Anthologies & Short Stories

Book SynopsisShortlisted for the Frank O''Connor International Short Story AwardIn these eight masterful stories, Lorrie Moore explores the passing of time and summons up its inevitable sorrows and comic pitfalls. Gimlet-eyed social observation, the public and private absurdities of American life, irony and half-cracked love wend their way through these stories, in which Moore is always tender, never sentimental and often heartbreakingly funny.

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Book SynopsisA provocative collection of short stories charting the growth of a generation from the liberating irreverence of the late 1970s to the dilemmas of responsibility and fidelity of the 1990s.

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Book SynopsisSet across Bombay and Calcutta, Amit Chaudhuri''s stories range from a divorcee about to enter into an arranged marriage to a teengaed poet who develops a relationship with a lonely widower, from a singing teacher struggling to make a living out of the boredom of his students to gauche teenager desperate to hurdle past his adolescence.Rich with subtlety, elegance and deep feeling, Real Time is classic Chaudhuri.

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Book Synopsis'Sharp, humorous, satirical . . . a mind-bending collection.' TLSHousehold gizmos with a mind of their own.Constant cold calls from unknown numbers.And the creeping suspicion that none of this is real.Reality, and Other Stories is a gathering of deliciously chilling entertainments - stories to be read as the evenings draw in and the days are haunted by all the ghastly schlock, uncanny technologies and absurd horrors of modern life.

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Book SynopsisAS CELEBRATED ON BBC FRONT ROW''This breathtaking collection is a marvel.'' Tayari Jones''Astute, brilliantly observed, timeless:'' Jackie Kay''Her precocious and brilliant talent hasn't aged at all.'' Damon Galgut''Exquisite ... These stories are all gems.'' Mendez''You hold your breath, completely at her mercy.'' Lucy CaldwellAnd she was becoming frightened too, looking at all those white faces pressed against the windowpanes.One Black family comes under attack as their little boy prepares to start at an all-white school.Friends plan a protest sit-in at the Rose Crest Tea Room, only to be arrested.The first Black student always the Experiment' retreats into her closet at a newly integrated college.And when a social worker enters a secluded woodland cabin, she meets the fate of all visitors . . .Tragically killed aged twenty-two in 1966, Diane Oliver's masterly stor

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Book SynopsisThe Michael Moorcock Collection presents, for the first time, definitive editions of Moorcock's most influential work, fully revised and updated by the author.Trade ReviewThe greatest writer of post-Tolkien British fantasyA triumph of mature talent and imagination - PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

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Book SynopsisThe prestigious annual story anthology includes prize-winning stories by Jamil Jan Kochai, David Ryan, Kirstin Valdez Quade, Lisa Taddeo, Ling Ma, Catherine Lacey, and Cristina Rivera Garza.“[A] standout collection . . . . Dazzling performances from some of today’s most exciting writers. . . . This is one of the best fiction anthologies in years.” —Publishers Weekly starred review Continuing a century-long tradition of cutting-edge literary excellence, this year's edition contains twenty prizewinning stories chosen from the thousands published in magazines over the previous year. Guest editor Lauren Groff has brought her own refreshing perspective to the prize, selecting stories by an engaging mix of celebrated names and emerging voices and including several stories in translation. The winning stories are accompanied by an introduction by Groff, observations from the winning writers on what inspired them, and an extensi

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Book SynopsisWith the British Library’s matchless collection of periodicals and magazines at his fingertips, Mike Ashley presents a stellar selection of tales from the infinite void above us, including contributions from Judith Merril, Jack Vance and John Brunner.

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Book SynopsisAnne Doyle has a dark side: an affinity for the ghoulish, unexplainable and supernatural.Reincarnated as the mistress of macabre, Ireland's best-loved newsreader delights in presenting Tales of the Otherworld, a fabulously frightful anthology of Irish ghost stories that have thrilled, unnerved and, for better or worse, stayed with her over the years. Discover the very best of Irish ghost writing, from national treasures such as W.B. Yeats and Bram Stoker to contemporary work from Deirdre Sullivan and Roisín O'Donnell, each accompanied by charming, witty commentary from Anne herself.Reading this collection is like having an ice cube plucked straight from Anne's vodka soda and dropped down the back of your neck.

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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 . . . We fall not in love but in lust . . .Lust, in all its myriad forms, consumes us. What won''t we do to achieve our heart''s desire? In these ten tales of twisted love master storyteller Roald Dahl explores how our darkest impulses reveal who we really are.Here you''ll read a story concerning wife swapping with a sting in its tail, hear of the aphrodisiac that drives men into a frenzy, discover the last act in a tale of jilted first love and discover the naked truth of art, among others.Roald Dahl reveals even more about the darker side of human nature in seven other centenary editions: Cruelty, 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 writers * The Times *The absolute master of the twist in the tale * Observer *Roald Dahl is one of the few writers I know whose work can accurately be described as addictive * Irish Times *Dahl is too good a storyteller to become predictable * Daily Telegraph *One of the most widely read and influential writers of our generation * The Times *

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Book SynopsisMurder Squad, a group of award-winning crime and mystery writers, celebrate their twenty-first birthday with a bang in this criminally good collection of short stories.A dawn swim turns deadly in a brand-new short story starring DCI Vera Stanhope . . . Two bored cell-mates play a game with chilling results . . . A hen night in an isolated cottage brings new meaning to ''I will survive'' . . . A train traveller teaches a valuable lesson in reading labels . . . A day at the seaside turns stormy for a woman who doesn''t care for foreigners . . . A wealthy retiree makes a new friend who connects her to the Other Side . . . and much much more.Short, sharp and packed with twists, these 21 unputdownable tales showcase Murder Squad''s range and talent throughout the years. So why not treat yourself to a slice of murderously moreish fiction, and join us in wishing the squad ''Many Deadly Returns''.With stories by Ann Cleeves, Martin Edwards, Kate Ellis, Margaret Murphy, Chris Simms and Cath Staincliffe, as well as John Baker, Chaz Brenchley and Stuart Pawson.

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Book SynopsisMicrodoses of the straight dope, stories so true they had to be wrapped in fiction for our own protection.

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Book Synopsis''If you''ve missed Laymon, you''ve missed a treat'' Stephen KingIt''s only a trip to the movies but it turns into Marty''s worst nightmare when she sees the guy sitting behind her. Willy. The man who raped her ten years ago. Now he''s out of jail - and looking for Marty...Trade Review'In Laymon's books, blood doesn't so much as drip as explode, splatter and coagulate' * Independent *'No one writes like Laymon and you're going to have a good time with anything he writes' * Dean Koontz *'A gut-crunching writer' * Time Out *

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Book SynopsisA collection of stories appeared in New Zealand in 1951, while the author was confined in a mental hospital.

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Book SynopsisThroughout her career the internationally renowned South African writer Nadine Gordimer has built a literary reputation with her incisive short stories as much as with her acclaimed novels. Together with her essays, this highly imaginative and committed body of work won her the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1991. In the opinion of the Academy: Through her magnificent epic writing she has - in the words of Alfred Nobel - been of very great benefit to humanity.'' Gordimer has said that while novelists take the reader by the hand developing a consistency of relationship that does not and cannot convey the quality of human life, where contact is more like the flash of fireflies, in and out, now here, now there, in darkness. Short-story writers see by the light of the flash; theirs is the only thing one can be sure of - the present moment.'' Now, for the first time, the best of her stories are published in one volume. Trade Review‘Nadine Gordimer is one of the best story-writers in English today.' * Observer *‘Gordimer's stark sentences and emotional depth make most modern fiction seem trivial.' * The Times *‘Gordimer has undoubtedly become one of the World's Great Writers ... her rootedness in a political time, place and faith has never dimmed her complex gifts as an artist.' * Independent *

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Book Synopsis''Disturbing, moving, and funny; these stories help amplify Williams''s tragic vision, for like the plays, they underline his preoccupation and insight into the conflicts of the human heart''New York TimesAcclaimed as one of America''s most successful playwrights, Tennessee Williams also published four volumes of short stories. In Collected Stories, these volumes are combined with a wealth of unpublished and uncollected work, ranging from his first his story published in `Weird Tales'' when William was seventeen, to his later frank homosexual fantasies. Williams was famous for insisting he write every morning. Even during his darkest days, while mourning a lover, or abusing some substance - he would write. The Collected Stories are from every period of his life, and recreate the milieux Williams knew and chronicled so movingly - from his gypsy youth in St. Louis and New Orleans to his days of celebrity in Hollywood and New York.''The two ingTrade ReviewFunny, bizarre, often moving and always brave -- Sunday TimesI yearned for a bad influence and boy, was Tennessee one in the best sense of the word: joyous, alarming, sexually confusing and dangerously funny -- John WatersWilliams's ear for dialogue, eye for character, and exploration of love, longing and loneliness are as powerful in these stories as they are in his plays. * John Berendt, author of Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil *There used to be two streetcars in New Orleans. One was named Desire and the other was called Cemeteries. To get where you were going, you changed from the first to the second. In these stories, Tennessee validated with his genius our common ticket of transfer -- Gore VidalAs in the plays, it is the force and adroitness of his curiosity that impresses. * Guardian *

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Book SynopsisDiscover the magic of the Norwich Snap Dragon, adventure through pre-historic Norfolk with a mammoth, find out why the region’s famous mustard doesn’t mix with smelly feet, and get swept back in time to experience Norwich as it was seen through the eyes of two mysterious statues.

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Book SynopsisTrue-life stories of seafarers facing danger and death in the 19th and early 20th centuriesTrade ReviewNautilus Book of the Month for October 2021 a 'kraken' read -- Nautilus International.org

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Book SynopsisInspiration for families to connect with nature using stories and the wisdom of our ancestorsTrade Review"What a truly enchanting book."

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Book SynopsisThe Goddess in all her glory! A celebration of important and powerful goddess mythologies from around the world.

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Book SynopsisA collection of folk tales, myths and legends from many cultures about death, dying and what might come after

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Book Synopsis*WINNER OF THE CWA SHORT STORY DAGGER WITH THE TRIALS OF MARGARET BY L. C. TYLER*In honour of multi award-winning author Peter Lovesey, the members of the Detection Club have written twenty-two twisty - and twisted - short stories that will take you on a journey from cosy English towns to the glaciers of Iceland and the glittering towers of Dubai. The collection is edited by current Detection Club president Martin Edwards and features stories from Ann Cleeves, Simon Brett, Andrew Taylor and several other best-loved crime authors. The Detection Club was founded by the crème de la crime of British crime writing in 1930 and its members included Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Anthony Berkeley and the Club''s first president, G. K. Chesterton. The Detection Club was a way for crime writers to get together, socialise and discuss ideas, a tradition that continues to this day. Authors include:Ann Cleeves - Simon Brett - Andrew Taylor - Trade ReviewStrong on merit and evidence of the strong emotions Lovesey inspires in his fellow authors * Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine *

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Book SynopsisIn this addictive short story collection, twenty-four very different women reach a pivotal moment in their lives.A widow is liberated by a new job, but keeps it secret from her family. A date in suburbia has dramatic results. A seamstress takes revenge on an unsuspecting customer, while in France, a mother is promised ''fantastic news'' - and lets her imagination run away with her. With each story, Jenny Eclair introduces a fascinating new character. And behind each woman lies a gripping tale - of betrayal, of love, of hope and defiance. Funny, heart-breaking, inspiring - and packed with wicked one liners - this wonderful collection shows Jenny Eclair''s exceptional talent for observation at its very best.

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Book SynopsisThe stories of Louis L’Amour are built around the dramatic moments when men and women cast their fears, doubts, and pasts behind them and plunge into the unknown—into split-second decisions with life-and-death consequences. Nowhere is that more evident than in this quintessential collection of stories set on the American frontier. Here L’Amour takes us across a bold, beautifully rendered landscape where old scores haunt new lives, the wrong choice leaves unwitting victims, and strangers may come to trust—or kill—one another.   Fugitives, visionaries, fortune seekers, drifters, and young women trying to build homes on a lawless frontier, the characters in these pulse-pounding stories are vintage L’Amour. Together in this vivid, rollicking collection, they bring to life the spirit of adventure and confirm Louis L’Amour’s place in the pantheon of American writers.

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Book SynopsisWith echoes of Italo Calvino and Jorge Luis Borges, Penelope Cray creates dark and sometimes darkly funny scenes that most resemble the works of Kafka. Cray's characters strain against the indifference of everyday life until, too tired to yearn anymore, they begin the systematic work of making their worlds mentally and spiritually tolerable.

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Book SynopsisNow in a gorgeous new paperback edition with full-color illustrations by Maira Kalman, Microscripts is a one-of-a-kind masterpiece.Trade Review"The use of throwaway scraps and pencil also seems part of a deliberate espousal of the small and modest, an attention to the unnoticed, and the microscripts are, as this edition lets us see, objects of beauty, the pencillings precisely filling their allotted space, the different texts neatly fitted together on the same piece of paper like some kind of intricate insect construction whose purpose is absolutely necessary.... Walser has in recent years regained some of the status he enjoyed in the 1920s. Instead of Kafka and Benjamin, we have Sebald and Lydia Davis championing him. But we still don't know where we stand with him. Are we dealing with pure literature,the vagaries of the everyday, jokes, or empty fancies? The writing is radical and elegant enough to encompass all these possibilities and many more. Is it the stuff of life? Perhaps." -- The Times Literary Supplement"Walser vaulted new heights of expression with minuscule means." -- The Boston Globe

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Book SynopsisA new edition of one of the best books ever written about being a doctor: writing as aware and memorable as Chekhov’s.Trade Review"Williams’ shockingly vivid portraits of bigotry and bias ultimately serve to expose the normally opaque medical practitioner, examining the examiner where his flaws are most flagrant...The collection moves like a surgeon: It makes you uncomfortable and looks at you naked. Then, it changes you." -- Claudia Ross - Cleveland Review of Books"This is powerful but not comfortable reading, in the prose of a poet and the vision of a healer. I wish all doctors would read it." -- The Wall Street Journal"Stories written with the swift, concise, unsentimental exactitude of a great diagnostician who also happened to be a great poet." -- Philip Gourevitch"A stunning combination of ease and urgency." -- Booklist"The Doctor Stories are clinical vignettes at their best and most engaging: dramatic, lively, full of the heroism it takes to be human." -- The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

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Book SynopsisYoko Tawada—winner of the National Book Award—presents three terrific new ghost stories, each named after a street in BerlinTrade Review"Tawada's stories agitate the mind like songs half-remembered or treasure boxes whose keys are locked within." -- The New York Times"Tawada is reminiscent of Nikolai Gogol, for whom the natural situation for a ghost story was a minor government employee saving up to buy a fancy coat, the natural destiny of a nose to haunt its owner as an overbearing nobleman." -- Rivka Galchen - The New York Times Magazine"Tawada’s strange, exquisite book toys with ideas of language, identity, and what it means to own someone else’s story or one’s own." -- The New Yorker"These stories reinvent familiar landmarks and artworks, giving readers an imaginative and hopeful way to grapple with the history that’s written into the urban landscape." -- Publishers Weekly"Three Streets is one of the most explicitly dialectical works in Tawada’s oeuvre. It pursues a left project not only in form but also in content—an engagement with the plight of the poor, the disenfranchised, the forgotten—and leaves her readers no doubt that, at the end of the day, her project has political stakes." -- Reed McConnell - The Baffler"“The mystery of what it means to be human”—this phrase, which pops up early in “Kollwitz Strasse,” is an apt description of what Tawada aims to explore in these stories. From one moment to the next, her narratives can be mystifying. In time, though, they cohere into engrossing meditations on historical memory and the oft-baffling nature of life in this century.” " -- Kevin Canfield - World Literature Today"In her latest work of fiction Three Streets, Tawada brings her remarkable intelligence and linguistic playfulness to bear on the cityscape of Berlin itself – or, more specifically, its former East. On Kollwitzstraße, Majakowskiring and Puschkinallee, Tawada conjures a series of ghostly encounters with the past, present and supernatural possibilities of our history-heavy city. This klein aber fein addition to Tawada’s oeuvre, translated elegantly by Margaret Mitsutani, compresses plenty of its author’s trademark offbeat brilliance into a pleasingly short format." -- Alexander Wells - Exberliner"Each ‘street’ in the volume, translated by Margaret Mitsutani, is both charming and unnerving...This may well be Tawada’s finest work, partly because of how moving it is when someone capable of so much wit knows when to be reverent. A perfect story." -- J.W. McCormack - The New Left Review

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Book SynopsisWith enchanting humor, social satire, and verbal dexterity, From a Distant Relation captures the world of the shtetl in a sharp realist prose style. Themes of repressed desire, poverty, relations with non-Jews, and historic upheavals echo in a cast of memorable characters.

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Book SynopsisCelebrated writer Marguerite Duras on the artistic processTrade Review"Writing displays Duras’s unique, detailed perception to reveal great reverence for human life and respect for memory. An enthralling book." —Library Journal

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Book SynopsisIn this collection of interconnected stories, the beautiful and ravaging forces of sea and land collide with the forces of human nature, through isolation and family, love and loss, madness and revelation. The stories follow the lives of two sisters and the people who come and go in their lives, much like the tides.

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Book SynopsisHappiness and connection prove fickle in this debut collection of eleven linked stories introducing Babbie and Donnie.

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Book SynopsisIn this wonderful collection of stories by some of Ireland's finest writers, including Carleton, Yeats and Lady Wilde, a legion of fairy folk leprechauns, giants, witches and mermaids help, hinder, charm and terrify their mortal neighbours.The fairy tales of Ireland are part of one of the richest folklore traditions in the world. These much-loved tales include the story of the farmer who offends the fairies by building on their dancing ground; the king who loses his wife in a chess game and the smith who learns his skill at working brass and iron during his seven-year apprenticeship to the giant Mahon MacMahon. The heroes and saints of the Celtic sagas are here as well, in beautifully written versions of the old bardic stories of Finn, Deirdre, Cuchulain and Brigid. Wielding the power to enthral and enchant, these ancient tales open the door to a strangely familiar world of mystery and magic.

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Book SynopsisANNE YOUNGSON is the author of the Costa First Book Award-shortlisted Meet Me at the Museum; BBC Radio Book Club pick, Three Women and a Boat and the story collection, The Six Who Came to Dinner. Anne Youngson's shrewd, warm-hearted and observational prose has been widely praised. Her new novel, A Complicated Matter explores the human heart through the coming-of-age of a young English refugee during the blitz. Anne's work is published around the world. She lives in Oxfordshire with her husband and has three grandchildren.Trade ReviewAn extraordinary writer * NINA STIBBE *

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Book SynopsisFeel good Tales is a collection of fictional 'feel good' short stories for adults. The book also includes three tales of family fiction for both Christmas and Easter for children to enjoy; featuring Marmite and Muffin the golden retriever. One of these stories is told by, Marmite, the adventurous little dachshund on the book cover.

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Book SynopsisEleven cricket-themed short stories, each set in a different country.

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Book SynopsisTaking us from the mundane to the magical, this collection of short stories will entertain and delight.Drawing inspiration from East Asian and Malaysian myth and folklore, Zen Cho guides the reader through enchanted realms inhabited by dragons, vampires and incorrigible grandmothers.We’ll meet an elderly ex-member of parliament, who recalls her youthful romance with an orang bunian. This was forbidden. Not because her lover was an invisible jungle spirit, but because she was Muslim and he was not. A teenage vampire struggles to balance homework, bossy aunties, first love . . . and eating people. A mischievous matriarch returns from the dead to disrupt her own funeral rites, pitting granddaughter against granddaughter. An earth spirit becomes entangled in protracted negotiations with an annoying landlord. And Chang E, the Chinese moon goddess, spins off into outer space – the ultimate metaphor for diaspora.Spirits Abroad wonTrade ReviewSpirits Abroad is a fantastic and fun exploration of the borders between human and spirit and life and death, by one of the best fantasy writers working today -- Martha Wells, author of The Murderbot Diaries By turns hilarious and heartbreaking - and always sharply smart -- Aliette de Bodard, author of The Red Scholar’s WakeSpirits Abroad is speculative fiction at its best! Zen Cho has created a collection of modern-day classics . . . Charming, warm and heartbreakingly relatable, Spirits Abroad is pure magic! -- Vanessa Len, author of Only a MonsterSpirits Abroad is deliciously fun, dazzlingly clever, and my favourite-ever short story collection, bar none. Read it now!’ -- Stephanie Burgis, author of SnowspelledZen Cho’s stories manage the rare and precious feat of being smart, witty, wise, horrific, and comforting all at once -- Kate Elliott, author of The Sun ChroniclesAbsolutely gorgeous . . . Just as with her novels, Cho merges humor and relatable characters with delightful prose and engaging storylines -- BuzzfeedA swath of delightful and intricate stories from a wildly inventive storyteller -- Kirkus Reviews

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