirrors shatter at the hairdressers when a middle-aged client explodes in rage. Snow dusts the warm body of a princess honing it into something sharp and frosted. Summer sunshine flickers on the face of a smiling child who may or may not be real.Peopled by artists, poets and fabulous creatures, these stories travel from the ancient mythic world to an English sweet factory, a Chinese restaurant to a Mediterranean swimming pool, a Turkish bazaar to a fairy-tale palace. Blazing with creativity, they show what lies beneath the veneer of the ordinary, and reveal the fantastical possibilities beyond.'A cabinet of curiosities... Glitteringly beautiful' Sunday Times'A cerebral extravaganza, bristling with ideas' Spectator'Moving, witty and shocking' Sunday TelegraphTrade ReviewIt was a pleasure to be reacquainted with 'Medusa's Ankles'... There's an echo of Iris Murdoch here, herself the subject of several books by Byatt -- Miranda France * Literary Review *

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Book SynopsisA TLS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023'Marvellously unpredictable . . . by the end of the book you wish it was twice as long' (Daily Telegraph)'Beautifully translated . . . The perfect way into [Ferdinand von Schirach's] oeuvre' TLSHow does the legacy of a family past shape who we are?Ferdinand von Schirach is one of Germany's most eminent criminal defence lawyers and an internationally bestselling crime writer. He is also the grandson of Baldur von Schirach, leader of the Hitler Youth movement.In Coffee and Cigarettes, his most personal book, von Schirach confronts his family history, through autobiographical vignettes and short stories drawn from his life and career. From conversations with imprisoned clients, great writers and supreme court judges; meditations on art, film, writing and smoking; to reflections on Germany's heavy history, Coffee and Cigarettes is a portrait of the author, and our modern world, depicted in von Schirach's signature cool and incisive prose. Revealing, revelatory and thought-provoking, these essays confirm von Schirach as one of the most inimitable writers in Europe today.Trade ReviewVeering between the insightful and the oblique, some of these jottings sear themselves onto your mind instantly [. . .] one quickly develops a taste for von Schirach's unpredictable musings, a taste which has become such a full-blown addiction by the end of the book that you wish it was twice as long -- Jake Kerridge * Telegraph *Beautifully translated . . . the volume thrives on the tension between von Schirach's deceptively simple prose and his profoundly humane view of the ethical calamities of our age. Combining moving character studies with essayistic contemplations of the nature of justice, human dignity and our collective human frailty, von Schirach reflects both on our capacity for cruelty and on our ability to experience healing moments of connection * TLS *

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Book Synopsis'Mesmerising and utterly absorbing' New York Times'A magnificent storyteller' Der Spiegel A retired small-town doctor takes a garden axe to his cruel wife.A woman laces her brother's food with barbiturates.Two men steal a priceless Japanese tea bowl with brutal consequences.What drives a person to commit a crime?Our narrator knows that behind every misdeed is a story waiting to be told. In this collection of chilling cases, a nameless lawyer recounts the love, obsession, selfishness and despair that influenced his clients' irrevocable choices. Drawn from Ferdinand von Schirach's eminent career as a criminal defence lawyer, Crime blends fiction with real life, each story a revealing, unsettling insight into what may compel a person to act beyond the law.Trade ReviewMesmerizing . . . a slim, utterly absorbing collection of 11 stories plucked from [von Schirach's] legal career and told in a cool, patient voice that immediately draws the reader in -- Olen Steinhauer * New York Times *Praise for Ferdinand von Schirach * - *Addictive . . . fascinating * The Spectator *Ice-cool, effortlessly classy prose * Observer *Tantalising and disturbing in equal measure -- Laura Wilson * Guardian *An exceptional prose stylist * New York Times *A magnificent storyteller * Der Spiegel *Psychologically raw . . . delivered in a crisp translation by Katharina Hall, his unfussy prose is icily effective . . . it suggests that all justice systems are flawed, that they are all just processes. And, with immense empathy, von Schirach's stories show what happens to people when they are processed. -- Christian House * Financial Times *The stories are cool, meticulously crafted, pithy and mordantly amusing . . . this is an unsettling, affecting, extremely powerful book. Highly recommended -- Declan Hughes * Irish Times *An impressive page-turner with substance and bite * Bookmunch *Thrilling and edgy, often carrying a twist in the tale -- To the Ends of the Word blog

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Book SynopsisAll hardbacks in the first print run will be signed by the author.The story of genre fiction - horror, romantic fiction, science fiction, crime writing, and more - is also the story of Irish fiction. Irish writers have given the world Lemuel Gulliver, Dracula, and the world of Narnia. They have produced pioneering tales of detection, terrifying ghost stories and ground-breaking women's popular fiction. Now, for the first time, John Connolly's one volume presents the history of Irish genre writing and uses it to explore how we think about fiction itself.Deeply researched, and passionately argued, SHADOW VOICES takes the lives of more than sixty writers - by turns tragic, amusing, and adventurous, but always extraordinary - and sets them alongside the stories they have written, to create a new way of looking at genre and literature, both Irish and beyond. Here are vampires and monsters, murderers and cannibals. Here are female criminal masterminds and dogged detectives, star-crossed lovers and vengeful spouses. Here are the SHADOW VOICES.Trade ReviewAs a work of scholarship, Shadow Voices . . . assembled by crime-writing superstar John Connolly - is impeccable. As an act of artistic curation, it's comprehensive to the point of monumental. As a reading experience, pure and simple, it's terrific fun . . . [the biographies] are a fascinating history of Irish life and culture; as accompaniment to the stories, they're icing on the cake . . . full of fabulous stories . . . a treasure-trove, a literary odyssey - and a magnificent achievement by Connolly. He has done the state, and Irish writing, one hell of a service -- Darragh McManus * Irish Independent *Connolly deserves praise for considering all of Ireland's literature . . . He also has a great nose for women writers that more readers deserve to encounter . . . His core advocacy of genre fiction is stellar * Irish Times *A history in stories that makes Connolly's case for genre fiction in cast iron * RTE Guide *

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Book Synopsis'How truth thickens and deepens when it migrates from didactic fable to the raw experience of a visceral awakening is one of the thrills of Tolstoy's stories'Sharon Cameron in her preface to The Death of Ivan Ilych and Other StoriesTolstoy wrote in many genres for different audiences. In this, the first of three volumes of his shorter fiction chosen and introduced by the critic Sharon Cameron, we see works originally written for children, like 'God Sees the Truth But Waits', and 'A Prisoner in the Caucasus'. They stand alongside others which show his range and accomplishment, including an early story based on his experiences in the Crimean war, 'Sevastopol in May', and the visceral intensity of one of his greatest works, 'The Death of Ivan Ilych'.This riverrun edition reissues the translation of Louise and Aylmer Maude, whose influential versions of Tolstoy first brought his work to a wide readership in English.

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Book Synopsis'Everyone who met him commented on the arresting power of Lawrence's bright and sharp blue eyes, and the beard he later grew would be as red as a fox's brush, but it was not his appearance that Ford was describing. It was his menace' Frances Wilson, from her Introduction to The Man Who Loves Islands------------------------------------------------The Man Who Loved Islands presents Lawrence's skilled, intimate and lively portraits of humanity. In the title story a man buys a ninety-nine year lease on an island and finds himself cast off in its timeless world; in 'The Last Laugh' a couple are confronted with uncanny spectral visions, and an eerie faceless laugh; in 'The Fox' two women maintaining a farm feel the dark shadows of war, and a cunning creature threatens to destroy their livelihood. The stories in this collection are about what the characters know and do not know - about themselves, one another, and the circumambient universe.

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Book SynopsisA new selection of Conrad's shorter fiction, with an introduction from eminent Conrad scholar, Neil Rennie.

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Book SynopsisElizabeth Hardwick was one of America’s great postwar women of letters, celebrated as a novelist and as an essayist. Until now, however, her slim but remarkable achievement as a writer of short stories has remained largely hidden, with her work tucked away in the pages of the periodicals—such as Partisan Review, The New Yorker, and The New York Review of Books—in which it originally appeared. This first collection of Hardwick’s short fiction reveals her brilliance as a stylist and as an observer of contemporary life. A young woman returns from New York to her childhood Kentucky home and discovers the world of difference within her. A girl’s boyfriend is not quite good enough, his “silvery eyes, light and cool, revealing nothing except pure possibility, like a coin in hand.” A magazine editor’s life falls strangely to pieces after she loses both her husband and her job. Individual lives and the life of New York, the setting or backdrop for most of these stories, are strikingly and memorably depicted in Hardwick’s beautiful and razor-sharp prose.

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Book SynopsisFrom a captivating new author come twelve piercing stories, in which young women negotiate friendship and marriage, art and commerce, and the possibility their lives might not work out as planned. After the house of the young couple in “A Cane, an Anchor” goes up in flames, they’re unsure of what they lost in the fire and what they’d lost long before it. “The Living” asks, how would you arrange your life if you had only six months left? In “Youse,” two teenage girls are the targets of an attempted kidnapping. A trio of linked stories—including the title track—follows Meg and Dax, a curator and a butcher who married impulsively, from their eerie honeymoon in rural Wales through Meg’s identity crisis when the museum where she works is destroyed, to early parenthood, when a coyote’s spectral presence at their child’s birthday party in a Brooklyn park suggests deeper threats.Trade Review“A bowler hat, a volleyball net, a pig tattoo: Nicole Haroutunian’s stories all have unexpected details that attract the eye and alert the mind. Those details glitter on the surface while something else entirely goes on underneath: dark tides of life, death, illness, and love, and people who are carried away by them during the course of otherwise normal lives.” —Ben Greenman, author of The Slippage and Mo Meta Blues “Nicole Haroutunian is a master of excavating what is ominous and therefore worthy of examination in our everyday lives—sleepover games, damaged bodies, dying cities, Brooklyn parrots, and the prosaic catastrophes of love. I loved reading these perfectly formed stories about thoughtful urbanites and their search for meaning in the mundane.” —Amy Shearn, author of The Mermaid of Brooklyn and How Far Is The Ocean from Here “Haroutunian’s breezy prose, and her characters’ humor and relatability—even when dealing with a recently-paralyzed boyfriend, a rocky new marriage, or a father’s recent death—makes reading this captivating collection a true joy.” —Bustle, Best Books of March “Speed Dreaming is a book spilling over with talent. How enticing and accurately drawn these stories are, with their bright touches and ominous edges, their smart young characters blocked by what they can’t see yet. A wonderful debut.” —Joan Silber, author of Fools and Ideas of Heaven “An unforgettable portrait of what it’s like to be a young woman in contemporary America...A beautiful, funny, and unflinching collection.” —Saïd Sayrafiezadeh, author of Brief Encounters With the Enemy “The characters who appear (and reappear) in Speed Dreaming are full of intelligence, wit, and empathy—as well as regret, fickleness, and occasional selfishness. In other words, they are wholly human. With unbelievable precision and grace, Nicole Haroutunian examines the exquisite, transcendent, and inexplicably eerie moments of her characters’ everyday lives and gives meaning to the smallest details of their worlds. Speed Dreaming is unforgettable.” —Nelly Reifler, author of Elect H. Mouse State Judge “Nicole Haroutunian’s stories are precise little gems. I know I’ll return to them again and again, since there’s something new and beautiful to find in them every time I open this collection.” —Lauren Grodstein, author of The Explanation for Everything “These passionate stories of women and their half disasters, half-rotten men, and fully open hearts are written so nimbly and with such energy and momentum and compassion that I found myself carrying the book from room to room, brushing my teeth and feeding the dog while reading, unwilling to put them down.” —Deb Olin Unferth, author of Revolution: The Year I Fell in Love and Went to Join the War “Fire, accidents, mysterious disease, and a coyote at a child’s birthday party are only some of the calamities that these protagonists must confront, along with the minor indignities and incongruities of romance and work. Haroutunian brings her complicated young women to life with utter literary confidence. A splendid debut.” —Melvin Jules Bukiet, author of Undertown and A Faker’s Dozen “These honest and perceptive stories contend with the painful contradictions of modern love; that it is precious as it is quotidian; inadequate as it is essential.” —Julie Sarkissian, author of Dear Lucy “Though the stories in Nicole Haroutunian’s debut collection are entirely fictional, things still get too real: friendships are pitted against marriages, a couple’s belongings disappear in a fire, an end date is placed on a life, and two young girls face an imminent kidnapping. Urgent and frantic, there’s plenty more speed within the pages of this book.” —Refinery29 “Haroutunian is smart about contemporary relationships, and her collection will certainly resonate with the Modern Love crowd. Her protagonists, all women, admit to melodrama, but they go one step further than the characters in Girls in that they question what’s behind their woe-is-me antics.” —The Paris Review Blog, Staff Pick

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Book SynopsisSex Augury is a collection that practices divination with the symbolism of our radically changed and changeable world. Exercising trans poetics, C. Bain denormalizes the violence embedded in the most intimate strata of American life. Confrontationally queer, urgently wounded, deeply political, and metaphysically transported, these poems create their own system of meaning in an environment that is increasingly hostile to meaning of any kind. This collection spans digital culture, gender reversals, and archetypal-mythic vocabularies, alongside close observation of the surround of “ordinary” urban existence. Sex Augury is a work of dyads, not binaries—concepts bound together which nonetheless refuse to form a coherent, harmonious whole; humor and despair, tenderness and brutality, desire and revulsion. These poems bristle with intelligence, acuity of feeling, and refusal to gloss the complexity of our moment into a false narrative of progress.Trade ReviewSex Augury stirs an acid cauldron of documentary poetics, political theater, and surrealist wound-scape sprinkled with the salt of Lautreamont, Bataille, Nin, Carrington, Plath. Setting flame to “the buckling wall between myself and myself,” Bain leads us through an underworld of our own making, where pleasure and war are a TV channel apart, where the heart eats you alive, where “they bombed a restaurant / we bombed a hospital,” where desire courts death, and rape scars each face. The circles of this hell are forged in the fires of sexual violence, yet they ring out in yearning. In a voice akin to Medea’s, the poet asks how to “live with the violences I’ve chosen,” how to love when “every tool of love / is a weapon too”? The answer glimmers in the ecstatic gaze, in the poems’ intimate knowledge of their suffering bodies which bind us page after page to visceral metamorphoses in close-up—“my mouth on her rough incisors / against the reptile crevice / where an ear begins to bloom.” —Matvei Yankelevich, author of Dead Winter"C. Bain’s highly anticipated second collection, Sex Augury, courts an honest darkness and charts new mythologies out of the old with a quality of attention unique to the rich particulars of this poet’s gaze. The book asks the reader to look and to look and to not look away. The poems in Sex Augury articulate a brutal investigation of the self, of the inherited violences of gender, language, whiteness, and medicalization—the erotic, the cruel, and the divine braid and unbraid as the speaker moves us through his world." —Sam Sax, author of Pig

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Book SynopsisEleven short stories following Italian characters exploring life in an era of media oversaturation. Salvatore Pane’s The Neorealist in Winter is a collection of eleven short stories that explore what it means to be human in an age of media oversaturation. Utilizing methods of speculative, historical, and postmodern storytelling, Pane grapples with legacies of immigration, poverty, toxic masculinity, and moral failures, while focusing on working-class issues, family drama, and PTSD. Following eleven Italian narrators, Pane builds a cast of cinematic characters across disparate times and places—a struggling director attends a house party in the la dolce vita of 1960s Rome, gangsters chase a low-level lottery runner in coal valley Scranton, a woman contemplates experimental surgery to purge memories of her childhood trauma in Minnesota, and a pro wrestling promoter descends into self-denial through his autobiography.The Neorealist in Winter was selected by Venita Blackburn as the winner of the 2022 Autumn House Fiction Prize. Trade Review"Eleven stories that cast different facets of Italian American identity in a neo-noir light. . . . A cinematic thread weaves through them, and it can feel as though scenes are written with the camera in mind, what with dramatic last-minute trains to Siena, British hand models riding in shiny cars, and deals made while picking at shrimp cocktails. . . . It’s in these stories that Pane’s sense of play is most evident, and they buoy the collection. Vivid fiction that asks how you can run from your past when it made you who you are." * Kirkus *“These stories ache and bend into the convex shapes of despair without necessarily pining for seasons of respite. In the scratch that is ordinary tragedy and extraordinary expectations, a light pulses in these characters filled with language for obsession, adoration, and fury.” -- Venita Blackburn, author of Black Jesus and Other Superheroes“A wildly inventive book that’s both hilarious and heartbreaking, about the strange comforts we find in desperate moments: a man holds off his sorrows by obsessively watching Goodfellas; a son copes with his absent father via professional wrestling; a woman works through trauma by way of a talking-animal sitcom. Pane is a writer alert to all the puzzling paths that healing sometimes takes, a writer of profound insight and honesty and pure gracious human compassion.” -- Nathan Hill, author of Wellness: A Novel“Take a breath between these thrilling stories: you’re about to meet characters on the verge of something great or calamitous, navigating a range of worlds from the hyper-real present to the sepia-toned past. Pane builds delivers each cinematic scene with deft narrative urgency and economy, blending fact and fiction in a way that feels thematically true not only to the Italian American experience, but to the harrowing experience of being alive.” -- Christopher Castellani, author of Leading MenTable of Contents1) The Neorealist in Winter2) Her Final Nights3) The Electric City4) The Complete Oral History of Monkey High School5) Do I Amuse You?6) Take It Out of Me7) Mamma-draga8) The Faith Center9) Zeitgeist Comics, 194610) The Absolutely True Autobiography of Tony Rinaldi, the Man who Changed Pro Wrestling Forever11) The Last Train to Siena

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Book SynopsisIf Aurora Mattia’s debut novel, The Fifth Wound, was a switchboard, then Unsex Me Here is the call log. Please hold. There’s someone on the other line. A spider, a sibyl, an angel, a mermaid, a goddess, or an ex-girlfriend. Unsex Me Here is a prayer book tied together by the strings of a corset. Glamorous ramblers, haunted by the sense of another world drawing near, wander in and out of its inexplicable twilight. From a West Texas town with a supernatural past to a stalactite cavern in the birthplace of Aphrodite, from hotel rooms to gardens to the far horizon of a thought, they seek the source of the disturbance in their minds. Heartbreak is not so far from rapture; holy babble is another kind of gossip. Every pilgrimage is as dense with symbolism as it is refined by desire.

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Book SynopsisThis collection of Russian short stories from the 21st century includes works by famous writers and young talents alike, representing a diversity of generational, gender, ethnic and national identities. Their authors live not only in Russia, but also in Europe and the US. Short stories in this volume display a vast spectrum of subgenres, from grotesque absurdist stories to lyrical essays, from realistic narratives to fantastic parables. Taken together, they display rich and complex cultural and intellectual reality of contemporary Russia, in which political, social, and ethnic conflicts of today coexist with themes and characters resonating with classical literature, albeit invariably twisted and transformed in an unpredictable way. Most of texts in this volume appear in English for the first time. 21 may be useful for college courses but will also provide exciting reading for anyone interested in contemporary Russia.Table of Contents Nikolai Baitov. Solovyov’s Trick; Silentium. Translated by Maya Vinokour. Evgeny Shklovsky. The Street. Translated by Jason Cieply. Vladimir Sorokin. Smirnov. Translated by Maya Vinokour. Nikolai Kononov. Evgenia’s Genius. Translated by Simon Schuchat. Leonid Kostyukov. Verkhovsky and Son. Translated by Maya Vinokour. Sergei Soloukh. A Search. Translated by Margarita Vaysman and Angus Balkham. Margarita Khemlin. Shady Business. Translated by Maya Vinokour. Elena Dolgopyat. The Victim. Translated by Jason Cieply. Kirill Kobrin. Amadeus. Translated by Veronika Lakotová. Pavel Pepperstein. Tongue. Translated by Bradley Gorski. Aleksandr Ilichevsky. The Sparrow. Translated by Bradley Gorski. Stanislav Lvovsky. Roaming. Translated by Bradley Gorski. Valery Votrin. Alkonost. Translated by Maya Vinokour. Linor Goralik. A Little Stick; 1:38 A.M.; No Such Thing; Come On, It’s Funny; The Foundling; We Can’t Even Imagine Heights Like That; Cyst. Translated by Maya Vinokour. Aleksey Tsvetkov Jr. Priceart. Translated by Sofya Khagi. Lara Vapnyar. Salad Olivier. Polina Barskova. Reaper of Leaves. Translated by Catherine Ciepiela. Arkady Babchenko. Argun. Translated by Nicholas Allen. Denis Osokin. Ludo Logar, or Duck Throat; The New Shoes. Translated by Simon Schuchat. Maria Boteva. Where the Truth Is. Translated by Jason Cieply. Marianna Geide. Ivan Grigoriev. Translated by Simon Schuchat.

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Book SynopsisProvocative, hilarious, and tender stories about sex, violence, politics from one of the greatest Russian writers of the post-Soviet era.Red Pyramid is a sort of “greatest hits” collection of short stories from across Vladimir Sorokin’s career, beginning with juvenilia like “The Pink Tuber,” composed with no expectation of either publication or readership; moving on to scatological conceptual texts like “An Obelisk”; then plunging into the more even-tempered, but still quite uncanny, delights of his post-Soviet work.Stories like “A Month in Dachau” earn Sorokin his moniker as the “Russian De Sade,” while others, like “Timka,” are shockingly tender—despite their graphic depictions of mass shootings and anal sex.This collection also contains the infamous “Nastya,” a story about a family cannibalizing its daughter on the eve of the twentieth century, for wh

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Book SynopsisA Creature Wanting Form is a bleakly funny work of fiction from a journalist widely celebrated for his wry, mordant take on life. Filtered through the lens of a writer and characters who are horrified by the earth’s looming mortality, and their own, but still compelled to carry on, O’Neil interweaves science fiction, allegory, fables, poetry, and reflections on the deeply grounded indignities of modern life. In these pages, climate catastrophe lurks on the horizon; animals voraciously devour each other; your parents only call to tell you who from home has just died; and you want to go for a swim, but there’s a shark in the pool. In short, A Creature Wanting Form is a book for anyone trying to survive with a shred of humanity in the bleak alienation of America, 2023.Trade Review"In these stories, Luke O'Neil tears the heart out of the dying world and makes us give a fuck that it's still beating. ” —Rax King, author of Tacky: Love Letters to the Worst Culture We Have to Offer"Gorgeous, unsettling, infuriating.”—Kim Kelly, author of Fight Like Hell: The Untold History of American Labor"Rendered with a lyricism that seems to be in awe of the world even as they describe its greatest pains and profound injustices."—Megan Nolan, author of Acts of Desperation"A beautiful disaster.” —Dave Wedge, New York Times bestselling author and journalist"One of the few writers who I'll read for the prose alone. " —Ryan Cooper, editor at The American Prospect and author of How Are You Going to Pay for That?"I always wanted to know what goes on inside Luke's brain. Then I read this…, and, well, be careful what you wish for.” —Dan Ozzi, author of Sellout: The Major-Label Feeding Frenzy That Swept Punk, Emo, and Hardcore"Luke O’Neil is like no other journalist working today, fusing original reporting with memoir and frequently-profane observational humor to create what feels like a new type of truth-telling: precise, fucked-up, infuriating, and, somehow, beautiful. ...This is what it looks like when a gifted writer finds his voice.”—Hamish McKenzie, co-founder of Substack PRAISE FOR LUKE O'NEIL'S WELCOME TO HELL WORLD "A vital and despairing collection of essays on modern American life.”—Longreads "Reading ...Hell World is a lot like staring deep into O'Neil's soul, and it's often a pretty dark place."—Boston Magazine "Stream-of-consciousness reports that detail the many reasons reasonable people have to be angry right now.” —New York Magazine "A fever dream ... It's a lot to handle, but it's great." —InsideHook "Tells it like it is. ... It's that honesty, along with pure writing ability, creativity, and a heavy helping of empathy, that makes Luke's writing so special.” —The Alternative "At once scathingly ironic and disarmingly sincere...” —Full Stop Magazine "Writings on contemporary matters, from politics to music ... should be beautiful but hideous at the same time-and O'Neil scratches that itch for a remarkable 538 pages.” —Dig Boston

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Book SynopsisPara Handy has been sailing his way into the affections of generations of Scots since he first weighed anchor in the pages of the Glasgow Evening News in 1905. The master mariner and his crew - Dougie the mate, Macphail the engineer, Sunny Jim and the Tar - all play their part in evoking the irresistible atmosphere of a bygone age when puffers sailed between West Highland ports and the great city of Glasgow. This definitive edition contains all three collections published in the author's lifetime, as well as those that were unpublished and a new story which was discovered in 2001. Extensive notes accompany each story, providing fascinating insights into colloquialisms, place-names and historical events. This volume also includes a wealth of contemporary photographs, depicting the harbours, steamers and puffers from the age of the Vital Spark.

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Book SynopsisThis collection of eleven stories by one of Ireland’s best writers is a compelling exploration of what comes from moving about the place. In these stories, Evelyn Conlon vividly imagines her characters all over the world: Australia, Indonesia, Japan, Italy, Monaco, in a house with two drills of vegetables in Skerries. A couple spend their lives wandering around the equator because of a lie they told during anti-apartheid days; one person holds out in a border-straddling tree; a woman from Hiroshima makes the decision to get pregnant; an Irishwoman attempts to assassinate Mussolini, another fights for women's suffrage in Australia. Brilliantly written, witty, and full of the sharp observation for which Conlon is well known, Moving About the Place brings together some of the best of her recent work, along with brand-new stories, including a novella, to show how borders, movement and history change and transform people’s lives. ‘A genuinely exploratory writer … her work is excitingly original.’ The Times ‘Sharp sinuous writing, full of controlled anger and suddenly opened passion.’ The Scotsman

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Book SynopsisThis exquisite anthology collects together the very best fiction from across the Nordic region. Travelling from cosmopolitan Stockholm to the remote Faroe Islands, and from Denmark to Greenland, this unique and compelling volume displays the thrilling diversity of writing from these northern nations. Selected and introduced by Sjon, The Dark Blue Winter Overcoat includes both notable authors and exciting new discoveries. As well as an essential selection of the best contemporary storytelling from the Nordic countries, it's also a fascinating portrait of contemporary life across the region. The perfect book to curl up with on a cold winter's evening. Naja Marie Aidt (Denmark), Per Olov Enquist (Sweden), Dorthe Nors (Denmark), Linda Boström Knausgård (Sweden), Madame Nielsen (Denmark), Rosa Liksom (Finland), Johan Bargum (Finland), Kristín Ómarsdóttir (Iceland), Kjell Askildsen (Norway), Ulla-Lena Lundberg (Finland/Sweden), Hassan Blasim (Finland), Sørine Steenholdt (Greenland, Guðbergur Bergsson (Iceland), Sólrún Michelsen (Faroe Islands), Frode Grytten (Norway), Carl Jóhan Jensen (Faroe Islands), Niviaq Korneliussen (Greenland)Trade ReviewSjon is the trickster that makes the world, and he is achingly brilliant -- Junot Diaz Sjon is an extraordinary and original writer -- A. S. Byatt

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Book SynopsisJoseph Roth's sensibility-both clear-eyed and nostalgic, harshly realistic and tenderly humane-produced some of the most distinctive fiction of the twentieth century. This collection of his most essential stories, in exquisite new translations by Ruth Martin, showcases the astonishing range and power of his short stories and novellas. In prose of aching beauty and precision, Roth shows us isolated souls pursuing lost ideals and impossible desires. Forced to remove a bust of the fallen Austrian emperor from his house, an eccentric old count holds a funeral for it and intends to be buried in the same plot himself; a humble coral merchant, dissatisfied with his life and longing for the sea, chooses to adulterate his wares with false coral, with catastrophic results; young Fini, just entering the haze of early sexuality, falls into an unsatisfying relationship with an older musician. With the greatest craft and sensitivity, Roth unfolds the many fragilities of the human heart.Trade Review‘One of the greatest writers of the first half of the tormented 20th century’ — Simon Schama, Financial Times 'Roth is Austria's Chekhov'--William Boyd 'Joseph Roth is counted among the great novelists of the twentieth century'--TLS‘What Roth sees and hands on is a unique essence, conveying the fragility of what is truly human in us, the ridiculous and the tragic' — Nadine Gordimer

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Book SynopsisMachado de Assis is one of the most enigmatic and fascinating story writers who ever lived. What seem at first to be stately social satires reveal unanticipated depths through hints of darkness and winking surrealism. This new selection of his finest work, translated by the prize-winning Daniel Hahn, showcases the many facets of his mercurial genius. A brilliant scientist opens the first asylum in his home town, only to start finding signs of insanity all around him. A young lieutenant basks in praise of his new position, but in solitude feels his identity fray into nothing. The reading of a much-loved, respected elder statesman's journals reveals hidden thoughts of merciless cruelty.Trade Review'The greatest writer ever produced in Latin America' - Susan Sontag'If Borges is the writer who made Garcia Marquez possible then it is no exaggeration to say that Machado De Assis is the writer who made Borges possible' - Salman Rushdie'Another Kafka' - Allen Ginsberg'A great writer who chose to use deadly humor where it would be least expected to convey his acute powers of observation and his penetrating insights into psychology. In superbly funny books he described the abnormalities of alienation, perversion, domination, cruelty and madness. He deconstructed empire with a thoroughness and an esthetic equilibrium that place him in a class by himself' - New York Times'Machado de Assis was a literary force, transcending nationality and language, comparable certainly to Flaubert, Hardy or James' - New York Times Book Review

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Book SynopsisAdrift in lives of possibility and limitation, the flawed, struggling and sympathetic characters of these desperate, eerie stories seek refuge from meaninglessness and boredom in love, art, friendship, drugs, and sex. A journalist is either the guest or captive of a reclusive former tennis star at his mansion in the French hills; a terrible storm forces a man and a woman, who may be his therapist, to flee New York together; the artistic ambitions of a banker are laid bare when he comes under the influence of two strange sisters. Unflinching, funny and profound, Prodigals maps the degradations of contemporary life - from the deification of celebrity, to the impotence of violence, to the psychological debts of privilege, to the loss of grand narratives - with unusual insight, sincerity, and passion. It is a fiercely honest and heartfelt look at what we have become, the comedy of our foibles, and our longing for home.

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Book SynopsisIn this collection of twelve dark, unerring and surprising short stories, John Boyne explores the extremities of the human condition in all its brilliance and brutality. The secrets we keep and the ways in which they shape us, the impossibility of shared loss, the lengths we will go to in order to protect our families and the distance we will run to protect ourselves.Drawing on a host of enthralling characters – a farmer, a cuckold and a teenager exploring his sexuality; good parents, bad parents, writers and soldiers; a student, a rent boy and a hitman – Boyne examines the hopeful and the damaged without prejudice or judgement. This, his first collection of short stories, is some of John Boyne’s finest writing to date. It includes ‘Rest Day’ which won the 2015 Writing.ie Short Story of the Year award in Ireland.Trade Review"The best of the best ... These revealing stories, unfolding like intimate confessions, will twist your heart." Daily Mail "Boyne offers writing of insight and beauty that elevates this collection to impressive heights indeed, and confirms him as one of Ireland's finest contemporary writers" Observer "Boyne has achieved a careful authenticity ... Beneath the Earth is a satisfying and polished set of short stories with definite longevity and immense global appeal." Irish Independent "[Beneath the Earth] tracks the light and dark of Ireland's past and present ... Boyne is particularly strong on dramatising child and teen sensibilities but here we see how the badness of adults spills over and infects these damaged children." Independent

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Book SynopsisHowell’s much-celebrated stories interweave elements of the commonplace with darkness, subterfuge and sheer weirdness, all realised with natural narrative flair. In this striking new collection, we see Howell explore a wide range of cultures, including Hawaii, Portugal and Japan, alongside these are period tales, and sinister and sexual encounters, all related with a cool eye for our desires and obsessions.Trade ReviewBrian Howell’s latest collection of short stories, The Man Who Loved Kuras and Other Stories (Salt, 2022), is wonderfully weird. What can be done in a short story, which is much harder to sustain over the length of an entire novel, is to explore feelings and situations that are off-kilter, at odds with the norm. These are narratives that push the boundaries of acceptance and conjure feelings of uneasiness, sometimes even repulsion, but that also challenge views on how people choose, or are forced, to live. Bearing in mind these elements, I feel The Man Who Loved Kuras and Other Stories, although not for everyone, is not only wonderfully weird, but also weirdly wonderful. -- Laura Besley * Everybody’s Reviewing *

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Book SynopsisAlison Moore’s debut collection, The Pre-War House and Other Stories, gathered together stories written prior to the publication of her first novel.‘The tales collected in The Pre-War House… pick at psychological scabs in a register both wistful and brutal.’ —Anthony Cummins, The Times Literary Supplement‘Moore’s writing is surprising and exact and culminates in the title story, the novella which brings the collection to a powerful crescendo’ —The Arkansas International‘just as uncompromising and unsettling as The Lighthouse… Moore’s distinctive voice commands exceptional power’ —Dinah Birch, The GuardianEastmouth and Other Stories is her second collection, featuring stories published in the subsequent decade, including stories that have appeared in Best British Short Stories, Best British Horror and Best New Horror, as well as new, unpublished work.Trade ReviewAn eminently satisfying read from a master storyteller with a deliciously chilling imagination. Perfect for curling up with as the nights draw in – if you dare. -- Jackie Law * neverimitate *Alison Moore's sinister stories inhabit a familiar territory of domestic disturbance, where grey seaside towns and chilly old houses are the everyday settings for events which seethe with quiet unease. -- Eithne Farry * Daily Mail *

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Book SynopsisA remarkable early collection of stories by Alice Munro, the bestselling author of Dear Life, and one of the greatest fiction writers of our time.‘Alice Munro’s stories are miraculous’ Sunday Times ‘No one else can – or should be allowed to – write like the great Alice Munro’ Julian Barnes ‘She sets down the pains and pleasures of living in a spare, singing prose, not a word wasted’ Daily Telegraph ‘Read not more than one of her stories a day, and allow them to work their spell: they are made to last’ Observer ‘She's the most savage writer I've ever read, also the most tender, the most honest, the most perceptive’ Jeffrey EugenidesTrade ReviewShe sets down the pains and pleasures of living in a spare, singing prose, not a word wasted * Daily Telegraph *Munro is so good one gropes for superlatives * Daily Telegraph *Alice Munro has a strong claim to being the best fiction writer now working in North America -- Jonathan FranzenAlice Munro is among the major writers of English fiction of our time -- Margaret Atwood

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Book SynopsisWhat’s the worst another drink could do? John Cheever pours out our most sociable of vices, and hands it to us in a highball. From the calculating teenager who raids her parents’ liquor cabinet, only to drown her sorrows in it, to the suburban swimmer withering away with every plunge he takes, these are stories suffused with beauty, sadness, and the gathering storm of a bender well-done. Seen through the gin-lacquered looking glass of Cheever’s writing, your next drink may have you reaching for a lime and soda instead. Selected from the book Collected Stories by John CheeverVINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS.A series of short books by the world’s greatest writers on the experiences that make us humanAlso in the Vintage Minis series:Swimming by Roger DeakinEating by Nigella LawsonCalm by Tim PeaksLove by Jeanette WintersonTrade ReviewJohn Cheever understood fallibility and that made for the greatness in his writing * The Times *Imagine our joy when Vintage announced that it is publishing a collection of easily digestible books from the world’s most celebrated writers on the experiences that make us human… They look good and read well. That’s win/win in our book. * Stylist *

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Book SynopsisCovering the second half of Nobel Prize winner Alice Munro's career, these are some of the best, most touching and powerful short stories ever written.'Munro is still one of our most fearless explorers of the human being'The TimesSpanning her last five collections and bringing together her finest work from the past fifteen years, this new selection of Alice Munro's stories infuses everyday lives with a wealth of nuance and insight.Beautifully observed and remarkably crafted, written with emotion and empathy, these stories are nothing short of perfection. A masterclass in the genre, from an author who deservedly lays claim to being one of the major fiction writers of our time.

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Book SynopsisTHE CELEBRATED SHORT STORY COLLECTION FROM THE AMERICAN POET AND WRITER OFTEN CALLED THE 'POET LAUREATE OF HARLEM'A black maid forms a close bond with the daughter of the cruel white couple for whom she works. Two rich, white artists hire a black model to pose as a slave. A white-passing boy ignores his mother when they cross each other on the street.Written with sardonic wit and a keen eye for the absurdly unjust, these fourteen stories about racial tensions are as relevant today as the day they were penned, and linger in the mind long after the final page is turned.'Powerful, polemical pieces' New York Times'Some of the best stories that have appeared in this country in years' North American ReviewTrade Review'Powerful, polemical pieces' * New York Times *'Some of the best stories that have appeared in this country in years' * North American Review *

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Book SynopsisA stunning new collection of short stories about motherhood, selected and introduced by Candice Brathwaite.______________'To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power. Or the climbing, falling colours of a rainbow' MAYA ANGELOUThe story of motherhood is an endlessly rich one: it's one of love - and all the highs and lows that come with that world-turning emotion - and, in the purest sense, of life itself. Within these pages, some of the finest writers in the world explore motherhood in wildly varying modes, from single parenthood to sisters coparenting, from the deepest hardships to the biggest celebrations.Selected and introduced by Candice Brathwaite, author of I Am Not Your Baby Mother.Stories by Lydia Davis, Anita Desai, Mary Gaitskill, Tessa Hadley, Jamaica Kincaid, Toni Morrison, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Irenosen Okojie, Casey Plett, Tabitha Siklos, Helen Simpson, Ali Smith

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