There's a bonus, a story not seen for more than 70 years!'My name is Hercule Poirot and I am probably the greatest detective in the world.' The dapper, moustache-twirling little Belgian with the egg-shaped head, curious mannerisms and inordinate respect for his own 'little grey cells' has solved some of the most puzzling fictional crimes of the century. Appearing in Agatha Christie's very first novel in 1920 and her very last in 1975, Hercule Poirot became the most celebrated detective since Sherlock Holmes, appearing in 33 novels, a play, and these 51 short stories. These short stories provide a feast for hardened Agatha Christie addicts as well as those who have grown to love the detective through his many film and television appearances. This edition also includes Poirot in "The Regatta Mystery, "an early version of an Agatha Christie story not published since 1936!Some may dispute whether "all" is the correct word. Several Poirot short stories have earlier, alternate, or expanded versions, and we shouldn't forget the dozen or so not here; they were re-purposed into the 1927 novel "The Big Four." Others appeared under different titles. Most importantly, "Hercule Poirot The Complete Short Stories" will delight newcomers to Christie's famous detective, as well as those who just want to remember how good their read was the first time around.The stories in order are: (1) The Affair at the Victory Ball, (2) The Jewel Robbery at the Grand Metropolitan, (3) The King of Clubs, (4) The Disappearance of Mr. Davenheim, (5) The Plymouth Express, (6) The Adventure of The Western Star, (7) The Tragedy at Marsdon Manor, (8) The Kidnapped Prime Minister, (9) The Million Dollar Bond Robbery, (10) The Adventure of the Cheap Flat, (11) The Mystery of Hunter's Lodge, (12) The Chocolate Box, (13) The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb, (14) The Veiled Lady, (15) The Adventure of Johnnie Waverly, (16) The Market Basing Mystery, (17) The Adventure of the Italian Nobleman, (18) The Case of the Missing Will, (19) The Incredible Theft, (20) The Adventure of the Clapham Cook, (21) The Lost Mine, (22) The Cornish Mystery, (23) The Double Clue, (24) The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding, (25) The Lemesurier Inheritance, (26) The Under Dog, (27) Double Sin, (28) Wasps' Nest, (29) The Third-Floor Flat, (30) The Mystery of the Spanish Chest, (31) Dead Man's Mirror, (32) How Does Your Garden Grow? (33) Problem at Sea, (34) Triangle at Rhodes, (35) Murder in the Mews, (36) Yellow Iris, (37) The Dream, (38) The Labours of Hercules, the Foreword, (39) The Nemean Lion, (40) The Lernean Hydra, (41) The Arcadian Deer, (42) The Erymanthian Boar, (43) The Augean Stables, (44) The Stymphalean Birds, (45) The Cretan Bull, (46) The Horses of Diomedes, (47) The Girdle of Hyppolita, (48) The Flock of Geryon, (49) The Apples of the Hesperides, (50) The Capture of Cerberus, and (51) Four-and-Twenty Blackbirds.Librarian's note: this entry is for the collection, "Hercule Poirot The Complete Short Stories." Entries for each of the individual stories can be found elsewhere on Goodreads.

    In "A Temporary Matter," published in The New Yorker, a young Indian-American couple faces the heartbreak of a stillborn birth while their Boston neighborhood copes with a nightly blackout. In the title story, an interpreter guides an American family through the India of their ancestors and hears an astonishing confession. Lahiri writes with deft cultural insight reminiscent of Anita Desai and a nuanced depth that recalls Mavis Gallant.

    Some of the narrative pieces herein contained are: "Pierre Menard" in which a modern writer reconstructs passages from Don Quixote that are verbally identical but read differently; "The Garden of Forking Paths," an intellectual variation on the detective-story genre; and "Nightmares," a lecture which, as Alastair Reid puts it, "shifts from personal memories to writers, to an examination of other peoples' metaphors, to language itself." Everything and Nothing serves as a perfect introduction to Borges's genius.

    On the heels of last year's mesmerising film adaptation of 'Brokeback Mountain' comes this beautiful, single volume collection of Annie Proulx's celebrated Wyoming stories. Inventive, compassionate and wildly funny, they explore the unbreakable bond between a people and their land in rich and robust language, with an eye for detail unparalleled in American fiction. In 'The Contest', the men of Elk Tooth, Wyoming, vow to put aside their razors for two seasons and wait to see who has the longest beard come the 4th of July. Deb Sipple, the moving protagonist of 'That Trickle Down Effect', finds that his opportunism - and his smoking habit - lead to massive destruction. And 'What Kind of Furniture Would Jesus Pick?' is the story of Gilbert Wolfscale, whose rabid devotion to his ranch drives away his wife and sons. Every story of this stunning collection is a tribute to Proulx's wit, her knowledge of the West, and her profound sympathy for characters who must use sheer will and courage to make it in such unforgiving territory.

    ~~~ Set in Newford, a quintessential North American city that might exist anywhere or nowhere, de Lint's stories wander amid the tenements and the music clubs, the waterfront and the alleyways, where ancient myths and magic spill into the modern world. Here, ghosts loiter under street lamps, gemmins live in abandoned cars, and goblins traverse the tunnels below. ~~~ You'll meet folks like Jilly Coppercorn, a painter who sees wonder on these mean streets; Christy Riddell, writer and collector of urban folk tales and odd stories; his brother Geordie, a street fiddler who calls up enchantment with his music; and many others, like the boy who saves feral bicycles, the girl who stumbles into "the city of bridges," an origami fortune teller, a serial killer of people's dreams, "bone woman," and a conjure man. ~~~ With The Newford Stories, de Lint weaves before you a mesmerizing tapestry of stark realism, fond hope, and illimitable dreams.

    Set in the old-world Calcutta of the Raj, these stories featuring the astute investigator and his chronicler friend Ajit are still as gripping and delightful as when they first appeared.Byomkesh’s world, peopled with wonderfully delineated characters and framed by a brilliantly captured pre-Independence urban milieu, is fascinating because of its contemporary flavor. In the first story, Byomkesh works undercover to expose an organized crime ring trafficking in drugs. In ‘The Gramophone Pin Mystery’, he must put his razor-sharp intellect to good use to unearth the pattern behind a series of bizarre roadside murders. In ‘Calamity Strikes’, the ace detective is called upon to investigate the strange and sudden death of a girl in a neighbour’s kitchen. In the next story, he has to lock horns with an old enemy who has vowed to kill him with an innocuous but deadly weapon. And in ‘Picture Imperfect’, Byomkesh Bakshi unravels a complex mystery involving a stolen group photograph, an amorous couple, and an apparently unnecessary murder.Available in English for the first time in a superb translation, these stories will captivate every lover of crime fiction, young and old alike.

    Now the coauthors bring readers this volume, honoring the unique and enduring love that people share with their cats and dogs. Like its predecessor, this book is a joyous and inspiring collection--sometimes poignant, sometimes amusing, always filled with the special and incredibly unconditional love only cats and dogs can give.

    JonesCold snap by Thom JonesDoe season by David Michael KaplanPatriotic by Janet KauffmanGirl by Jamaica KincaidTerritory by David LeavittThe kind of light that shines on Texas by Reginald McKnightYou're ugly, too by Lorrie MooreThe management of grief by Bharati MukherjeeMeneseteung by Alice MunroGhost girls by Joyce Carol OatesThe things they carried by Tim O'BrienThe shawl by Cynthia OzickBrokeback Mountain by Annie ProulxStrays by Mark RichardIntensive care by Lee SmithThe way we live now by Susan SontagTwo kinds by Amy TanFirst, body by Melanie Rae ThonAble, Baker, Charlie, Dog by Stephanie VaughnNineteen fifty-five by Alice WalkerFever by John Edgar WidemanTaking care by Joy Williams

    Berlin's vision is sometimes remorseful, sometimes resigned, always courageous. The elusive nature of happiness is a compelling theme here: the survivors in these stories--many of them society's marginal or excluded people, fighting alcohol or drug addiction, bearing emotional scars--recognize it all too well.

    In the Daily Mail Angela Huth called "Good Evening, Mrs Craven" 'my especial find' and Ruth Gorb in the "Ham & High" contrasted the humour of some of the stories with the desolation of others: 'The mistress, unlike the wife, has to worry and mourn in secret for her man; a middle-aged spinster finds herself alone again when the camaraderie of the air-raids is over ...'

    The first piece of fiction Smith ever wrote – a short story called The Man Who Drew Cats – won the World Fantasy award. It’s included here along with many others, some unpublished, which show the incredible versatility of one of the most exciting writers working in Britain today. The collection is stuffed with surreal, disturbing gems including:‘When God Lived in Kentish Town’ Someone comes up to you when you’re quietly eating your stir-fried rice in a great Chinese take away, and tells you: ‘I’ve found God’. You try to ignore them, right? But what if they have, and what if He works in a drab old electrical store on Kentish Town Road and he’s not getting many customers?‘Diet Hell’ Some people will do anything to fit into their old jeans.‘Save As…’ What if you could back up your life? Save it up to a certain point and return to it when things went horribly wrong?‘Everybody Goes’ An idyllic childhood day from a long, hot summer. The kind you want to last for ever. All good things must come to an end, mustn’t they?

    A woman confronts the brutal truth about her husband in the chilling story, The Ruffian's Wife. His Brother's Keeper is a half-wit boxer's eulogy to the brother who betrayed him. The Second Story Angel recounts one of the most novel cons ever devised. In seven stories, the tough and taciturn Continental Op takes on a motley collection of the deceitful, the duped, and the dead, and once again shown his uncanny ability to get at the truth. In three stories, Sam Spade confronts the darkness in the human soul while rolling his own cigarettes. And the first study for The Thin Man sends John Guild on a murder investigation in which almost every witness may be lying.In Nightmare Town, Dashiell Hammett, America's poet laureate of the dispossessed, shows us a world where people confront a multitude of evils. Whether they are trying to right wrongs or just trying to survive, all of them are rendered with Hammett's signature gifts for sharp-edged characters and blunt dialogue.Hammett said that his ambition was to elevate mystery fiction to the level of art. This collection of masterful stories clearly illustrates Hammett's success, and shows the remarkable range and variety of the fiction he produced.As a novelist of realistic intrigue, Hammett was unsurpassed in his own or any day. - Ross MacDonaldA legend of a different kind: exemplary, not only of a certain kind of American fiction, but also of a certain kind of American life - Margaret AtwoodCover photograph: Mark Adams

    Combining scientific realism with a poetic vision and elements of folk tale, this text of ten stories presents the dreams of the builders of socialism.

    Sure to become a favorite of readers who love Chicken Soup for its stories of overcoming life's obstacles, challenges, heartbreaks and pain, this book emphasizes triumph in the face of overwhelming odds. A timeless testament to the indomitable human spirit, this collection is sure to encourage, support, comfort and, most of all, inspire all readers for years to come. Show More Show Less

    The stories in this book have their roots in the Indian culture but express universal emotions that are experienced across the boundaries of regions, caste, and creed. Varied emotions of love, heartbreak, aloofness, anxiety, fear, and longing are expressed in this book.There is one story in which movie star Dilip Kumar breaks the heart of a young girl. There is another where a man pushes off another from a moving train. Raavi Paar also tells the story of a Muslim man whose wish is to be cremated after death and not be buried. There is also a story about a married woman who realises that the only reason for her husband to marry her was to use her as cheap labour.The title of this book is an incident from the author’s own life. During the India-Pakistan partition, the author was mistakenly claimed as their own child by another family. Raavi Paar consists of stories which will touch the reader’s hearts due to the simplicity and intricacy of emotions portrayed by the author.

    Each one a small miracle of storytelling and compassion, these stories are a joyous confirmation of Tim Gautreaux's rare and generous talent.

    Mary Had a Little Chainsaw. Milo's Disorder. Rosie's Crazy Mother. The Siamese Quadruplets. Emily Amputee. Your mother never told you these stories.She didn't want to scare you.But Angus Oblong is not your mother.If Edgar Allan Poe and David Lynch wrote a book, it might be as warped, wicked, and perversely funny as this treasury of twisted tales from childhood's Twilight Zone. So don't be alarmed if you find yourself screaming . . . with laughter . . . until the day you die. Which may be very soon . . .From the Hardcover edition.

    Jacket by Steven Stapleton.Co-produced with Durtro. 500 copies printed.(Out of print).Contents: -a quote from Stenbock-Robert Aickman: An Appreciation, by David Tibet-An Essay by Robert Aickman-Remembering Robert, by Ramsey Campbell-The Trains/ The Insufficient Answer/ The View/ The School Friend/ Ringing the Changes/ Choice of Weapons/ The Waiting Room/ Bind Your Hair/ Your Tiny Hand is Frozen/ My Poor Friend/ The Visiting Star/ Larger Than Oneself/ A Roman Question/ The Wine-Dark Sea/ Ravissante/ The Inner Room/ Never Visit Venice/ The Unsettled Dust/ The Houses of the Russians/ No Stronger Than a Flower/ The Cicerones/ Into the Wood. ..with Volume II, not sold separately.Note: An addendum was produced for the volumes.

    Each of the portraits in Close Range reveals characters fiercely wrought with precision and grace. These are stories of desperation and unlikely elation, set in a landscape both stark and magnificent.The half-skinned steer --The mud below --55 miles to the gas pump --The bunchgrass edge of the world --A lonely coast --Job history --Pair a spurs --People in Hell just want a drink of water --The governors of Wyoming --The blood bay --Brokeback Mountain

    Millions of readers around the world have relished Jeffrey Archer's short stories. His first collection, A Quiver Full of Arrows, was acclaimed by The Times as 'stylish, witty and entertaining." Of his second collection, A Twist in the Tale, the New York Times said: 'Jeffrey Archer plays a subtle cat-and-mouse game with the reader in twelve original stories that end, more often than not, with our collective whiskers twitching in surprise.' His third, Twelve Red Herrings, was described by the Daily Mail as 'an exemplary collection of short stories.'

    In this collection, Hidalgo returns to the writing of the realistic short story while remaining true to the style of the travel essays, which some critics believe to be her most inspired work.

    An embittered mother cares for her dying son who is trapped in a thicket that guards a sleeping beauty... In a bleak and desolate industrial wasteland, a group of violent outcasts lays the tattered myths of one Millenium to rest, and gives terrifying birth to those of the next.Erotic, compelling, witty, and altogether extraordinary, these stories lay bare our innermost demons and desires--imaginatively transforming our youthful fantasies into things darker, slyer, and more delightfully subversive. The "Snow White, Blood Red" Collection #1. Snow White, Blood Red #2. Black Thorn, White Rose #3. Ruby Slippers, Golden Tears #4. Black Swan, White Raven #5. Silver Birch, Blood Moon #6. Black Heart, Ivory Bones

    While inspired by the sense of spiritual certainty, their narrative quality, subtle humor, and visionary power lift them far above the common run of "religious" literature.

    "His stories, which deluge us with feeling, make feeling more intelligent; more magnanimous. He is an artist of our moral maturity." This volume presents forty-two of Chekhov's later short stories, written between 1888 and 1903, in acclaimed translations by Constance Garnett and chosen by Shelby Foote. Among the most outstanding are "A Dreary Story," a dispassionate tale that reflects Chekhov's doubts about his role as an artist. Thomas Mann deemed it "a truly extraordinary, fascinating story . . . unlike anything else in world literature." "The Darling," a delightful work highly admired by Tolstoy, offers comic proof that life has no meaning without love. And in "The Lady with the Dog," which Vladimir Nabokov called "one of the greatest stories ever written," a chance affair takes possession of a bored young woman and a cynical roué, changing their lives forever. Also included in this collection are the famous trilogy, "The Man in a Case," "Gooseberries," and "About Love," as well as "Sleepy," "The Horse-Stealers," and "Betrothed." "The greatest of Chekhov's stories are, no matter how many times reread, always an experience that strikes deep into the soul and produces an alteration there," wrote William Maxwell. "As for those masterpieces 'The Lady with the Dog,' 'The Horse-Stealers,' 'Sleepy,' 'Gooseberries,' 'About Love'—where else do you see so clearly the difference between light and dark, or how dark darkness can be?" Shelby Foote has provided an Introduction for this edition.

    From neo-noir master Andrew Vachss comes Everybody Pays, 38 white-knuckle rides into a netherworld of pederasts and prostitutes, stick-up kids and fall guys—where private codes of crime and punishment pulsate beneath a surface system of law and order, and our moral  compass spins frighteningly out of control. Here is the street-grit prose that has earned Vachss comparisons to Chandler, Cain, and Hammett--and the ingenious plot twists that transform the double-cross into an expression of retribution, the dark deed into a thing of beauty. Electrifying and enigmatic, Everybody Pays is a sojourn into the nature of evil itself—a trip made all the more frightening by its proximity to our front doorstep.

    His lyric, deceptively simple prose conjures a world where the default setting is violence, a world of hunting and fishing, gambling and losing, drinking and poaching—a world most of us have never seen. In the chilling title novella (selected for the anthologies New Stories from the South: The Year's Best, 1999 and Best Mystery Stories of the Century), three wild boys confront a mythic game warden as mysterious and deadly as the river they haunt. And, as a weathered, hand-painted sign reads: "Jesus is not coming;" This terrain isn't pretty, isn't for the weak of heart, but in these desperate, lost people, Franklin somehow finds the moments of grace that make them what they so abundantly are: human.

    Chicken Soup has been a part of these traditions for many years, and our new Christmas

     The eight new stories in Out of the Woods mark Offutt's return to the form in which he first displayed his astonishing talent. Offutt, who "draws landscape and constructs dialogue with the eyes and ears of a native son" (The Miami Herald), is on strong home turf here, capturing those who have left the Kentucky hills and long to return. These are stories of gravediggers and drifters, gamblers and truck drivers a long way from home, tales that are so full of hard edges they can't help but tell some hard truths.

    Mr Twiddle is a kind old soul with the best intentions, but he is extremely forgetful, very lazy and more than a little bit silly.

    Also included here are some of the most popular and striking short stories Narayan has ever written: from the celebrated 'A Horse And Two Goats' and 'Salt and Saltdust', the tale of a wife who cannot distinguis between salt and sawdust for seasoning and thus leaves her husband with no option bt to cook himself , to gems like 'An Astrologer's Day','The Shelter' and 'Under The Banyan Tree', which is about a man called Nambi who has the uncanny ability to mesmerize his audience with his stories, but eventually lapses into silence.Encapsulating the very best of R.K Narayan's remarkable output, this is a fitting tribute in the English language.

    The Rose Garden gathers the rest of her short fiction, some of it set in her native Dublin but most of it in and around her adopted Manhattan. The riches here are many, but the collection's centerpiece is a suite of satirical scenes from suburban life, stories a little meaner than Cheever's, and wittier than Updike's (Los Angeles Times Book Review).

    Jacket by Steven Stapleton.Co-produced with Durtro. 500 copies printed.(Out of print).Contents:The Swords/ The Real Road to the Church/ Niemandswasser/ Pages from a Young Girl's Journal/ The Hospice/ The Same Dog/ Meeting Mr Millar/ The Clock Watcher/ Growing Boys/ Marriage/ Le Miroir/ Compulsory Games/ Raising the Wind/ Residents Only/ Wood/ Hand in Glove/ No Time Is Passing/ The Fetch/ The Breakthrough/ The Next Glade/ Letters to the Postman/ The Stains/ Just a Song at Twilight/ Laura/ Rosamund's Bower/ Mark/ Ingestre: The Customer's Tale. ..with Volume I, not sold separately.Note: An addendum was produced for the volumes.

    His recordings have been difficult to obtain...by his choice. In 1999, for the 1st time, he was lured into the studio to record this stunning retrospective. This recording is the winner of the International Horror Writers Bram Stoker Award for outstanding non-print media.Contents include: an original introductionI Have No Mouth, and I Must ScreamLaugh Track Grail"Repent, Harlequin!" said the TicktockmanThe Very Last Day of a Good WomanThe Time of the EyePaladin of the Lost HourThe Lingering Scent of WoodsmokeA Boy and His Dog (source of the cult motion picture)

    Heydt, and their fellow adventurers through perilous lands where women - whether they be powerful magicians, or sword fighters sworn to protect - take up challenges so often considered the sole province of men, in twenty-six original stories collected and edited by Marion Zimmer Bradley.The sixteenth volume of "Sword & Sorceress" includes 25 all-original stories of strong, heroic women characters -- female warriors and wizards who face down perils and come to the aid of those in need. Includes the fantasy fiction of Diana Paxson, Lawrence Watt-Evans, Deborah Wheeler, and Dorothy J. Heydt, as well as an introduction by Marion Zimmer Bradley.

    "My People's Waltz is the story of Richard's world ? a place where people drink hard, lie and cheat freely, and yet still find the time to waltz in their kitchens. From North Carolina to Arkansas to the Texas Gulf Coast, from his mother's nervous breakdowns to his father's erratic attempts to win his family's love, Richard's journey from childhood to adulthood ultimately becomes a pilgrimage to salvage some part of his own damaged heart. By turns heartbreaking and hilarious, these award-winning stories herald a new voice in Southern American fiction.

    M. Forster. With an introduction by Louis Auchincloss, these three classic novels are accompanied here by The Longest Journey and the short stories from his admired first collection, The Celestial Omnibus.

    Noura Durkee. This volume contains the biographies of twenty-one intimate Sahabah of the Prophet Muhammad who were promised Paradise, as recorded in various ahadith.

    "Love in the Tall Grass" takes Cordelia down a coastal road on the last day of the twentieth century to keep a date with her lover that has been nine years in the waiting. "Stay Close to the Water's Edge" tells of a young Harvard student who is pitilessly humiliated by his homophobic stepfather on his birthday. Keegan's writing has a clear vision of unaffected truths and boldly explores a world where dreams, memory, and chance have crippling consequences for those involved. The stories are often dark and enveloped in a palpable atmosphere, and the reader feels that something "big" is going on in each of these carefully sculpted tales. The award-winning Antarctica, a Los Angeles Times Best Book of 2001, and recipient of the prestigious Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, the William Trevor Prize, and the Martin Healy Award, is a haunting debut. "These stories are diamonds." -- Emily Robichaud, Esquire "That Keegan has a knack for storytelling is proved many times over...." -- Caitlin Macy, The New York Times Book Review "[These] stories ... show Keegan to be an authentic talent with a gimlet eye and a distinctive voice." -- Amanda Heller, The Boston Globe "Reading these stories is like coming upon work of Ann Beattie or Raymond Carver at the start of their careers." -- Jerry Griswold, Los Angeles Times

    A great holiday gift."Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Gift of Christmas" will delight readers with its stories about the joy, wonder, and blessings of the holiday season. This special collection is filled with joyful, heartwarming and merry stories about holiday traditions, family, and goodwill that the whole family will enjoy. Most of these stories originally appeared in a limited edition book called "Chicken Soup for the Soul: Tales of Christmas."

    His subsequent works, from Nights in Aruba and The Beauty of Men to the essays in Ground Zero, established Holleran as the preeminent voice in the contemporary gay literary canon. His fiction has earned comparisons to that of Guy de Maupassant, Somerset Maugham, and E Scott Fitzgerald, and now Holleran returns with a collection of sixteen powerful short stories. Exploring the lives and times of those who have lived past the exuberance of youth, these tales make for a moving journey across landscapes of regret and loss, shame and pride, loneliness and love. With a surprising yet sensitive comic touch, Andrew Holleran has written his most mature work to date -- a poignant, polished collection.

    The stories in this book-by a wide range of professional writers, novelists, journalists, freelancers, poets and screenwriters-will give readers insight into the human trials, tribulations and triumphs of writers, and writers a source of inspiration and commiseration. Whether readers are beginning writers, seasoned pros or wannabes, the stories of purpose, passion, endurance and success contained in Chicken Soup for the Writer's Soul will inform, entertain, uplift and inspire them. In its pages, they will learn important lessons on: the importance of perseverance, the value of being yourself, the process of discovering your own voice, the need for mentors and allies, and the power of following your heartfelt dreams. Contributors include: Sue Grafton, Steve Allen, Dave Barry, Agatha Christie, Art Linkletter, Terry McMillan, and more.

    It also includes original essays on both the writing life and trends in 20th century American Literature that were shaped by the growth of the Iowa program and the programs that followed.

    He opens a window on his private life, from his boyhood dislike of school to his daughter’s precocious melancholy, from his successful struggle to quit smoking to his anxiety at the prospect of testifying against some clumsy muggers who fell upon him during a visit to New York City. From ordinary obligations such as applying for a passport or sharing a holiday meal with relatives, he takes extraordinary flights of imagination; in extreme moments, such as the terrifying days following a cataclysmic earthquake in Istanbul, he lays bare our most basic hopes and fears. Again and again Pamuk declares his faith in fiction, engaging the work of such predecessors as Laurence Sterne and Fyodor Dostoyevsky, sharing fragments from his notebooks, and commenting on his own novels. He contemplates his mysterious compulsion to sit alone at a desk and dream, always returning to the rich deliverance that is reading and writing.By turns witty, moving, playful, and provocative, Other Colors glows with the energy of a master at work and gives us the world through his eyes, assigning every radiant theme and shifting mood its precise shade in the spectrum of significance.

    Free online fiction.From Random House's Boldtype.

    

    First collection published in English by major, multiple award-winning Chinese writer Yan Geling.

    In Englander's amazingly taut and ambitious "The Twenty-seventh Man," a clerical error lands earnest, unpublished Pinchas Pelovits in prison with twenty-six writers slated for execution at Stalin's command, and in the grip of torture Pinchas composes a mini-masterpiece, which he recites in one glorious moment before author and audience are simultaneously annihilated. In "The Gilgul of Park Avenue," a Protestant has a religious awakening in the back of a New York taxi. In the collection's hilarious title story, a Hasidic man incensed by his wife's interminable menstrual cycle gets a dispensation from his rabbi to see a prostitute. The stories in For the Relief of Unbearable Urges are powerfully inventive and often haunting, steeped in the weight of Jewish history and in the customs of Orthodox life. But it is in the largeness of their spirit-- a spirit that finds in doubt a doorway to faith, that sees in despair a chance for the heart to deepen--and in the wisdom that so prodigiously transcends the author's twenty-eight years, that these stories are truly remarkable. Nathan Englander envisions a group of Polish Jews herded toward a train bound for Auschwitz and in a deft imaginative twist turns them into acrobats tumbling out of harm's way; he takes an elderly wigmaker and makes her, for a single moment, beautiful. Again and again, Englander does what feels impossible: he finds, wherever he looks, a province beyond death's dominion.For the Relief of Unbearable Urges is a work of stunning authority and imagination--a book that is as wondrous and joyful as it is wrenchingly sad, and that heralds the arrival of a profoundly gifted new storyteller.

    Two complete collections of Tanya Huff_s comical short stories featuring Magdelene (the world's most powerful and laziest wizard) and Terazin (a top-notch thief).

    S. ByattCharles de LintKaren Joy FowlerNeil GaimanLisa GoldsteinStephen KingEllen KushnerPatricia A. McKillipSteven MillhauserMichael Marshall SmithPeter StraubJane YolenFor more than a decade, readers have looked to The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror to showcase the highest achievements of fantastic fiction. Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling continue their critically acclaimed and award-winning tradition with another stunning collection of stories. The fiction and poetry here is culled from an exhaustive survey of the field, nearly four dozen stories ranging from fairy tales to gothic horror, from magical realism to dark tales in the Grand Guignol style. Rounding out the volume are the editors' invaluable overviews of the year in fantastic fiction, and a long list of Honorable Mentions, making this volume a valubale reference source as well as the best reading available in fantasy and horror

    Fascinated by deception and decay, and generally labeled a cyberpunk writer, his work transcends the limits of genre fiction. Beast of the Heartland contains seven tales that explore the darkside where science fiction meets horror. Headed by the award-winning "Barnacle Bill the Spacer," a story of high-space mutiny, the book includes "A Little Night Music," a gothic tale of insanity; "All the Perfumes of Araby," where an adventurer in the Middle East links up with an ancient entity; "Human History," a postapocalyptic chiller; "Sports in America," a noir tale in the Chandler tradition; "The Sun Spider," a mini space opera; and the title story -- an ingenious picture of a battered boxer on the decline.

    Contemplated it seriously, I mean: six times sat with the fat bottle of Clonazepam within reaching distance, six times failed to reach for it, betrayed by some instinct for life or disgusted by my own weakness.Hugo Nomination for Best Novelette 1999.

    From the all-powerful natural horrors of The First Law, to the man-made terrors of The Origin of Truth, this collection explores existence at the very edge of survival ... for humankind itself. The British Fantasy Award-winning White gives an ambiguous vision of a frozen hell-on-earth, while the new novella Hell locates it even nearer to our hearts. From Bad Flesh tells of diseased flesh, while the brand new Mannequin Man and the Plastic Bitch contains many maladies of the mind, most of them considered normal in the sick world it inhabits...Contents:* White* From Bad Flesh* Hell (original)* The First Law* The Origin of Truth* Mannequin Man and the Plastic Bitch (original)

    Many of the field's finest practitioners are represented here, along with stories from promising newcomers, including:William Barton * Rob Chilson * Tony Daniel * Cory Doctorow * Jim Grimsley * Gwyneth Jones * Chris Lawson * Ian McDonald * Robert Reed * William Browning Spencer * Allen Steele * Michael Swanwick * Howard Waldrop * Cherry Wilder * Liz Williams A useful list of honorable mentions and Dozois's insightful summation of the year in sf round out this anthology, making it indispensable for anyone interested in SF today.Contents xi • Summation: 1998 • essay by Gardner Dozois1 • Oceanic • (1998) • novella by Greg Egan37 • Approaching Perimelasma • (1998) • novelette by Geoffrey A. Landis56 • Craphound • (1998) • shortstory by Cory Doctorow72 • Jedella Ghost • (1998) • shortstory by Tanith Lee87 • Taklamakan • [Chattanooga] • (1998) • novelette by Bruce Sterling118 • The Island of the Immortals • (1998) • shortstory by Ursula K. Le Guin126 • Sea Change, with Monsters • (1998) • novella by Paul J. McAuley161 • Divided by Infinity • (1998) • novelette by Robert Charles Wilson181 • US • (1998) • shortstory by Howard Waldrop191 • The Days of Solomon Gursky • (1998) • novella by Ian McDonald234 • The Cuckoo's Boys • (1998) • novella by Robert Reed277 • The Halfway House at the Heart of Darkness • (1998) • shortstory by William Browning Spencer289 • The Very Pulse of the Machine • (1998) • novelette by Michael Swanwick304 • Story of Your Life • (1998) • novella by Ted Chiang339 • Voivodoi • (1998) • shortstory by Liz Williams349 • Saddlepoint: Roughneck • [Saddle Point • 4] • (1998) • novella by Stephen Baxter393 • This Side of Independence • (1998) • shortstory by Rob Chilson404 • Unborn Again • (1998) • shortstory by Chris Lawson416 • Grist • (1998) • novella by Tony Daniel462 • La Cenerentola • (1998) • shortstory by Gwyneth Jones476 • Down in the Dark • (1998) • novelette by William Barton510 • Free in Asveroth • (1998) • shortstory by Jim Grimsley524 • The Dancing Floor • (1998) • novelette by Cherry Wilder544 • The Summer Isles • (1998) • novella by Ian R. MacLeod603 • Honorable Mentions: 1998 • essay by Gardner Dozois

    Passion and heartbreak are often intertwined in these stories.

    Hoban's novels: the haunting Lion of Boaz-Jachin, the popular Turtle Diary (made into a movie startting Glenda Jackson and Ben Kingsley), Pilgermann, and his newest work, the sharp and witty Mr. Rinyo-Clacton's Offer, published here for the first time in North America. In addition, the collection includes samples from Mr. Hoban's short stories, essays, and poetry. Finally, for true Hoban aficionados, there is part of an unfinished sequel to the adult children's classic The Mouse and His Child, featuring the further adventures of Manny Rat.

    In "Dyaesthesia," a wife struggles with her responsibility for her adulterous husband after he is maimed in an accident. In the title story, a husband confronts his wife's breakdown and his own surfacing resentments. In language that is eloquent and moving, Kaplan's stories speak to the mystery and pleasure of friendship, love, and marriage. This startling and powerful collection is illuminated by keen insight and hope.

    The collection features many of Block's best-loved characters, including Matt Scudder (eight stories), Ehrengraf (nine stories), Chip Harrison (two stories) and Bernie Rhodenbarr (three stories).

    In Tunnel Vision, V.I. Warshawski embarks on another crime-solving adventure involving a homeless advocate group headed by her old college flame. Windy City Blues is a collection of five short stories that includes Grace Notes.

    Or they would have named it for you, a permanent mark, just for being here."From a new talent that Annie Proulx has called an "important emerging writer" comes a surprising and expansive collection of stories, steeped in the lore of the frontier but unmistakably fresh and of our time.         When We Were Wolves roams over a West we never knew existed--colonized by rogues and tricksters, Custer impersonators, firefighters with a weakness for arson, and the other rootless folk who come to rest under the vast and forgiving desert sky. Jon Billman writes about accidental lives: people who are trapped in unsuitable marriages, impossible situations, but who handle them with the odd grace of those who are determined to live by their own strange code. He mingles the skewed humor of David Sedaris with the loping, rough-edged appeal of Tom McGuane. This is a beguiling new entry on the map of American fiction.

    With a visceral bite or a surreal edge, each electrically charged story in Circling the Drain presents women trying to understand the nature of loss--of leaving or being left--and discovering that in the throes of feverish conflict, things are rarely what they seem. By turns dark and lyrical, ferocious and playful, these stories are precise, startling, and undeniably original. Reading them is a cathartic, mesmerizing literary experience.

    The book incorporates some of Shirley's classic stories along with some revised and hard to find material and is highlighted by nine never before published works. A must have for the Shirley reader or collector. Includes art work by Alan M. Clark.Skyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires, and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller, a national bestseller, or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality books from a diverse group of authors.

    From early legends to present-day fiction and poetry, this tradition emphasizes women's spiritual connection to the natural world and their contributions to tribal and familial community. Central to women's strength is the role of animal figures-Coyote, Owl, Beaver and Bear-who act as guides, helpers, and personal totems, appearing unexpectedly in the modern urban landscape as well as being a constant presence in nature.The work of more than forty authors appears in this volume, representing tribes and regions extending over most of the U.S. and parts of Canada. Among the authors included are Louise Erdrich, Joy Harjo, Leslie Marmon Silko, Paula Gunn Allen, Linda Hogan and Beth Brant, along with writers whose work appears here for the first time.

    Cd's 1 & 2: Historial Recordings-the legendary recording of Under Milk Wood, with Richard Burton and and cast. Also, two radio productions he wrote before that great classic, and poems and stories read by Thomas. Cd's 3 & 4: New Recordings-selected poems including Fern Hill, Do Not Go Gentle, Poem in October. Also, selected stories including The Outing, Peaches, Visit to Grandpa, The Fight and Death Shall Have No Dominion.

    In examining the distances and connections between ourselves and others, and lightly and expertly inching us closer to the bone, storytelling itself has never seemed so necessary, so moving or so joyous.'Beautifully written and quietly unsettling' Big Issue'Bold and sensitive. Smith's prose is a joy' Independent'A wonderful collection; deceptively easy on one level with its whirling library of ghost story, funny story, love story, scary story, and more. Like Russian dolls, separate yet invisibly linked, they unfold from and into one another' Herald'Smith breathes life into her imagined words with a true understanding of the craft of the short-story writer. She dances surely and lightly over the form' Guardian'Captures quiet epiphanies of the extraordinary in the mundane' Sunday Times'These stories fizz with life' The Times Literary Supplement

    While there have been exceptions, many Oprah authors are no more writer's writers than Kenny G is a saxophonist's saxophonist.The best way to find the hottest, most influential writers writing would be (1) to read every issue of every magazine that publishes new fiction, and (2) to read every good book that comes out. Which would work fine if you were Burgess Meredith in that episode of "The Twilight Zone" where everyone in the world disappears except this bookish guy who's left alone -- o, lovely briar patch -- inside a library. (Six words of advice: Take good care of your glasses.) Absent that, what do you do?I've said it before (in this very space), and I'll say it again: The best possible way to keep tabs on what's up with North American fiction is to buy, year in and year out, each year's volume of The Best American Short Stories and Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards. Both collections have been around for more than 80 years, have had their ups (mostly artistic) and downs (mostly commercial), but are both currently enjoying commercial heydays. During the 1970s, BASS's sales sank to a series-threatening 7,000 copies a year, before it hit on some bright ideas that saved it. Beginning in 1978, instead of one editor choosing everything himself (Edward O'Brien, from 1915 to 1940) or herself (Martha Foley, from 1941 to 1977), a series editor winnowed the 3,000 or so published stories each year down to a stack of 120 (a task, says current series editor Katrina Kenison that has become much harder the past couple years than it was when she began in 1991, when she had to scrape to find 120 she thought were terrific). Then a guest editor picks 20 stories to include (this year's, Amy Tan, seems to have done an especially able job and wrote a smart and delightful introduction). Beginning in 1983 (with an Anne Tyler-edited edition that was one of the series's strongest), BASS began to be published simultaneously in both hardback and paperback editions. And in 1987, it began to feature short comments by the writers, talking about their stories. BASS (better selling than O. Henry in recent years) began consistently to sell over 100,000 copies a year.O. HENRY's nadir came more recently. Coinciding with BASS's resurgence, O. Henry, in the 1980s, became the American short story's poor, quirky stepchild. (Not in a good way.) But it received a major overhaul in 1997. A single editor (now Larry Dark) still, as has typically been the case, picks the 20 stories to include. But now, O. Henry also includes a list of 50 short-listed stories (with brief synopses) and comments by the authors of each year's anointed 20. Furthermore, three guest jurors (this year, Sherman Alexie, Stephen King, and Lorrie Moore), pick from those 20 a first, second, and third prize. Sales have zoomed.You could read this year's editions of these two indispensable annuals and -- without breaking a sweat (with no effort more strenuous than feeling the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, though I did, as did Tan, read most of these stories on a StairMaster) -- glean this exemplary shorthand of whom you should be reading, circa 1998-1999.Most Valuable Player: Alice Munro. Why (aside from the fact that she's the greatest living writer in English): Her story, "Save the Reaper," certainly the best short story I read last year, is one of only two included in both the 1999 BASS and O. Henry. In awarding it third prize in O. HENRY, Moore (whose "People Like That Are the Only People Here" was the only story included in both the 1998 BASS and O. Henry) discerns the story's parallels not only with Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" but also with the myths of Eros, Demeter, and Hermes. Moore writes that, in contrast to the O'Connor masterpiece, "[a]s always in the fictional world of Munro, a character's fate pivots not on the penitential moment but on the erotic one."Neither annual allows any writer to be represented by more than one story (a custom that became a rule when both Munro and Richard Bausch landed two gems apiece in BASS 1990), but Munro's "Cortes Island" is short-listed for both and "Before the Change" is short-listed in O. Henry. All three stories are collected in her National Book Critics Circle Award-winning book The Love of a Good Woman.MVP Runners-Up: Annie Proulx, Pam Houston, Lorrie Moore.Why: All three are included in both volumes. Proulx's story "The Bunchgrass Edge of the World" is included in BASS and short-listed in O. Henry, "The Mud Below" in O. Henry and short-listed in BASS. Both are included in Proulx's collection Close Range, which includes two other stories honored in previous years ("Brokeback Mountain" and "The Half-Skinned Steer") and, even in an amazing year for short story collections, is one of the year's most talked-about books.Houston is the year's most-cited story writer, with four: "Cataract" is included in O. Henry; "The Best Girlfriend You Never Had" is included BASS; two other stories ("Then You Get Up and Have Breakfast" and "Three Lessons in Amazon Biology") are short-listed in BASS. All are included in her collection Waltzing the Cat.In addition to serving as an O. Henry juror, Moore has a story, "Real Estate," included in BASS, and her story "Lucky Ducks" is short-listed there. Both are from the exquisite Birds of America.Rookie of the Year: Jhumpa Lahiri.Why: Her funny, gentle, heartbreaking story "Interpreter of Maladies" -- about a nonjudgmental part-time translator/part-time cabdriver in India, who takes an American family sightseeing, gets a decorous crush on the woman, and leads the children into endangerment at the hands of hanuman monkeys -- is the only other story in both volumes. Although Lahiri's work has appeared in The New Yorker, this story originally ran in The Agni Review -- a good journal, but one you may not regularly read. Both annuals had picked it for inclusion before the publication of Lahiri's first book, also called Interpreter of Maladies. The book is, justly, one of the sleeper successes of the year."Our record of discovery is pretty good," says BASS's Kenison. "Chances are, year in and year out, you'll pick up a volume and read a story by someone you've never heard of. The next year, that writer's everywhere you look."This year, that's Lahiri.Also receiving votes are these 18 writers, an intriguing mix of veterans and new voices, also either short-listed or included in both volumes (and if you want to be the savviest reader on your block, you'll read more of these people's work): Poe Ballantine, T. Coraghessan Boyle, Michael Byers, Kiana Davenport, Chitra Divakaruni, Nathan Englander, Mary Gaitskill, Tim Gautreaux (whose "The Piano Tuner," included in BASS and collected in his new book, Welding with Children, is my favorite non-Munro story in either book), Heidi Julavitz, Sheila Kohler, David Long, Steven Millhauser, Kent Nelson, Cynthia Ozick, Melissa Pritchard, John Updike (he's very good), David Foster Wallace (he's very smart), Joy Williams.—Mark Winegardner

    Contains the stories:Jamaica InnThe BirdsMonte VeritàThe Apple TreeThe Little PhotographerKiss Me Again, StrangerThe Old Man

    Contemporary short stories about edgy, urban, obsessive characters by one of America's best writers of experimental fiction.

    Road Atlas is personal, provocative and accessible -- the finest work yet from "the most Swiftian poet of his generation" (David Biespiel, Hungry Mind Review).

    Painter's abstractions, however, allude to a denser tale, daring her reader to come inside the story. The stories mostly focus on women, but explore the fragile, inner sides of dozens of carefully drawn characters.

    Includes 6 great Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyal, Call of the wild by Jack London and Tom Brown's Schooldays by Thomas Hughes.Sherlock Holmes InvestigatesTom Brown's schooldaysCall of the wild

    Collected here for the first time are Davidson's remarkable mystery tales, including: the 1840s murder investigations of New York's chief constable, Jacob Hays; a sinister lesson in New England thrift; a bride who disappears on her wedding day; a slavetrader and a deal gone terribly wrong; treachery in a nursing home; a greedy antiquarian repents his ways; expatriates who will kill for a little peace and quiet; and much ado about an exiled earl, Albanian Trotskyites, the Mafia, New Amsterdam river pirates, and the aspiring hooligans known as the Nafia (who "control all the gumball and India nut machines south of Vesey Street").

    Perhaps her new studies filled her mind with the clear, gladsome morning light of the pure intellect, which always throws doubt and distrust and a kind of negation upon the moonlight of passion, mysterious, and mingled ever with faint shadows of pain. I walked as in an unresting sleep. Utterly as I loved her, I was yet alarmed and distressed to find how entirely my being had grown dependent upon her love; how little of individual, self-existing, self-upholding life, I seemed to have left; how little I cared for anything, save as I could associate it with her.

    This groundbreaking anthology is the first to offer a truly inclusive survey of the American short story along with a unique array of major critical statements and commentaries by the writers themselves.

    In Susan Perabo's world, nothing can be taken for granted: here, a retired grocer takes up jewel theft in his twilight years; a data processor squanders her inheritance on one of Princess Diana's gowns; a mugging victim feigns amnesia to win back his wife. In the tradition of Lorrie Moore, Susan Perabo's slightly off-center lens looks hard at the banal and the bizarre, and at the human condition, where she finds extraordinary magic within the smallest of gestures. Sharply written and overlaid with a mischievous wit, Who I Was Supposed to Be is an unforgettable homage to laughter, love, and wonder.

    Sometimes funny, sometimes poignant, sometimes bawdy, these tales will bring the pioneer spirit of this fascinating place to life.

    And what could I say? They were wonderful." From the very beginning of Sergio Troncoso's celebrated story "Angie Luna," we know we are in the hands of a gifted storyteller. Born of Mexican immigrants, raised in El Paso, and now living in New York City, Troncoso has a rare knack for celebrating life. Writing in a straightforward, light-handed style reminiscent of Grace Paley and Raymond Carver, he spins charming tales that reflect his experiences in two worlds. Troncoso's El Paso is a normal town where common people who happen to be Mexican eat, sleep, fall in love, and undergo epiphanies just like everyone else. His tales are coming-of-age stories from the Mexican-American border, stories of the working class, stories of those coping with the trials of growing old in a rapidly changing society. He also explores New York with vignettes of life in the big city, capturing its loneliness and danger. Beginning with Troncoso's widely acclaimed story "Angie Luna," the tale of a feverish love affair in which a young man rediscovers his Mexican heritage and learns how much love can hurt, these stories delve into the many dimensions of the human condition. We watch boys playing a game that begins innocently but takes a dangerous turn. We see an old Anglo woman befriending her Mexican gardener because both are lonely. We witness a man terrorized in his New York apartment, taking solace in memories of lost love. Two new stories will be welcomed by Troncoso's readers. "My Life in the City" relates a transplanted Texan's yearning for companionship in New York, while "The Last Tortilla" returns to the Southwest to explore family strains after a mother's death—and the secret behind that death. Each reflects an insight about the human heart that has already established the author's work in literary circles. Troncoso sets aside the polemics about social discomfort sometimes found in contemporary Chicano writing and focuses instead on the moral and intellectual lives of his characters. The twelve stories gathered here form a richly textured tapestry that adds to our understanding of what it is to be human.

    Against a variety of stunningly evoked backgrounds—from the teeming banks of the Ganges in Varanasi to a homeless shelter in New York—these powerful, intensely focused narratives reverberate, as Michiko Kakutani put it in the New York Times, "insistently in the reader's mind long after he has finished the book." In "Ate/Menos" or "The Miracle," a young man takes unscrupulous advantage of a woman who mistakes him for someone else and finds himself enmeshed in her desperate obsessions and nightmares. In "The Siege," a wealthy recluse falls in love with the immigrant woman who lives in his basement. On discovering she is married and that her husband is a political prisoner, he embarks on a course of action that will lead simultaneously to his destruction and to his salvation. Two of the stories in this collection were made into major independent film. "Ate Menos" was the basis for the film Sunday, which won the Grand Jury Best Feature Award at Sundance. "The Siege" was adapted by Bernardo Bertolucci for his film Besieged.

    May have some markings and writings. Note: The above used product classification has been solely undertaken by the seller. Amazon shall neither be liable nor responsible for any used product classification undertaken by the seller. A-to-Z Guarantee not applicable on used products.

    Always under the shadow of their terrible history, the closeknit Jewish community portrayed in these stories tackles life with exuberance, passion and extraordinary humour.

    We meet a woman who returns home to care for her family's farm, a man whose obsession with bow hunting affects his life in complex ways, and a farmer's son who plays a dangerous game of drag-racing roulette. Light in the Crossing is a beautifully crafted portrait of the relationships people in farming towns build with one another and the land on which they depend.

    Stylistically innovative fiction that tests the borders of gender and class issues, skirting the edge of post-modern erotica.

    She analyses African women's struggle to find their rightful place in society. Her stories raise issues of choice and conflict, teasing about the issues with disarming frankness. How do people behave in cross-cultural relationships? In the modern world, where a plastic label identifies us, what is our identity? Will African women be in the driving seat in the twenty-first century? With the zest and humour, Aidoo raises these questions and provides some challenging answers.In this collection of short stories, Aidoo elevates the mundane in women's lives to an intellectual level in an attempt at challenging patriarchal structures and dominance in African society. Written from a child's perspective, Aidoo subverts the traditional beliefs and assumptions about the child's voice. Her inimitable sense of style and eloquence, explores love, marriage and relationships with all the issues they throw up for the contemporary African woman. In doing so, she manages to capture the very essence of womanhood.

    That painstaking enterprise becomes the central metaphor and the unifying theme for the captivating personal essays presented here.With sly wit and disarming candor, Soos recounts fly-fishing adventures that become points of departure for wide-ranging ruminations on the larger questions that haunt him. Coming to terms with his new rod in “On Wanting Everything,” Soos casts a skeptical eye on the engines of consumerism and muses on the paradox of how a fishing rod that becomes too valuable ceases to be useful. “The Age of Imperfection” begins as a rueful account of his botched repair work but soon changes into an insightful reflection on the seductiveness of perfection and finishes as an homage to the creative power that comes from mistakes. In “Useful Tools” Soos takes a decidedly pessimistic look at the age-old quest to combine the good with the beautiful and concludes with an eloquent appreciation of a good tool put to an unintended use. “On His Slowness” offers fresh new perceptions about the human costs of the ever-accelerating pace of contemporary life and the increasingly hard work of resisting it. More than a meditation on suicide, “Obituary with Bamboo Fly Rod” engages the issue of individual human responsibility and the ultimate question of “How to be” with equal parts humility and wonder.This elegant volume is handsomely illustrated with the full-color paintings of Alaskan artist Kesler Woodward. Rich in wisdom and physical appeal, Bamboo Fly Rod Suite is a distinctive and rewarding book with wide-ranging appeal.

    They are nurturing and fierce, powerful and fragile, troubled and triumphant as they each seek their own path.

    Wine And Roses by Carmen Green\Kayla Perrin\Geri Guillaume released on Jan 25, 1999 is available now for purchase.

    Sunday, Monday and Always, initially published in 1952, was the author's own personal selection of her best work in the form. This new, expanded edition of Sunday, Monday, and Always includes four additional short pieces written after the original collection was printed. "What Are You Doing in my Dreams?" is an uncommonly moving autobiographical sketch that may serve as a pocket sketch for all of Powell's art. All the familiar elements are here - life and death; Ohio and New York; the awkward, hungry country girl and the city sophisticate; romantic yearning and realist self-deprecation - brought together one last time at the close of a half-century of meditation. The haunting vignette entitled "The Elopers," is based on the author's own experiences with her much loved, much troubled son. An early gem from The New Yorker, "Can't We Cry A Little?" has never before been reprinted, and "Dinner on the Rocks," a typically riotous send-up of Manhattan manners, was one of Powell's last stories.Sunday, Monday, and Always promises to introduce Powell's many admirers to a new facet of her extraordinary talent.

    Volume One, presenting the first five writers to receive the award, features the fiction of: Robert A. HeinleinJack WilliamsonClifford D. SimakL. Sprague de CampFritz Leiber

    Gathered together in this unique collection are the novel O Pioneers! -- Cather's famous double elegy to the land and to the pioneer spirit -- and two of her fine shorter pieces, "A Lost Lady" and "The Bohemian Girl". The volume is evocatively illustrated with portraits of Cather and a selection of photographs and drawings that capture the grandeur of the western frontier.

    The fourteen short stories in this richly diverse collection, along with an exemplary introduction by author Cynthia Griffin Wolff, allow for a more complex view of Cather. As a writer she was intrigued by nature's ruthlessness and mankind's limitless potential for brutality and had a passion for the beauty of art. Ranging from the simplicity of Cather's first published story, "Peter" (1892), to the extraordinary eroticism of "Coming, Aphrodite!" (1920), this Twentieth-Century Classics collection is an engaging and triumphant testament to the genius of an American literary icon.

    Their voices and creative expression of identity and place are richly varied, reflecting the depth of the culturally diverse energy found on these continents.Over 60 writers and visual artists are represented from nearly 25 nations, including writers such as Lee Maracle, Chrystos and Louise Bernice Halfe, and visual artists Joane Cardinal-Schubert, Teresa Marshall, Kenojuak Ashevak, Doreen Jensen and Shelley Niro; and some who are published for the first time in this landmark volume.Lee Maracle is the author of numerous books, including Ravensong. Sandra Laronde, writer/actor, is Executive Director of Native Women in the Arts.

    

    They are a bridge between the early novels written in English and the Molloy trilogy. These three stories are rich in verbal and situational humour and the preoccupations which are fairly constant throughout the work of a writer who has not only transformed the art of the novel and contemporary theatre, but has given to both academics and the general reader a corpus of work of inexhaustible interest.

    Meyer join Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen in compiling Chicken Soup for the Golden Soul. This collection offers readers loving insights and wisdom--all centering on the prime of life. Contributors to this volume include Erma Bombeck, Ruth Stafford Peale, Tom Landry, Florence Littauer, Roy Rogers and Max Lucado. Readers of all ages are sure to cherish this invaluable collection as a reminder that the soul of those young at heart is truly "golden." Divided into chapters on letting go, giving, learning, the lighter side, across the generations, overcoming obstacles, perspective, believing, living your dream, reminiscing and ageless wisdom, this book celebrates the myriad joys of living and the wisdom that comes from having lived. Readers at every stage of life will turn to this book again and again for the timeless wisdom that will help them live their lives to the fullest.

    Bleiler as 'excellent', 'The Doll Maker' is the story of Clare Lydgate, a young woman studying at boarding school for her Oxford scholarship examinations. In the evenings, she escapes the school grounds by climbing over the wall of Brackenbine Hall. It is here that she encounters the charismatic and mysterious Niall Sterne, the 'Doll Maker' of the title. This is a subtle, intelligent and compelling tale of horror. The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural describes Sarban’s stories as 'nicely written, with solid characterizations, convincingly detailed backgrounds . . . and a fine sense of pacing and atmosphere.' It notes that 'The Doll Maker' is Sarban’s most intriguing work, and that Niall Sterne 'offers no ordinary seduction, and there is a delicate horror in his beautiful, sterile doll-world, the antithesis of life itself.'First published in 1953, ‘The Doll Maker’ appears with ‘The Trespassers’, and ‘A House of Call’.

    He has guided us through the depths of our imagination to places we never would have ventured alone. Now, in Blood and Smoke, he takes us inside a world of yearning and paranoia, isolation and addiction. It is the world of the smoker.In this audio-only collection, the now politically incorrect habit plays a key role in the fates of three different men in three unabridged stories of unfiltered suspense.In, "Lunch at the Gotham Cafe," Steve Davis is suffering through intense withdrawal -- from both nicotine and his wife. His desperation for a cigarette and for his ex are almost too much to bear, but that's nothing compared to the horrors that await him at a trendy Manhattan restaurant.In, "1408," Mike Enslin, bestselling author of true ghost stories, decides to spend the night in New York City's most haunted hotel room. But he must live to write about it without the help of his ex best-friends, his trusty smokes.And in, "In the Deathroom," a man named Fletcher is held captive in a South American stronghold. His captors will use any tortuous means necessary to extract the information they want from him. His only hope lies with his last request -- one last cigarette, please.A cartonfull of chills and thrills, Blood and Smoke is classic Stephen King. The most mesmerizing storyteller of our time is at his inventive and compelling best.Read by the AuthorAlthough, Blood and Smoke has only been published as an audiobook, the stories themselves can be found in Stephen King's publication of, "Everything's Eventual."4 Audio CDs / 3 Hours 30 mins (Approx)~

    He is also one of the finest Chinese prose stylists of all time. Literary critics and historians have offered several reasons for why Shen Congwen is a great writer. The foremost explanation is his power as a stylist. He could make the Chinese language beautiful.Some critics have praised Shen Congwen for creating characters with beautiful souls. Readers credit him with having described beautiful and fulfilling styles of life, even in materially primitive surroundings, that conjure up the "health and dignity" prized by the Crescent Moon writers. Other critics value Shen Congwen as a realist writer. He has written many works exposing the abuses of the military in the countryside, and the vanity of the urban bourgeoisie.Most of the short stories in this collection, typeset in bilingual format, reveal the plight and the strength of the common people. They were chosen from the period when Shen had already honed a fine writing style, and they were written about rural folks in his native region, and about people he knew from his daily life. There are contradictions between the "new" and the "old," and also between human values with enough integrity to nurture life, versus corruption that leads to the decline and death of a culture.

    With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

    Cowles, an admirer of M.R. James, Bram Stoker, Sheridan Le Fanu, and Edgar Allan Poe, drew on all of these influences for his tales, which range from the horrific to the gently sentimental.It was not until twenty-five years after his death that it was learned that Cowles had written a third, unpublished, collection of supernatural tales, entitled Fear Walks the Night. These tales languished in obscurity, as did Cowles's previously published stories, and it was not until 1973, when Hugh Lamb included 'Terrible Mrs Greene' in his anthology A Wave of Fear, that Cowles began to emerge from the shadows. Lamb was almost single-handedly responsible for resurrecting Cowles's weird tales from obscurity; and it was he who discovered, through correspondence with Cowles's widow, the existence of Fear Walks the Night.The Night Wind Howls includes all sixty-one of Frederick Cowles's supernatural stories, as well as an account of 'true' hauntings written by Cowles and never before reprinted. The collection has a foreword by the author's son, and is introduced by Hugh Lamb, who provides a fascinating look at an author whose works remained in shadow for so long. There is also a photograph of Cowles and illustrations of the two extremely rare dust jackets from The Horror of Abbot's Grange and The Night Wind Howls.CONTENTS: Foreword by Michael Cowles; Introduction by Hugh Lamb; THE HORROR OF ABBOT'S GRANGE (1936): 'The Horror of Abbot's Grange'; 'The House on the Marsh'; 'Room for One'; 'The New Inn'; 'Terrible Mrs Greene'; 'The Mandarin's Chair'; 'The Haunted Church'; The Castle in the Forest'; 'The Bell'; 'One Side Only'; 'Guardians of the Dead'; 'The Unfinished Tower'; 'The Headless Leper'; 'The Pink Columbine'; 'Passenger from Crewe'; 'The Ring'; 'Eyes for the Blind'; 'Treasure Trove'; 'The Limping Ghost'; 'The Thing from the Sea'; THE NIGHT WIND HOWLS (1938): 'Rendezvous'; 'The House of the Dancer'; 'Wood Magic'; 'Twisted Face'; 'June Morning'; 'The Witch-finder'; 'The Florentine Mirror'; 'The Vampire of Kaldenstein'; 'Lavender Love'; 'The Mask of Death'; 'King of Hearts'; 'Voodoo'; 'The Little Saint of Hell'; 'Confession'; 'The Lamasery of Beloved Dreams'; 'The Cadaver of Bishop Louis'; 'Out of the Darkness'; 'The Lover of the Dead'; 'The Caretaker'; 'Gypsy Violin'; 'Death in the Well'; 'Retribution'; 'Lady of Lyonnesse'; 'Rats'; FEAR WALKS THE NIGHT (1993): 'Fear Walks the Night'; 'Punch and Judy'; 'The Florentine Chest'; 'Variety Show'; Prince of Darkness'; 'Death of a Rat'; 'The Echo of a Song'; 'The House in the Forest'; 'Goosefeather Bed'; 'Christmas Eve'; 'Three Shall Meet'; 'Lisheen'; 'Voodoo Drums'; 'The Strange Affair at Upton Stonewold'; 'Gypsy Hands'; 'The End of the Lane'; 'Twilight'; 'Do You Believe in Ghosts?'; Afterword by Neil Bell.Jacket art is by Linda Dyde.

    

    An exciting young black lesbian voice capturing the stories of our lesbian mothers, aunts and neighbors.