Eccentric, coldly rational, brilliant, doughty, exacting, lazy-in full bohemian color the world's most famous literary detective, Sherlock Holmes, and his loyal companion Dr. John Watson, investigate a series of previously unrecorded cases in this collection of totally original and confounding tales. As in the popular debut Murder in Baker Street, Anne Perry and ten more popular mystery writers celebrate the mind and methods of Sherlock Holmes. Includes new tales by:Sharyn McCrumbLoren D. EstlemanCarolyn WheatMalachi SaxonJon L. BreenBill CriderColin BruceLenore CarrollBarry DayDaniel StashowerAnd brilliantly insightful essays including:Christopher Redmond on illuminating the vast possibilities that new technology offers in "Sherlock Holmes on the Internet"Editors Lellenberg and Stashower's "A Sherlockian Library" details fifty essential books for the Arthur Conan Doyle fanPhilip A. Shreffler's essay explores one of English literature's most famous friendships in "Holmes and Watson, the Head and the Heart"

    Ballard has been one of Britain's most celebrated novelists. From the beginning he has been equally admired for his distinctive and highly influential short stories, the first of which - "Prima Belladonna" and "Escapement" - appeared in Science Fantasy and New Worlds in 1956. Now, all of his published stories - including four not previously featured in a collection - have been arranged in the order of original publication, providing an unprecedented opportunity to review the career of one of Britain's greatest writers.A Washington Post Best Book of 2009, Boston Globe Best Book, Los Angeles Times Favorite Book, and San Francisco Chronicle Best Book.Contents:- Prima Belladonna [Vermilion Sands] (1956)- Escapement (1956)- The Concentration City (1957, variant of Build-Up)- Venus Smiles [Vermilion Sands] (1957)- Manhole 69 (1957)- Track 12 (1958)- The Waiting Grounds (1959)- Now: Zero (1959)- The Sound-Sweep (1960)- Zone of Terror (1960)- Chronopolis (1960)- The Voices of Time (1960)- The Last World of Mr. Goddard (1960)- Studio 5, The Stars [Vermilion Sands] (1961)- Deep End (1961)- The Overloaded Man (1961)- Mr F. is Mr F. (1961)- Billennium (1961)- The Gentle Assassin (1961)- The Insane Ones (1962)- The Garden of Time (1962)- The Thousand Dreams of Stellavista [Vermilion Sands] (1962)- Thirteen to Centaurus (1962)- Passport to Eternity (1962)- The Cage of Sand (1962)- The Watch-Towers (1962)- The Singing Statues [Vermilion Sands] (1962)- The Man on the 99th Floor (1962)- The Subliminal Man (1963)- The Reptile Enclosure (1963)- A Question of Re-Entry (1963)- The Time-Tombs (1963)- Now Wakes the Sea (1963)- The Venus Hunters (1963)- End-Game (1963)- Minus One (1963)- The Sudden Afternoon (1963)- The Screen Game [Vermilion Sands] (1963)- Time of Passage (1964)- Prisoner of the Coral Deep (1964)- The Lost Leonardo (1964)- The Terminal Beach (1964)- The Illuminated Man (1964)- The Delta at Sunset (1964)- The Drowned Giant (1964)- The Gioconda of the Twilight Noon (1964)- The Volcano Dances (1964)- The Beach Murders (1966)- The Day of Forever (1966)- The Impossible Man (1966)- Storm-Bird, Storm-Dreamer (1966)- Tomorrow Is a Million Years (1966)- The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered as a Downhill Motor Race (1966)- Cry Hope, Cry Fury! [Vermilion Sands] (1967)- The Recognition (1967)- The Cloud-Sculptors of Coral D [Vermilion Sands] (1967)- Why I Want to Fuck Ronald Reagan (1968)- The Dead Astronaut (1968)- The Comsat Angels (1968)- The Killing Ground (1969)- A Place and a Time to Die (1969)- Say Goodbye to the Wind [Vermilion Sands] (1970)- The Greatest Television Show on Earth (1972)- My Dream of Flying to Wake Island (1974)- The Air Disaster (1975)- Low-Flying Aircraft (1975)- The Life and Death of God (1976)- Notes Towards a Mental Breakdown (1976)- The 60 Minute Zoom (1976)- The Smile (1976)- The Ultimate City (1976)- The Dead Time (1977)- The Index (1977)- The Intensive Care Unit (1977)- Theatre of War (1977)- Having a Wonderful Time (1978)- One Afternoon at Utah Beach (1978)- Zodiac 2000 (1978)- Motel Architecture (1978)- A Host of Furious Fancies (1980)- News from the Sun (1981)- Memories of the Space Age (1982)- Myths of the Near Future (1982)- Report on an Unidentified Space Station (1982)- The Object of the Attack (1984)- Answers to a Questionnaire (1985)- The Man Who Walked on the Moon (1985)- The Secret History of World War 3 (1988)- Love in a Colder Climate (1989)- The Enormous Space (1989)- The Largest Theme Park in the World (1989)- War Fever (1989)- Dream Cargoes (1990)- A Guide to Virtual Death (1992)- The Message from Mars (1992)- Report from an Obscure Planet (1992)

    Whether addressing the smothered desire of suburban housewives, the white-collar despair of Manhattan office workers or the heartbreak of a single mother with artistic pretensions, Yates ruthlessly examines the hopes and disappointments of ordinary people with empathy and humour.Contents: Doctor Jack-o'-Lantern --The best of everything --Jody rolled the bones --No pain whatsoever --A glutton for punishment --A wrestler with sharks --Fun with a stranger --The B.A.R. man --A really good jazz piano --Out with the old --Builders --Oh, Joseph, I'm so tired --A natural girl --Trying out for the race --Liars in love --A compassionate leave --Regards at home --Saying goodbye to Sally --The canal --A clinical romance --Bells in the morning --Evening on the Cote d'Azur --Thieves --A private possession --The comptroller and the wild wind --A last fling, like --A convalescent ego.

    Exploring many of the same themes as in his longer works, these small masterpieces move from the tender and romantic White Nights, an archetypal nineteenth-century morality tale of pathos and loss, to the famous Notes from the Underground, a story of guilt, ineffectiveness, and uncompromising cynicism, and the first major work of existential literature. Among Dostoevsky's prototypical characters is Yemelyan in The Honest Thief, whose tragedy turns on an inability to resist crime. Presented in chronological order, in David Magarshack's celebrated translation, this is the definitive edition of Dostoevsky's best stories.

    In "Pastor Dowe at Tecaté," a Protestant missionary is sent to a faraway place where his God has no power. In "Call at Corazón," an American husband abandons his alcoholic wife on their honeymoon in a South American jungle. In "Allal," a boy's drug-induced metamorphosis into a deadly serpent leads to his violent death. Here also are some of Bowles's most famous works, including "The Delicate Prey," a grimly satisfying tale of vengeance, and "A Distant Episode," which Tennessee Williams proclaimed "a masterpiece."

    An overview of the best science fiction short stories of the 20th century as selected and evaluated by critically-acclaimed author Orson Scott Card.

    Reviewing the work in The New Republic, James Wood wrote that this groundbreaking volume "represents a triumph of translating, editing, and publishing. Beautiful to hold, scholarly and also popularly accessible, it is an enactment of love." Considered one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century, Isaac Babel has left his mark on a generation of readers and writers. This book will stand as Babel's final, most enduring legacy. Winner of the Koret Jewish Book Award; A New York Times Notable Book, a and Library Journal Best Book, a Washington Post Book World Rave, a Village Voice Favorite Book of the Year.

    This collection features four new stories, translated specially for this volume. It also contains all eight stories that Satyajit Ray translated himself into English.

    His stories opened up crime fiction to the realities of American streets and American speech. Now The Library of America collects the finest of them: 24 in all, along with some revealing essays and an early version of his novel The Thin Man. The texts, reprinted here for the first time, are those that appeared originally in the pulps, without the cuts and revisions introduced by later editors.Hammett's years of experience as a Pinkerton detective give even his most outlandishly plotted mysteries a gritty credibility. Mixing melodramatic panache and poker-faced comedy, his stories are hard-edged entertainment for an era of headlong change and extravagant violence, tracking the devious, nearly nihilistic exploits of con men and blackmailers, slumming socialites and deadpan assassins. As guide through this underworld he created the Continental Op, the nameless and deliberately unheroic detective separated from the brutality and corruption around him only by his professionalism.

    Tilly's seance --Mrs. Amworth --In the tube --Roderick's story --Reconciliation --Face --Spinach --Bagnell terrace --A tale of an empty house --Naboth's vineyard --Expiation --Home sweet home --"And no bird sings" --Corner house --Corstophine --Temple --Step --Bed by the window --James Lamp --Dance --Hanging of Alfred Wadham --Pirates --Wishing-well --Bath-chair --Monkeys --Christopher comes back --Sanctuary --Thursday evenings --Psychical mallards --Clonmel witch burning.

    Lovecraft)By turns bizarre, unsettling, spooky, and sublime, Ancient Sorceries and Other Weird Stories showcases nine incomparable stories from master conjuror Algernon Blackwood. Evoking the uncanny spiritual forces of Nature, Blackwood's writings all tread the nebulous borderland between fantasy, awe, wonder, and horror. Here Blackwood displays his best and most disturbing work-including the title story, the inspiration for Val Lewton's classic film Cat People; "The Willows," which Lovecraft singled out as "the single finest weird tale in literature"; "The Wendigo"; "The Insanity of Jones"; and "Sand.""Of the equality of Mr. Blackwood's genius there can be no dispute; for no one has ever approached the skill, seriousness, and minute fidelity with which he records the overtones of strangeness in ordinary things and experiences." --H.P. Lovecraft

    A college student visiting her brassy, unconventional aunt stumbles on an astonishing secret and its meaning in her own life. An incorrigible philanderer responds with unexpected grace to his wife’s nursing-home romance. Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage is Munro at her best, tirelessly observant, serenely free of illusion, deeply and gloriously humane.

    Ripley, Strangers on a Train, A Suspension of Mercy, and others) Highsmith is an all-too-frequently forgotten master of the short story. These stories in this volume examine the dark soul of humanity in a deceptively simple voice that draws you in and won't let go. The sheer beauty of the streamlined prose disguises a complexity of character and situation that is the mark of a true master.Highsmith's ability to create believable characters with very little exposition, but rather through their behavior and dialog, is incredible. None of the stories in this volume is particularly long, but you're drawn in and seduced by the power of the prose. Whether it's a cat driven to commit murder to protect his mistress ("Ming's Biggest Prey"), a rat exacting a horrible revenge on a family that maimed him ("The Bravest Rat in Venice"), or a house party interrupted by something grisly ("Something the Cat Dragged In"), these stories are impossible to put down.A great example of Highsmith's artistry is "Mermaids on the Golf Course," about a presidential adviser who took an assassin's bullet to protect the president. This seemingly heroic man is slowly exposed throughout the story as something completely different, mainly through his dialogue and the reactions of his family to him. Highsmith deftly exposes the many layers in his character, shows that the surface we see often disguises the truth below, and asks the question, "How well do we know anyone?"Likewise, "The Female Novelist" is so consumed with herself and her craft that she destroys herself. "The Hand" is a chilling twist on the age-old custom of asking for someone's hand in marriage. Highsmith's stories linger on after they are read, and show that for true horror, you don't need the supernatural; you merely need to write about people.

    Introduction by Barry N. Malzberg. Dustjacket art by Bob Eggleton.

    Chaon mines the psychological landscape of his characters to dazzling effect. Each story radiates with sharp humor, mystery, wonder, and startling compassion. Among the Missing lingers in the mind through its subtle grace and power of language.

    Doerr explores the human condition in all its varieties-metamorphosis, grief, fractured relationships, and slowly mending hearts-and conjures nature in both its beautiful abundance and crushing power. Some of his characters contend with tremendous hardship; some discover unique gifts; all are united by their ultimate deference to the mysteries of the universe outside themselves.

    Arthur Machen had a profound impact upon H.P. Lovecraft and the group of stories that would later become known as the Cthulhu Mythos. This first volume of Chaosium's Arthur Machen collection begins with the chilling "The Three Impostors" in its complete form, including the rarely seen sections "The Decorative Imagination" and "The Novel of the Iron Maid." Rounding out the first volume are "The Great God Pan," "The Inmost Light," and "The Shining Pyramid," all are excellent tales.

    Bestselling authors Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen are professional speakers who have dedicated their lives to enhancing the personal and professional development of others.

    As television, video games, and the Internet threaten to distract young people from the solitary pleasures of reading, Bloom presents a volume that will amuse, challenge, and beguile readers with its myriad voices and subjects. Here are old favorites by beloved writers of children's literature, as well as exciting rediscoveries and wonderful works penned by writers better known for their adult classics, such as Herman Melville, Leo Tolstoy, Edith Wharton, and Walt Whitman. Encompassing the natural world and the supernatural; childhood, romance, and death; pets, wild animals, and goblins; mystery, adventure, and humor; the selections reflect the passion and erudition of our most revered literary critic. Arranged by season, Stories and Poems for Extremely Intelligent Children of All Ages is a must-have anthology, sure to delight readers young and old for years to come.

    R. James need no introduction. They are widely considered the very best classical supernatural tales ever committed to paper, and a testimony to their quality and universal appeal is the fact that James's Collected Ghost Stories has remained in print since its first publication in 1931. James's ghost stories are a towering achievement, and they continue to dominate the genre more than a century after they first began to appear.Ash-Tree Press has published collections by many of the writers who followed James and sought to emulate him, and is now proud to have published A Pleasing Terror, which collects all of M. R. James's writings on the supernatural. In addition to the thirty-three stories from Collected Ghost Stories, this volume includes a further three stories, seven story drafts left amongst his papers, all of his introductions and prefaces to his various collections, and his article 'Stories I Have Tried to Write'. In addition, there are the texts of twelve medieval ghost stories discovered and published by James, all of his articles about the ghost story, and his writings on J. Sheridan Le Fanu.

    Free online fiction.“Time is fluid here,” said the demon.

    The Bus Driver Who Wanted to Be God gathers his daring and provocative short stories for the first time in English. Brief, intense, painfully funny, and shockingly honest, Keret's stories are snapshots that illuminate with intelligence and wit the hidden truths of life. As with the best comic authors, hilarity and anguish are the twin pillars of his work. Keret covers a remarkable emotional and narrative terrain-from a father's first lesson to his boy to a standoff between soldiers caught in the Middle East conflict to a slice of life where nothing much happens. Bus Driver includes stories from Keret's bestselling collections in Israel, Pipelines and Missing Kissinger, as well as Keret's major new novella, "Kneller's Happy Campers," a bitingly satirical yet wistful road trip set in the afterlife for suicides.

    Indeed, the souls in Hell can be seen, and angels occasionally come to Earth, typically causing a mixture of miraculous events and capricious disasters.

    Because of his inability to remember things for more than a few minutes, he uses notes and tattoos to keep track of new information.

    The discovery of a crime, a theatrical performance in a small town, or the recollection of a cruel wartime decision are equally affecting in Orner’s vivid scenarios. Esther Stories is divided into four distinct parts, each with its own momentum. The first half of the book concerns the lives of unrelated strangers, and the second introduces two Jewish families, one on the East Coast, the other in the Midwest. These stories cover considerable geographic ground — from Nova Scotia to Mississippi, from Fall River, Massachusetts, to Chicago — but the real territory is emotional. As the narrator of the title story tries to piece together his late aunt Esther’s life from the fragments of stories told about her, he remembers what she told him in a dark kitchen when he was a child: “You pay for everything. When you think you’re getting something for free — remember this — you’ll pay later.” All thirty-two wide-ranging pieces — funny or sorrowful, urban or rural, simple or innovative — are welcome additions to the art of the story.

    Watson are on their first trip across the Atlantic—to nineteenth-century America! From the bustling neighborhoods of New York City and Boston to sinister locales like Salt Lake City and fog-shrouded cities like San Francisco, the beloved British sleuth faces the most cunning criminals America has to offer, while meeting some of her most famous figures along the way, such as Teddy Roosevelt and Harry Houdini.A groundbreaking anthology, Sherlock Holmes in America features original short stories by award-winning American writers, each in the extraordinary tradition of Conan Doyle, and each with a unique American twist that is sure to satisfy and exhilarate both Sherlock Holmes purists and those who wished Holmes could nab the nefarious closer to home. There is:“The Adventure of the Missing Three Quarters” by Jon L. Breen“The Adventure of the Coughing Dentist” by Loren D. Estleman“The Case of Colonial Warburton’s Madness” by Lyndsay Faye“The Minister’s Missing Daughter” by Victoria Thompson“The Adventure of the White City” by Bill CriderAnd more!This is a must-read for any mystery fan and for those who have followed Holmes' illustrious career over the waterfall and back again.

    His pursuit-odd, funny, and inspired-is juxtaposed with stories about sibling rivalry, falling in love, and working as a journalist in war-torn countries. Scott Carrier provides a most unique record of a most unique life.

    Three classic children's stories from Sylvia Plath are collected together in one volume for the first time: "The Bed Book", "The It-Doesn't-Matter Suit", and "Mrs Cherry's Kitchen".

    Tokyopop Fiction presents Calling You--a unique, beautifully written, and truly unpredictable collection of stories.A girl creates a cell phone in her imagination, which she uses to communicate with others...A young boy discovers his new friend has the power to heal others--and together they learn about true friendship and sacrifice...A miraculous flower proves the eternal power of love can combat the tragedy and horror of a deadly train accident...Connected with Otsu-ichi's hit manga, Calling You, this collection is certain to delight readers who enjoy heartfelt, supernatural mysteries.

    Born With A Tooth, Boyden's debut work of fiction, is a collection of thirteen beautifully written stories about aboriginal life in Ontario. They are stories of love, unexpected triumph, and a passionate belief in dreams. They are also stories of anger and longing, of struggling to adapt, of searching but remaining unfulfilled. The collection includes 'Bearwalker', a story that introduces a character who appears again in Boyden's novel Three Day Road. By taking on a new voice in each story, Joseph Boyden explores aboriginal stereotypes and traditions in a most unexpected way. Whether told by a woman trying to forget her past or by a drunken man trying to preserve his culture, each story paints an unforgettable and varied image of modern aboriginal culture in Ontario. An extraordinary first book, Born With A Tooth reveals why Joseph Boyden is a writer worth reading.

    She wrote about the world that she knew, bringing the idiom of the middle class to Urdu prose, and totally transformed the complexion of Urdu fiction. Lifting the Veil brings together Ismat Chughtai's fiction and non-fiction writing. The twenty-one pieces in this selection are Chughtai at her best, marked by her brilliant turn of phrase, scintillating dialogue and wry humor, her characteristic irreverence, wit and eye for detail.

    The selection reveals the wide range of Premchand's genius and the scope of his appeal. While most of the stories are woven against a rural backdrop, some also demonstrate an urban sensibility.

    PaxsonLessons Learned · Kati Doughery-CarthumKendat’s Ax · Jan CombsThe Tower of Song · Howard HolmanThe Needed Stone · Denise Lopes HealdArmageddon · Lisa S. SilverthorneThe Land of Graves · Dave SmedsLight · Susan Urbanek LinvilleIn the Sacred Places of the Earth · Dorothy J. HeydtThe Glass Sword · Richard CorwinBed of Roses · Elisabeth WatersSword of Peace · Lucy Cohen SchmeidlerThe Fall of the Kingdom · Mary Soon LeeArms and the Woman · Lawrence Watt-EvansThe Stone Wives · Michael Chesley JohnsonTiger’s Eye · India EdghillRaven-Wings on the Snow · Pauline J. AlamaLittle Rogue Riding Hood · Rosemary EdghillThe Queen in Yellow · Gerald PerkinsMagic Threads · Pete D. Manison

    Her characters, already marginalized economically and socially, confront what many perceive as an invading outside culture, enduring and at times transcending the loss of their "place," both literally and figuratively. Their stories undermine the assumption that just because people don't articulate what happens inside them, nothing much is happening at all.

    Dick has written some of the most intriguing, original and thought-provoking fiction of our time. He has been described by The Wall Street Journal as the man who, "More than anyone else…really puts you inside people's minds."

    Brite, "Onion," an original novella by Caitlín R. Kiernan, and "The Rest of the Wrong Things," a brand-new collaborative story by Caitlín and Poppy set in Poppy's fictional stomping grounds of Missing Mile, North Carolina. Wrong Things also features an exclusive afterword by Caitlín and ten full-page interior illustrations by Richard Kirk.

    Ranging in scope from the short novels Hadj Murad and The Kreutzer Sonata to folktales only a few pages long, they bring us intimately into the world of the great Russian novelist.

    An eleven-year-old black girl from South Central LA discovers the strangeness of moving to the suburbs and falling in love with a white boy. A pair of enthusiastic middle-aged Iranian sisters debate whether or not their futures hold children. A punk musician falls for a girl out of his league. A black lap dancer gives up her job to move in with her Greek actor boyfriend, who hasn’t managed to get roles in anything but porn movies. Whether bold or rueful, salacious or sweet, each voice in Break Any Woman Down is vibrantly authentic; together they add a fresh and welcome chorus to American literature.

    A couple suspects their friends think them boring; a woman resolves to see herself as nothing but then concludes she's set too high a goal; and a funeral home receives a letter rebuking it for linguistic errors. Lydia Davis once again proves in the words of the Los Angeles Times "one of the quiet giants in the world of American fiction."

    In Ordinary Life, Mavis McPherson locks herself in the bathroom for a week, and no, she isn’t contemplating getting a divorce—she just needs some time to think, to take stock of her life, and she comes to a surprising conclusion. In Today’s Special,a woman recognizes the solace she finds in the simple, timeless fare and atmosphere of the local diner and, ultimately, the harmony within her own spirit that familiar comforts can evoke. In White Dwarf, the secrets of a marriage are revealed as a couple passes the time with a seemingly insignificant word-association game. And in “Martin’s Letter to Nan,” the unforgettable husband and wife from Berg’s novel The Pull of the Moon engage in a new correspondence in which a different aspect of their marriage is revealed.

    A new collection of short stories from Hopkinson, including "Greedy Choke Puppy," which Africana.com called "a cleverly crafted West Indian story featuring the appearance of both the soucouyant (vampire) & lagahoo (werewolf)," "Ganger (Ball Lightning)," praised by the Washington Post Book World as written in "prose [that] is vivid & immediate," this collection reveals Hopkinson's breadth & accomplishments as a storyteller.

    He is now one of the most celebrated science fiction writers in the field , having won the field's top award, the Hugo, for each of his last two novels.Now, for the first time, this illustrious author gathers all his short fiction into a single volume. This collection is truly the definitive Vinge, capturing his visionary ideas at their very best. It also contains a never-before-published novella, one that represents precisely what this collection encapsulates--bold, unique, challenging science fictional ideas brought to vivid life with compelling storytelling.Including such major pieces as "The Ungoverned" and "The Blabber," this sumptuous volume will satisfy any reader who loves the sense of wonder, and the excitement of great SF.The volume collects Vinge's short fiction through 2001 (except "True Names", including Vinge's comments from the earlier two volumes.)Contents:"Bookworm, Run!""The Accomplice""The Peddler's Apprentice" (with Joan D. Vinge)"The Ungoverned""Long Shot""Apartness""Conquest by Default""The Whirligig of Time""Bomb Scare""The Science Fair""Gemstone""Just Peace" (with William Rupp)"Original Sin""The Blabber""Win A Nobel Prize!" (originally published in Nature, Vol 407 No 6805 "Futures")"The Barbarian Princess" (this is also the first section of "Tatja Grimm's World")"Fast Times at Fairmont High" (occurs in the same milieu as Rainbows End) (winner 2002 Hugo Award for Best Novella)

    Included here are the works of masters of the form and of bright new talents, including:Stephen Baxter, M.Shayne Bell, Rick Cook, Albert E. Cowdrey, Tananarive Due, Greg Egan, Eliot Fintushel, Peter F. Hamilton, Earnest Hogan, John Kessel, Nancy Kress, Ursula K. Le Guin, Paul J. McAuley, Ian McDonald, Susan Palwick, Severna Park, Alastair Reynolds, Lucius Shepard, Brian Stableford, Charles Stross, Michael Swanwick, Steven Utley, Robert Charles WilsonSupplementing the stories is the editor's insightful summation of the year's events and lengthy list of honorable mentions, making this book a valuable resource in addition to serving as the single best place in the universe to find stories that stir the imagination and the heart.

    Among the 12 stories is the classic tale of a horse and buggy that enter a covered bridge -- and vanish. Introduction by the author; Sam Hawthorne chronology and bibliography by Marvin Lachman.

    Dick has written some of the most intriguing, original and thought-provoking fiction of our time. This collection includes stories that will make you laugh, cringe...and stop and think.The Minority Report: a special unit that employs those with the power of precognition to prevent crimes proves itself less than reliable...We Can Remember It For You Wholesale: an everyguy's yearning for more exciting "memories" places him in a danger he never could have imagined (basis of the feature film Total Recall)...Paycheck: a mechanic who has no memory of the previous two years of his life finds that a bag of seemingly worthless and unrelated objects can actually unlock the secret of his recent past — and insure that he has a future...Second Variety: the UN's technological advances to win a global war veer out of control, threatening to destroy all of humankind (basis of the movie Screamers)...The Eyes Have It: a whimsical, laugh-out-loud play on the words of the title.

    The stories range from the light-hearted to the sombre. Many are laced with Manoj Das' characteristic irony. Told with humour and compassion, wit and sensitivity, this collection brings together the best of the works of one of India's most mature and rewarding writers.

    * New Edition. * Includes a new translation of 'Fotikchand'.

    "Hermit and Six Toes"; "Vera Pavlovna's Ninth Dream"; "The Life and Adventures of Shed Number XII"; and "Tai Shou Chuan USSR" are four characterstic stories by the young Russian virtuoso Victor Pelevin, here collected in a New Directions Bibelot edition. With a deadpan and cooly ironic voice that speaks of the phantasmagorical, the surreal, the grotesque and the absurd just as affectingly as Gogol did in his day, Victor Pelevin writes of the dark chaos of the New Russia. In one story, a public toilet attendant discovers in her tiled hovel the entranceway to an alternate reality; in another, a man walks through a city at night with a companion he isn't entirely sure isn't his own shadow. This slim volume offers first-time Pelevin readers a compelling taste of his bleakly comic genius.

    Spanning the entire range of Roth's brief life (1894-1939) and showcasing the breadth of his literary powers, this collection features many stories just recently discovered. Roth's novellas and short stories will rank with Chekhov's as among the greatest of modern literature.

    They are going mad and Usher asks an old friend to help them. Can Usher win the fight against madness? And will Madeline ever be well again? Edgar Allan Poe's short stories are still popular a hundred and fifty years after his death. Other titles featured here include The Barrel of Amontillado and The Murders in the Rue Morgue.

    From the expressionism of his early prose pieces to his very last work, JOSEPHINE, these stories cover the full range of Kafka's writing career, culminating in THE METAMORPHOSIS, which Elias Canetti described as "one of the few great and perfect works of poetic imagination written during this century." Kafka's stories, argues Borges in his foreword, are superior even to his novels, which is why this collection "gives us the full dimesion of this unique writer.' J.A Underwood's acclaimed translation gives the reader all the chilling atmosphere of Kafka's darkly comic universe, as reflected in the commanding precision of his language.

    Now, for the first time anywhere, Troublemakers presents a collection of Ellison's classic stories -- chosen by the author -- that will introduce new readers to a writer described by the New York Times as having "the spellbinding quality of a great nonstop talker, with a cultural warehouse for a mind."

    StineRead the spine-tingling story of a babysitter who loves evil tricks...the terrifying tale of a boy who dared to lie down in the tomb of an ancient mummy...the ghastly story of two boys just dying to have the scariest Halloween ever—and more.These are the original stories that inspired the hit TV show R.L. Stine’s The Haunting Hour. This bone-chilling collection of ten of the author’s most frightful tales is guaranteed to give you chills in the night and turn any dream into a nightmare.

    Together, this collection of nearly 500 folktales weaves a vibrant tapestry that celebrates African American life in the rural South and represents a major part of Zora Neale Hurston's literary legacy.

    3 cassette tapes (Unabridged: 3 hours, 42 minutes). This volume includes the following unabridged works with music and sound effects: THE OUTSTATION is the simple tale of two men who, locked in bitter enmity, must nevertheless somehow get along in a remote British colonial outpost in post World War I Borneo. Mr. Warburton is the classic Edwardian snob. His new assistant, Cooper, is a crude bully. As tension between the two men increases, tragedy lurks. This is one of the greatest short stories in the English language! APPEARANCE & REALITY is an amusing story of a wealthy Frenchman and his new mistress. He is quite proud of his new conquest until he discovers there is a catch to the relationship. THE THREE FAT WOMEN OF ANTIBES is an extremely funny tale of three very large women and their attempt to maintain dietary discipline in the face of an unexpected challenge. Friendships are strained to the breaking point. MR. KNOW-ALL displays Maugham's gift for humor with a subtle touch. A gadfly passenger on board a ship makes a nuisance of himself, but displays the supreme virtue of compassion in a situation that demands the ultimate in self-control and sacrifice. A masterpiece! FRENCH JOE is a very powerful tale of an expatriot Frenchman whose amazing adventures in life seem to count for nothing. His emotional death-bed confessions on a godforsaken South Pacific island are evocative and fascinating. But the wry conclusion is pure Maugham. MASTERSON, set in Southeast Asia, is filled with human compassion and poignancy. It is the story of a colonial whose search for a housekeeper lands him in an ardent attachment to a local native woman who wants more than he is prepared to bestow.

    Each book presents a collection of the author's best short stories, a biography, and insightful notes about the stories.

    Tate seems both awed and bemused by small town life, with its legends, flights of fancy, heightened emotions, tragedies and small ruptures in the fabric of ordinary existence.

    As the son walks in his father's footsteps, he uncovers a hidden past: he learns of his father's brutal imprisonment, his fortunate release, and his fierce resistance work. This book is also a story of modern Prague and the Czech Republic after the Velvet Revolution. Hurka takes us with him into the heart of Prague, the "Old Town" quarter where Kafka lived, and the lesser-known streets where his father fought for democracy.Fields of Light is finally a loving tribute to a father, a meditation on the relationship between truth and resistance, a tale of personal sacrifice and endurance -- and of history reborn after extraordinary totalitarian efforts to erase it.

    The hallmarks of her style, so finely wrought in the award-winning Tongues of Flame (1986)--the fully realized characters, her deep sensitivity, a defining sense of place and time--are back in all their richness to involve and enchant the reader.All but one of the stories are set in Alabama. They deal with dramatic turning points in the lives of charcaters who happen to be southerners, many jaxtaposed between Old South sensibility and manners and New South modernity and expectations. Among these is a new widow who is not consoled by well-meaning, proselytizing Christians; a middle-aged waitress in love with the town "catch"; a bedridden belle dependent upon her black nurse; a "special" young man in a newspaper shop; a young faculty wife who attempts generosity with a lower-class neighbor; and a lawyer caught in the dilemma of race issues. Through their diverse voices, Brown proves herself a graceful and gifted storyteller who writes with an authoritative pen, inventing and inhabiting the worlds of her set of characters with insight, compassion, and wit.Most of the stories in It Wasn't All Dancing have appeared previously in prominent national magazines and literary journals, including the Atlantinc Monthly, Grand Street, and Threepenny Review. This fine collection should appeal to a wide audience among writers, literature scholars, and general readers alike.Mary Ward Brown won the 1987 PEN/Hemingway Award, the 1991 Lillian Smith Award, and the 1987 Alabama Library Association Award for her first collection of short storied, Tounges of Flame. She lives in the family home in Marion, Alabama.

    It includes “Allamagoosa,” “And Then There Were None,” “Dear Devil,” “I Am Nothing,” “Jay Score,” and “Metamorphosite.” Introduction by Jack L. Chalker. Dustjacket art by Bob Eggleton.Contents8 • Editor's Introduction (Major Ingredients: The Selected Short Stories of Eric Frank Russell) • (2000) • essay by Rick Katze9 • Eric Frank Russell (Major Ingredients: The Selected Short Stories of Eric Frank Russell) • (2000) • essay by Jack L. Chalker13 • Allamagoosa • (1955) • shortstory by Eric Frank Russell24 • And Then There Were None • (1951) • novella by Eric Frank Russell (variant of ... And Then There Were None)76 • The Army Comes to Venus • (1959) • novelette by Eric Frank Russell102 • Basic Right • (1958) • novelette by Eric Frank Russell124 • Dear Devil • (1950) • novelette by Eric Frank Russell152 • Diabologic • (1955) • shortstory by Eric Frank Russell168 • Fast Falls the Eventide • (1952) • shortstory by Eric Frank Russell182 • Hobbyist • (1947) • novelette by Eric Frank Russell206 • Homo Saps • (1941) • shortstory by Eric Frank Russell214 • I Am Nothing • (1952) • shortstory by Eric Frank Russell230 • Into Your Tent I'll Creep • (1957) • shortstory by Eric Frank Russell237 • Jay Score • [Jay Score / Marathon • 1] • (1941) • shortstory by Eric Frank Russell250 • Last Blast • (1952) • novelette by Eric Frank Russell287 • Late Night Final • (1948) • novelette by Eric Frank Russell314 • A Little Oil • (1952) • novelette by Eric Frank Russell330 • Meeting on Kangsham • (2000) • shortstory by Eric Frank Russell (variant of Meeting on Kangshan 1965)342 • Metamorphosite • (1946) • novella by Eric Frank Russell386 • Minor Ingredient • (1956) • shortstory by Eric Frank Russell399 • Now Inhale • (1959) • novelette by Eric Frank Russell418 • Nuisance Value • (1957) • novella by Eric Frank Russell472 • Panic Button • (1959) • shortstory by Eric Frank Russell488 • Plus X • (1956) • novelette by Eric Frank Russell529 • Study in Still Life • (1959) • novelette by Eric Frank Russell549 • Tieline • (1955) • shortstory by Eric Frank Russell555 • The Timid Tiger • (1947) • shortstory by Eric Frank Russell571 • Top Secret • (1956) • shortstory by Eric Frank Russell584 • The Ultimate Invader • (1954) • novella by Eric Frank Russell (variant of Design for Great-Day 1953)633 • The Undecided • (1949) • novelette by Eric Frank Russell656 • U-Turn • (1950) • shortstory by Eric Frank Russell665 • The Waitabits • (1955) • novelette by Eric Frank Russell698 • The Man Who (Almost) Never Was (Major Ingredients: The Selected Short Stories of Eric Frank Russell) • (2000) • essay by Mike Resnick

    The twenty-one pieces in this selection are Chughtai at her best, marked by her brilliant turn of phrase, scintillating dialogue and wry humour, her characteristic irreverence, wit and eye for detail.

    The critically acclaimed and award-winning tradition continues with another stunning collection, including stories by Jack Cady, Ramsey Campbell, Susanna Clarke, Jack Dann, Terry Dowling, Dennis Etchison, Greer Gilman, Nalo Hopkinson, Kelly Link, Kathe Koja, Paul J. McAuley, Delia Sherman. Rounding out the volume are the editors' invaluable overviews of the year in fantasy and horror, and a long list of Honorable Mentions, making this an indispensable reference as well as the best reading available in fantasy and horror.

    The "Hudson Series" is dedicated to providing the best literature - without commentary or interpretation - at a student-friendly price.

    Madeleine Thien’s characters in some way want to make amends, to understand the events that have shaped their lives. A young woman searches back in time for the pivotal moment when her family lost faith in itself. Two sisters keep a vigil outside their former house, hoping their long-absent mother will appear one last time. A wife helps her husband grieve for the woman he has loved since childhood. A daughter remembers the simple ritual she once shared with her father and the moment when her unconditional love for him was called into question. Compassionate and revealing, delicate and wise, these stories chart the uneven progress of love and lay bare the heartbreaking truths at the core of our closest bonds.

    There are more shades to John B. Keane's humor than there are colors in the rainbow. Compassion, shrewdness, and a glorious sense of fun and roguery are evident in this collection, which brings together John B. Keane's tales. A fitting tribute to John B. Keane, for decades Ireland's favorite storyteller, this winning short story collection typifies the late author's folkloric imagination and storytelling arts.

    We meet the war veteran Markham whose deformation ends in tragedy; Susanna, the merry widow who loved each of her seven husbands to death and Kundan Singh, the reckless rake whom women find irresistible. There are also fascinating stories from the author’s childhood, about the eccentric characters and memorable animals of old Dehradun. CONTENTSWhen Darkness FallsThe Garden of MemoriesThe Ghost of GardenReturn of the White PigeonYoung Man in a TongaThe Writer's BarTopazSusanna's Seven HusbandsThe Amorous ServantMonkey TroubleColonel Wilkie's Good HuntingThe Family GhostLiving Without Money

    In Leonard's first original e-book, U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens (featured in Pronto and Riding the Rap) returns to the Eastern Kentucky coal-mining country of his youth. When Boyd Crowder, a mail-order-ordained minister who doesn't believe in paying his income taxes, decides to blow up the IRS building in Cincinnati, Givens is asked by the local marshal to intervene. This sets up an inevitable confrontation between two men on opposite sides of the law who still have a lingering respect for each other. Throw into the mix Boyd's sister-in-law, Ava, who carries a torch for Raylan along with a deer rifle, and you've got a funny, adrenaline-charged novella only Leonard could have written.

    In this new collection, readers finally have a window into Undset's views on women's sexuality, the relationship between motherhood and art, and the complex dynamic between women and men. The book includes two short stories, "Simonsen" and "Tjodolf", which capture the lives of people living in Christiana (now Oslo) in 1900; a novel, Jenny, which tells the story of a disenchanted painter; and an assortment of letters written between 1900 and 1922.

    The 24 stories that make up this collection span the length of Partridge’s writing career. It also features an 8,500-word introduction, as well as a complete bibliography. As an added bonus, the limited edition also features an unpublished piece of juvenilia, “Castle of the Honda Monsters”.- In a suburban American ghost town, a frightened boy armed with a BB gun stands alone against a soul-stealing stranger.- During the Great Depression, outlaw rivals of Bonnie and Clyde battle for their lives in a bullet-riddled cornfield that holds the secret of love and death- Returning to Texas beneath a sky the color of a woman’s heart, the man who slew Count Dracula brings a coffin and a thirst for vengeance to the town that abandoned him.Contents:Seeing Past the Corners (An Introduction of Sorts)Red Right HandThe Man with the Barbed-Wire FistsThe PackBlood MoneyLast KissBlackbirdsWrong TurnSpyderIn Beauty, Like the NightMinutesWhere the Woodbine TwinethMr. FoxThe Hollow ManReturn of the ShroudTombstone MoonThe Mojave Two-StepCoyotes¡Cuidado!Do Not Hasten To Bid Me AdieuCarne MuertaBucket of BloodUndead OrigamiHarvestThe Bars On Satan's Jailhouse

    It presents eight new stories of intrigue and horror set against the backdrop of the Cthulhu Mythos of H. P. Lovecraft blended with modern conspiracy theory. Delta Green: Dark Theatres follows two award winning Role Playing Game sourcebooks, a novel and a previous short story anthology.

    

    Including over three dozen short stories along with three novellas, ROMANCER ERECTOR is her boldest collection to date. Here she once again astonishes us with her distinctive voice, detached yet fiercely intimate. As one critic writes: "the effect is original, as if a strange little memory has insinuated itself into the reader's own memory, to remain there...incapable of assimilation." Like intricately wrapped gifts, these tales deliver the hidden, the haunted, the charms, the bell, the mansions inside of the human heart.

    McIntyreThe July Ward / Sharon N. Farber (as S.N. Dyer)The Kidnapping of Baroness 5 / Katherine MacLeanSpeech Sounds / Octavia E. ButlerThe Ship Who Mourned / Anne McCaffreyA Woman's Liberation / Ursula K. Le Guin

    Zaftig women, described variously as full-figured and pleasingly plump, have long been a source of fetish and humor in erotic literature. Now the publisher of Best Women's Erotica turns the tables with surprising, steamy stories showcasing the sex lives of women of size and their admirers. Not only is Blank's work infused with humor and mischievous irony, her delight in her own body and her sexuality is fabulously contagious: she makes you feel good about yourself in every way, shape, and form.

    Bill Roorbach's men are sweet and passionate and usually kind. They may seem like losers but at least they're trying, and sometimes even when misguided, they actually get it right.In settings ranging from New York to California, Michigan to Texas, these stories are small miracles that offer the sweep and scope and completeness of little novels. There is a rare assuredness in these tales of men in motion -- moving from swagger to sweetness, from machismo to tenderness, and from loneliness toward love.

    Introduction by Jack L. Chalker. Dustjacket art by Bob Eggleton.Contents:9 • Editor's Introduction (Entities: The Selected Novels of Eric Frank Russell) • essay by Rick Katze11 • Wasp: Introduction • essay by Jack L. Chalker13 • Wasp • (1957) • novel by Eric Frank Russell135 • Sentinels From Space: Introduction • essay by Jack L. Chalker137 • Sentinels from Space • (1953) • novel by Eric Frank Russell275 • Call Him Dead: Introduction • essay by Jack L. Chalker277 • Call Him Dead • novel by Eric Frank Russell (variant of Three to Conquer 1956)399 • Next of Kin: Introduction • essay by Jack L. Chalker401 • Next of Kin • (1959) • novel by Eric Frank Russell (variant of The Space Willies 1958)499 • Sinister Barrier: Introduction • essay by Jack L. Chalker501 • Sinister Barrier • (1939) • novel by Eric Frank Russell633 • Legwork • (1956) • novelette by Eric Frank Russell669 • Mana • (1937) • shortstory by Eric Frank Russell673 • Mechanical Mice • (1941) • novelette by Eric Frank Russell and Maurice G. Hugi (variant of The Mechanical Mice) [as by Eric Frank Russell ]

    From the publisher, Litteraria Pragensia: "By turns defiant, paranoid, brooding, absurd and knock-down funny, Thor Garcia's TUND is a startling creation. Peopled by a galaxy of fringe operators and hoodlums, tattered no-hopers and doom-drenched true believers, sadistic children and tormented hooch hounds -- and not least, a girl called Spoogeface -- TUND is a swirling landscape of meltdowns, terrifying visions and punch-drunk epiphanies. Irreverent and iconoclastic, it probes the desolation and cruelties, desperation and contradictions, the hazards and hoopla, of life in an unstable and emotionally crippled age. Brimming with riotous panache, anarchic soul and sinewy, exultant writing, TUND is sure to stimulate and dazzle."Includes "Baycity," "Rabbit Country," "The Diddling of the Immensity," "The Blues Guitarists Have Been Crucified," "Tony and Poof," "Dagger," "I Believed," "The Untuning of the Sky," "Oh, Balls!" "The Cabbage" and "The Tale of Lanny the Dog."ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Thor Garcia was born in Long Beach, California, and has lived in Prague since the mid-1990s.

    From the back cover: "Brian A. Hopkins is the author of over a hundred short stories published in the science fiction, fantasy, and horror genres and the Bram Stoker Award winning novel The Licking Valley Coon Hunters Club. His story 'Five Days in April' not only won a Bram Stoker Award in 1999, but was also a finalist for both the Nebula Award and the Ted Sturgeon Memorial Award." "Of the seventeen stories in this handsome trade paperback collection, fully twelve I consider outstanding examples of the storyteller's art. The other five are merely superb ... A deep spiritual, naturalistic streak runs through much of Brian Hopkins' work, though it's tempered by a strong nod to realism -- often seen as a scientific element or context -- and a sense of social commentary sadly lacking in much of horror today. Hopkins brings emotion back to [the horror] field..." -- from a review by William D. Gagliani"...poignant, thought-provoking tales of love, death, angels and miracles ... Absolutely stunning." -- Lesley Mazey, Eternal Night Science Fiction"Yippee. Please forgive me for being pleased, but this here is a new book we should sell very well indeed. Now that I have all these Hopkins fans on my hands, a new collection in a pretty package signed by ol' Brian himself should virtually fly out of here. You'll like this guy. Obviously well-read, obviously has a passion for the classic, obviously a fearless and highly imaginative storyteller. We've usually got several Hopkins collections in stock - try any one of them - I'm confident you'll be back for the others. As I've said before, for whatever this is worth, we've sold more trade paperbacks by Brian Hopkins than any other writer over the course of the last year or so." -- Mark V. Ziesing, Bookseller and Publisher"It's this collection of some of Hopkins' best short stories that will make the cold winter nights warmer, because what Hopkins does best with his words is reach inside and yank at the heart. And the soul. ...With his Michener-like eye for research and detail and his John D. MacDonald penchant for spinning an easily read yarn, Hopkins is quickly gaining his own fine reputation as a writer." -- Judi Rohrig in the Evansville, Indiana Courier & Press"This is a collection about experiences of the deepest, darkest, and most excruciating kind. Loss and love, fear and regret, splayed in all its black and painful glory . . . Nothing in These I Know By Heart is easy, and that, perhaps, is exactly as it should be. There are lessons to be learned in the turn of a phrase written by a talented hand and a knowing heart, and Brian Hopkins excels indeed in the role of teacher." -- Yvonne Navarro, from the Introduction"Brian Hopkins is a skilled writer whose stories show that he's always in control of the elements that make for great fiction: mastery of his craft, a keen sense of story, and boundless imagination. These I Know By Heart is the work of a true artist." -- Edo van Belkom, Bram Stoker Award Winning Author of Teeth"Brian Hopkins should take five steps forward and join the masters. His writing is eloquent, poignant, touching and delirious. Hopkins manages to both repulse and enchant within a single story, and writes with a quiet melancholy that is reminiscent of Bradbury at his best." -- James A. Moore, Author of Under the Overtree "Brian Hopkins is one of the most promising new horror writers of the past decade or so.

    

    Suddenly his canoe began to fly over the wateratop a giant stingray. The God of the Bible is still in the miracle business. These thrilling reports from around the world show that He still reveals His power and care today.You will read of dollar bills that multiplied. A prayer written on a kite. Prison doors that opened. A self-healing radiator, and a self-filling gas tank. Rain that fell only on mission property. A book that refused to burn. A clock that struck 13. Manna from heaven--in Africa. A gentle ride inside a tornado. Invisible hands that lift a car. And lots mysterious strangers, sometimes visible only to some and not others. But always protecting, guiding, saving.

    Available again for the first time in a decade, Laird Hunt's stories, mock parables and false histories posit a Paris pushed none-too-gently through its own gilt-framed looking glass, turning both ends of the telescope on the old men, barbers, ventriloquists, orange sellers, battling lovers, ghosts and highly lucid dreamers doing their best to inhabit it. Imagine a series of scenes, shot by Agnes Varda and François Truffaut, in which Gertrude Stein, Michel de Montaigne and Max Ernst skip, stroll, swim and streak their way through the late 20th century streets and waterways of the French capital. Alternately elegiac, tender, humorous and dark, THE PARIS STORIES will serve as a fresh introduction (or reintroduction) to the work of a writer whom Paul Auster has called "strange, original and utterly brilliant."

    Suddenly, he wanted to cry. “Yes. They’re…sleeping?”He hoped and hoped and hoped and hoped, grimacing as he did. He looked around.Makeshift beds lined the room. Small hands gripped blankets, small eyes stared at the ceiling.“No.” The boy frowned. “They’ve died.”“Because of Something Very Bad?”“Yes. And I need you to be a Very Brave Bear. Can you do that?”Rated PG. Contains strong images of death and violence. Almost certainly not appropriate for small children.

    Harlan Wilson's debut book is a collection of 44 stories that was among the original enclave of fiction spurring the Bizarro movement in literature at the turn of the twenty-first century. According to the U.K. magazine Dazed & Confused, Bizarro authors are "the bastard sons of William Burroughs and Dr. Seuss, picking up where the cyberpunks left off," and The Kafka Effekt is a hallmark of this formation, which continues to grow and generate interest from authors and readers. Irreal, intelligent, funny and scatological, these stories turn reality inside out and expose it as a grotesque, nightmarish machine.The Kafka Effekt includes the story "The Cocktail Party," which was adapted into a short, rotoscoped film. Directed by Brandon Duncan, the film won multiple awards and was an Official Selection at Comic-Con in 2007.

    

    This unique anthology–the first of its kind in fifty years–gathers together all of Melville’s tales, as well as a judiciously edited array of his prose poems, literary criticism, letters, lectures, and poetry. Though few realize it today, poetry was Melville’s abiding passion; yet his poetry has never received the recognition it deserves, until now. Containing many writings available nowhere else, and edited by leading Melville scholar John Bryant, Tales, Poems, and Other Writings includes a comprehensive introductory essay and extensive, in many cases groundbreaking, editorial commentary. It opens a window onto Melville’s writing process–he was a ceaseless reviser and experimenter–and reveals his career-long evolution as a writer as well as the full breadth of his literary achievement. And it marks a new stage in our ability to appreciate not only the work of one of our greatest writers, but the immense dedication that lay behind it. John Bryant is a professor of English at Hofstra University. He has published five books and numerous articles on Melville, and is the editor of the Penguin Classics edition of Typee and the Modern Library edition of The Confidence-Man. He has been the general editor of the Melville Society, one of the oldest and largest single-author societies in America, since 1990.From the Hardcover edition.Starting out. Fragments from a writing desk, No. 2 ; Versions of Typee: Typee, chapter 14 --The art of telling the truth. Letters ; Hawthorne and his mosses --Tales and sketches. Bartleby, the scrivener ; Cock-a-doodle-doo! ; From The encantadas: The Chola widow ; The two temples ; The paradise of bachelors and the Tartarus of maids ; The bell-tower ; Benito Cereno ; The 'gees ; I and my chimney ; The piazza --Statues in Rome and poems by Herman Melville. Statues in Rome ; Poems by Herman Melville --From Battle-pieces. Supplement --From Clarel: a poem and pilgrimage in the Holy Land --Prose & poem: John Marr, and others. From John Marr and other sailors with some sea-pieces ; From The Burgundy club ; Rammon and "The enviable isles" ; Under the rose --Billy Budd. Billy Budd, sailor: an inside narrative ; Versions of Billy: the ur-Billy Budd ; Versions of "art" --From Weeds and wildings, chiefly: with a rose or two. Rip van Winkle's lilac ; Nine Rose poems.

    And Pedro, an altar boy forced to lean a hard lesson from two of the toughest, oldest men ever to serve the Lord. Jordan and Todd are two boys from California who don't know what they're in for when they push their Texas cousins a little too far.  Loosely based on the author's own childhood as a Mexican-American boy in south Texas, this story collection is a moving whirlwind of humor and insight--brash, tender, and full of the unexpected.

    In the transformative “The Metaphor,” the narrator proclaims, “when the world looks like every little promise has been lanced and bled out, you need a story to tell yourself.” So we move seamlessly between the lives of people both real and imagined and the life of the author, and what emerges is not only a composite of sharply drawn and revealing moments, but also a book-length meditation on the nature of, and necessity for, storytelling itself. Including three new stories — “Sam at the Gun Show,” “Strangers and Dreams,” and “Heroism #2” — this revised edition announces an understated, arresting new voice in literature.

    Storytelling is a major component of Jewish tradition and this book honors that heritage with stories that celebrate the joys, sorrows and challenges of being Jewish. Some stories are timely and others are timeless, yet all are filled with heart-and, of course, love. Discover the invincible power of love in the pages of this book-love of family, love of tradition, love of God. For Jews and non-Jews alike, this collection is sure to capture hearts.

    Table of ContentsIntroduction to this Edition Chapter One: The Introduction of the Book The Lark and the Elephant Chapter Two: Borzoi, the Physician Pretender The Thief and the Beam of Light The Hesitant Thief The Merchant and the Jeweler Chapter Three: The Lion and the Ox The Monkey and the Carpenter The Raven and the Snake The Seagull and the Crab The Lion and the Hare The Louse and the Flea The Lion and his Companions The Tortoise and the Two Ducks The Crook and the Simpleton The Rats and the Iron The Lion and the Ox The Fox and the Drum Chapter Four: Investigating Dimna The Ignorant Physician Investigating Dimna Chapter Five: The Ringdove The Ringdove and the Rat The Raven and His Companions The Rat and the Ascetic Chapter Six: The Owls and the Ravens The Hostility of the Owls and Ravens The Hare and the Elephants The Ascetic and the Thieves The Mouse Marries Only a Mouse The Snake and the King Frog The Owls and the Ravens The Thief and the Devil Chapter Seven: The Monkey and the Male Turtle The Monkey and the Male Turtle The Jackal, the Lion, and the Donkey Chapter Eight: The Ascetic and the Weasel The Ascetic, the Weasel, and the Snake The Ascetic, the Ghee, and the Honey Chapter Nine: The Rat and the Cat Chapter Ten: The King and the Bird Fanza Chapter Eleven: The Lion and the Jackal Chapter Twelve: The Lioness, the Hunter and the Cougar Chapter Thirteen: Iladh, Biladh, and Irakht The Male Dove that killed himself Chapter Fourteen: The Ascetic and the Guest Chapter Fifteen: The Traveler and the Jeweler Chapter Sixteen: The King’s Son and His Companions The King’s Son and His Companions The Pair of Hoopoes and the Treasure Chapter Seventeen: The Dove, the Fox, and the Crane Glossary

    

    Short story published in The New Yorker in March 2001.

    The Awards are the magazine equivalents to the Pulitzer Prizes of the newspaper industry. Each year, hundreds of editors-in-chief, journalism professors, and art directors winnow more than a thousand submissions to about seventy-five nominees in categories such as Reporting, Feature Writing, Profiles, Public Interest, Essays, Reviews and Criticism. Interest in the nominees is keen, and this collection will allow people both in the magazine world and beyond to find in one place, read, and admire the year's best. It is a wonderful, browsable volume of interest to writers and readers who appreciate magazine writing and journalism at its highest level.

    These are stories grounded in the all-too-real comedy and tragedy of jobs and friendships and romances, books and buses and bodies.

    The result is nothing less than an extended hagiography of the everyday ... where the sacred and secular blur gloriously into one another (Los Angeles Times). Praised for her gift for mordant wit, which at its best is reminiscent of Lorrie Moore (The New York Times Book Review), O'Connell draws upon the lives of the saints to show the divine at work in even the most mundane lives. Saint Anne, patron saint of mothers, sits on the corner of a bed offering words of wisdom while a woman, driven to desperate measures to avoid leaving her baby in day care, has sex with her reptilian boss in exchange for time off. A woman left by her glam-rock musician boyfriend tosses and turns in her bed one night only to find that her pillow, stained with his mascara, has become a modern Turin shroud. From the ineffable bonds between fellow sufferers of grave illness, to the mystery of an immaculate pregnancy, to the more quotidian heartbreak of balancing work and motherhood, O'Connell's stories tackle complicated themes with humor that is biting but never malicious (Library Journal ). Readers of all faiths (or none) will be delighted by these savvy and highly original modern visitations. It isn't necessary to be Catholic, religious, or even a woman to enjoy these stories. -- The Hartford Courant Living with Saints is funny, shocking, and inspirational-a regular book of revelations. -- Time Out New York Clever, confident and witty. -- Chicago Tribune

    She had a pretty good idea what boys would do, so she was always on the lookout. As Davis later learned, always being on the lookout is what mamas do. His vigilant but gentle mother gave her son multiple gifts in life, and as we learn in the end gifts that do not end with her passing.

    Sharply tuned, haunting, and darkly humorous, these stories take readers from the country fair to the suburban home to the boy scout camping trip, flipping each stopping point on its head. Every story begins and ends with one voice, and each contains a mystery or turn of events that shocks, entertains, and frightens--and often all three. In the title story, rest area, a father chats with other drivers while he waits for his daughter at a rest stop. She went to the bathroom, and he's been waiting for her ever since, and now he's handing out her picture. Have you seen her? Are you sure you haven't seen her? A remarkable combination of unexpected tenderness, deep sensitivity, and a fascination with the darker side of domesticity, these tales of ordinary people caught up in extraordinary situations will echo in your head long after you close the pages. Entering into its sixth year, Clay Chapman's Pumpkin Pie Show has established itself as an all-points artistic hodgepodge of music, theatre, and literature. It is a rigorous story-telling session backed with its own live soundtrack, built upon the same structure as a rock band, complete with musicians and vocalists. Each show consists of four 15 minute short stories, which can either be read or performed on stage.

    More Oddments features fourteen more detective stories featuring characters such as Fergus O'Hara and the "Nameless" Detective.

    Their landscapes harken back to the South of Reid’s first novel, In the Breeze of Passing Things, and form their own kind of topography, the human heart and  its many urges. Within the world of this collection, girls and women sidle the precipice of new lives and new selves. In “If You Must Know,” a young woman serves as host to a cicada and tries to recreate the bliss of her first sexual experience, the very moment when the insect chose to burrow into her. “Pearl in a Pocket” is the story of young teen Vyla—one of thirteen sisters, some living, more miscarried—who discovers how powerless love can be. “So There,” a 15-year old girl recalls the rhythm of nights her father swung her around the Black Diamond Lounge while her mother stole dances with anyone and everyone else. The girls and women of these stories stand at the edge of rebirth undeniably aware that who they are—their shape, their class, their family, their brand of love or crazy—makes them far more complicated than the world will allow. They are brave and terrified, isolated and enveloped; they are dead and bleed to live. And all seem to stand with hands on hips, defiant in that knowledge, even perhaps eating it up.

    Wodehouse, a soupçon of Wilde's epigrammatic wit, then season with the bloodthirsty malevolence of Edward Lear and Roald Dahl, and you will have an approximation of the inimitable genius of Hector Hugo Munro (alias Saki), the most hilarious and savage exponent of the short story in the English language. His flawlessly-etched cautionary tales, which invariably involve wild animals, tell of country parties where upper-class twits and bores meet with fittingly macabre accidents, where the children are always beastly, and where his urbane and naughty young heroes get the better of their peers using barbed sarcasm and elaborate hoaxes. Saki exposes his upper-crust guests to the menace of Nature—always perched, just out of sight, waiting to claim its next victim.

    As Lee Smith writes in her engaging and provocative preface, the South is both as it always was and profoundly different. Some things have stayed the same: "As a whole, we Southerners are still religious, and we are still violent. We'll bring you a casserole, but we'll kill you, too." And some things have changed: many a Southerner spends more time in the mall than the kitchen, and many a Southerner is really a displaced Northerner. Still, there's something about life below the Mason-Dixon line that leads to evocative, hilarious, moving, authentic, rip-your-heart-out stories.Maybe it's true, as Lee Smith says, that "narrative is as necessary to us as air." Maybe narrative is in the air. This year's collection ranges from small vacant towns to thriving Southern cities, tracking the likes of a violent paperhanger, an ambitious fiddler, a failed adman, and a boy who kidnaps his schoolbus driver.Nineteen standout writers make appearances in this year's volume: John Barth, Madison Smartt Bell, Marshall Boswell, Carrie Brown, Stephen Coyne, Moira Crone, William Gay, Jim Grimsley, Ingrid Hill, Christie Hodgen, Nicola Mason, Edith Pearlman, Kurt Rheinheimer, Jane R. Shippen, George Singleton, Robert Love Taylor, James Ellis Thomas, Elizabeth Tippens, Linda Wendling.Each story is followed by an author's note. Readers will also find an updated list of magazines consulted by Ravenel and a complete list of all the stories selected each year since the inception of the series in 1986.