This collection brings together twenty-five of his best known, including 'Fat and Thin', 'Sleepy', 'Rothchild's Fiddle', and 'The Lady with a Dog'.An acute observer of everyday life in late 19th-century Russian, Chekhov was a master of wry precision. His clear, subtle prose conjures up a diverse range of characters, whether they be small children arguing over a game, two old school friends meeting by chance, or lovers conducting and illicit affair. By turns tragic, comic, and satirical, each story paints a vivid picture that lives long in the mind.

    

    Spanning several generations and transporting us to exotic locations in Europe, Asia, and America, this wise and exquisite story collection marks the debut of a gifted new voice in literature.

    His name was Death and Hell was following close behind...Book zero of the America Falls series is an action-packed novella that tells the story of a mysterious traveler with a hook hand who travels the post-apocalyptic eastern states of America spreading a message of hope about 'The Cities' and the budding rebirth of the United States.It isn't always smooth travelling at the end of the world though, and when he stumbles across a gang of cannibals out for the blood of the innocent, he must decide whether to interrupt his mission and risk death at the hands of psychopaths to help someone in need.

    The stories within are mined with depth charges, explosions of meaning and illumination that will keep you thinking and feeling long after you have finished reading.Contents11 • The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories • [Archipelago] • (1970) • shortstory by Gene Wolfe26 • Alien Stones • (1972) • novelette by Gene Wolfe55 • La Befana • (1973) • shortstory by Gene Wolfe60 • The Hero as Werwolf • (1975) • shortstory by Gene Wolfe74 • Three Fingers • (1976) • shortstory by Gene Wolfe80 • The Death of Dr. Island • [Archipelago] • (1973) • novella by Gene Wolfe131 • Feather Tigers • (1973) • shortstory by Gene Wolfe138 • Hour of Trust • (1973) • novelette by Gene Wolfe167 • Tracking Song • (1975) • novella by Gene Wolfe225 • The Toy Theater • (1971) • shortstory by Gene Wolfe232 • The Doctor of Death Island • [Archipelago] • (1978) • novella by Gene Wolfe277 • Cues • (1974) • shortstory by Gene Wolfe281 • The Eyeflash Miracles • (1976) • novella by Gene Wolfe336 • Seven American Nights • (1978) • novella by Gene Wolfe

    The Lost Coast is a six-part novella, written to accompany the six episodes of the second season of Homecoming, an audio series starring Catherine Keener, David Schwimmer, and Oscar Isaac.The two works are designed to be read in alternating installments - Episode One of the podcast, then Chapter One of the book, then Episode Two, and so on - but other sequences are probably fine too.

    Stacey Tanner flees a stalking psychopathic ex-boyfriend and confronts all of her worst fears in one fateful evening.

    She has just lost her mother Tess and brother Mikey, her marriage to Joe is coming apart at the seams and her thirty-year friendship with Karen is on the rocks.While clearing out her childhood home, Carmel discovers that her mother gave birth to a baby in an Irish Mother and Baby home when she was sixteen, a place notorious for its mass burial of babies and illegal adoptions.Carmel goes on a quest for the truth about her troubled mother’s past. Her roller-coaster journey takes her from her comfortable Manchester home to the west of Ireland and to London's theatre land. It’s a journey that leads her to ask: Can we ever escape our own family history or is our destiny in our DNA?

    It is a truculent portrait of everyday life and an unqualified condemnation of exploitation and misery. This social message, Dickens gives us gently, by the detour of the tale and the fantasy.-A Christmas Carol-The Chimes-The Cricket on the Hearth-The Battle of Life-The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain

                When a would-be biographer approaches Ascher’s widow Martha, she delves for the first time into her husband’s papers and all the secrets that come tumbling out of them. She finds journals that begin as a wisecracking chronicle of life at the fringes of the New York literary scene, then recount Ascher’s sexual adventures in the pre-Stonewall gay underground and the social upheavals that led to his famous book “JD.” As Martha reads on, she finds herself in a long-distance conversation with her dead husband, fighting with him again about their rocky marriage and learning about the unseen tragedy in her own apartment that ended with the destruction of their son, Mickey. Mickey comes to life in the space between Jonathan and Martha’s conflicting portraits of him, while Martha and the biographer tangle over the continued relevance of Jonathan’s politics and his unfulfilled vision of a nation remade. Martha learns about herself, finally, through her confrontation with a man who will not let her go, even in death.             Mark Merlis’s JD is a brilliant and harrowing view of a half century of the American experiment, acted out on a small stage by three people who cannot find a way—neither sex nor touch nor words—to speak their love for one another. Best Books of 2015: Fiction, Open Letters Monthly Finalist, Gay Fiction, Lambda Literary Award Finalist, Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBT Fiction, Publishing Triangle Best books for public & secondary school libraries from university presses, American Library Association “Many years after a ’60s New York writer's death, his widow confronts their tumultuous marriage and private identities through his journals. . . . JD’s most masterful element is its treatment of these two characters, both of whom spent their lives groping for contentment like one trying to find a light switch in a darkened room. A great writer offers not just tight prose but also insight, a series of probing questions that extend from the fictional world into the real one. JD asks who its characters were, and in doing so, forces the reader to confront the intricate and fascinating politics of identity.”—Shelf Awareness for Readers, *starred review   “A truly impressive work of literary fiction, JD documents author Mark Merlis as an extraordinary novelist able to deftly craft a complex plot and populate it with a roster of inherently fascinating characters and memorable events. The result is an entertaining and engaging read that will linger in the mind long after the book is finished. Very highly recommended for both community and academic library literary fiction collections.”—Midwest Book Review/Reviewer’s Bookwatch “The fantastic JD (U. of Wisconsin), by acclaimed gay writer Mark Merlis (American Studies), is the writer's first novel in a dozen years. It's told in two voices. The first is that of the late gay writer Jonathan Ascher, and we hear from him through his journals. The second belongs to his widow Martha, who learns more about Jonathan than she ever imagined while reading the journals after agreeing to help a biographer of her late husband.”—Gregg Shapiro, Bay Area Reporter

    This is a companion series and can be read independently of the Chronicles. The year is 1731 and in a small village in Cheshire, England, the Reverend Browne has determined the future of his young daughter Sarah. Her life will be dedicated to caring for him and his household affairs while he, acting as one of God’s chosen few, saves souls from the devil. Sarah dreams of a different future, one in which she will be happy and independent. As she grows older she starts to see glimpses of a tantalising world beyond her reach and longs one day to escape the drudgery of her life, to become part of it all and maybe even have her own business. However, a chance meeting leads first to joy and blossoming and then to the destruction of her whole world. It changes her life forever, forcing her down a path which is the very opposite of the glittering one she had hoped for, one for which she has to pay a terrible price to survive.

    Taut, brooding, and densely atmospheric, these stories show us the ways in which murder can arise out of boredom, perversity can result from adolescent curiosity, and sheer evil might be the solution to unbearable loneliness. These tales are as horrifying as anything written by Clive Barker or Stephen King, but they are crafted with a lyricism and intensity that compel us to confront our secret kinship with the horrifying.

    She’s one of life’s successes: an award-winning playwright living in a beautiful house with an equally celebrated writer. But she isn’t happy. Life is too easy. It’s becoming stultifying, negating her creative force.She decides upon a spell of sleazy living to give both her work and her soul a spring-clean – and elopes with her typewriter in search of just a hint of degradation. She finds it in Bayswater, and safe in bedsit land she immediately sets about getting to know her neighbours. However, her careless plotting of their lives leads to consequences both tragic and deliciously entertaining.

    Four physicians have failed to bring the young lad back to health, and his nurses seem unable to bring him comfort. Sir Robert decides that he and Elizabeth Lady Carey should have the keeping of the child – despite the disgrace that will come to them if he dies in their care. It’s not long before Sir Robert begins to suspect that foul play lies behind the young Duke’s condition. Is there a poisoner at Court? If so, will Sir Robert find the miscreant in time to save the Duke? Patricia Finney is the author of six novels featuring Sir Robert Carey, all of them written under the pseudonym P F Chisholm and all available on Kindle. Patricia Finney’s latest Elizabethan crime novel, Do We Not Bleed?, features the ambiguous James Enys, his elusive sister, and a young playwright, Will Shakespeare. Do We Not Bleed? is also available on Kindle.

    The Knight, the Miller, the Friar, the Squire, the Prioress, the Wife of Bath, and others who make up the cast of characters -- including Chaucer himself -- are real people, with human emotions and weaknesses. When it is remembered that Chaucer wrote in English at a time when Latin was the standard literary language across western Europe, the magnitude of his achievement is even more remarkable. But Chaucer's genius needs no historical introduction; it bursts forth from every page of The Canterbury Tales.If we trust the General Prologue, Chaucer intended that each pilgrim should tell two tales on the way to Canterbury and two tales on the way back. He never finished his enormous project and even the completed tales were not finally revised. Scholars are uncertain about the order of the tales. As the printing press had yet to be invented when Chaucer wrote his works, The Canterbury Tales has been passed down in several handwritten manuscripts.