Carlson uncannily captures the complexity of his characters' inner lives.

    Each short story cultivates a whimsical sense of imagination and reveals a mature, darker voice than previously experienced from this legendary author. In one tale the Angel of Death enjoys newfound celebrity while moonlighting as an anchorman on the network news, while in another the shortsighted ruler of a gentle realm betrays himself in dreaming of a "manageable war." Further storylines include an American librarian who discovers that, much to his surprise and sadness, he is the last living Frenchman, and rivals in a supernatural battle who decide to forgo pistols at dawn, choosing instead to duel with dramatic recitations of terrible poetry. Featuring several previously unpublished stories alongside a bevy of recently released works, this haunting compilation is appealing to both genre readers and mainstream literature lovers.Includes "By Moonlight," Locus Award-winner for Best Novelette.

    “The literary ‘Oscars’ features twenty outstanding examples of the best of the best in American short stories.” — Shelf Awareness for ReadersThe Best American Short Stories 2014 will be selected by national best-selling author Jennifer Egan, who won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction for A Visit from the Goon Squad, heralded by Time magazine as “a new classic of American fiction.” Egan “possesses a satirist’s eye and a romance novelist’s heart” (New York Times Book Review).

    Always ready with an impeccable phrase or a sly wink, he shares tales of the most darkly ironic sort, including a field report from a human abattoir, a chronicle of dating Death, and, of course, the tale of the goat that ate its own legs. The thirty-one bizarre, insightful, and morbidly hilarious tales in My Goat Ate Its Own Legs: Tales for Adults will delight anyone who doesn't take life (or death) too seriously.

    Set in various locations, from New York to the west coast of Ireland to the nameless realms of the imagination, his stories conjure a world where beautiful but deranged kids make lethal bombs, where talented sculptors spend their careers dismembering themselves in pursuit of their art, where wasters ris up with axes and turn into patricides. "Getting It in the Head" is a brilliant, bracing tour de force.

    His stories have been called “beautifully crafted” (The New York Times), “unforgettable” (San Francisco Chronicle), and “diverse and expansive” (The Washington Post). His 1989 collection, Nebraska, was widely praised, and he has published stories in literary magazines nationwide—The Atlantic, Esquire, Harper’s, Tin House, The Paris Review, and many others. In this new volume, comprising twelve new stories and seven pieces selected from Nebraska, the subjects of Hansen’s scrutiny range from Oscar Wilde to murder to dementia to romance, and display Hansen at his storytelling best: the craftsman described as “part Hemingway and part García Márquez . . . an all-American magic realist in other words, a fabulist in the native grain.” Readers will thrill to Hansen’s masterful attention to the smallest and most telling details, even as he plunges straight into the deepest recesses of desire, love, fury, and loss. Magisterial in its scope and surprising in its variety, She Loves Me Not shows an author at the height of his powers and confirms Hansen’s place as a major American writer.

    This classic series of plays, novels, and stories has been adapted, in a friendly format, for students reading at a various levels.Reading Level: 4-8Interest Level: 6-12

    It’s all right here in these words. Everything you ever need to know. That’s because I use all twenty-six letters, and you can make anything out of those twenty-six letters. So, you see, this book encompasses everything." — PleaseHelpMeRumored to be penned by the brother of the best-selling author of “I Wrote This For You,” this new tour de force in poetry is sure to stab at your heart, or, at least, make you want to.If you loved the international best-selling collection of poetry, “I Wrote This For You,” you’ll probably hate this. But even those admirers of the free-verse artistry of that work will get a laugh from this classic parody. Author and screenwriter Edward Savio put together a spot-on send up of the poetry best-seller with “I Wrote This Crap For You.”It’s a quick, fun read that we hope you enjoy.“It touched my heart and moved me to tears.”“It’s as if he knew my inner thoughts and fears, and—come to think of it my diary is missing.”

    He had a beautiful new girlfriend and sudden prosperity as an author. But when he adopts an orphaned infant mouse, his world is turned on its head. The mouse comes to symbolize everything left unresolved in his life — his relationship with his divorced parents, his fear of family and commitment, and his inability to feel true happiness and love. By turns hilarious and moving, Mishka Shubaly’s latest Kindle Single captures the journey we all take in life — from being loved, to giving love. Cover by Adil Dara.

    Icky" "Jemina"

    Each volume’s series editor selects notable works from hundreds of magazines, journals, and websites. A special guest editor, a leading writer in the field, then chooses the best twenty or so pieces to publish. This unique system has made the Best American series the most respected — and most popular — of its kind. The Best American Short Stories 2011 includes Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Megan Mayhew Bergman, Jennifer Egan, Nathan Englander, Allegra Goodman, Ehud Havazelet, Rebecca Makkai, Steven Millhauser, George Saunders, Mark Slouka, and others

    A locked front door is to an adult what a duvet it is to a child. Once the key is turned in the lock, and once the child is safely snuggled under the duvet, the monsters are kept at bay.Except they’re not. A closed door won’t keep out the boogeymen… And a blanket won’t keep away the monsters. The safety of our cosy homes is a lie. There are bad people out there, who want to do bad things to you in the dead of night, and a locked door isn’t going to stop them. There are bad things already lurking IN our homes; monsters that live in the shadows and in closets, just waiting for you to close your eyes at night.From the real to the supernatural, this collection of stories, held together with a wraparound story, explores all manners of evil that can invade our homes at night.Lock your doors, bolt your windows and sleep with the light on, because THEY are coming to get you….

    

    The authors represented range from Hawthorne, Maupassant, and Poe, through Henry James, Conrad, Aldous Huxley, and James Joyce, to Hemingway, Katherine Anne Porter, Faulkner, E.B. White, Saroyan, and O'Connor. The variety in style and subject is enormous, but all these stories have one point in common—the enduring quality of the writing, which places them among the masterpieces of the world's fiction.Garden party / Katherine Mansfield --Three-day blow / Ernest Hemingway --Standard of living / Dorothy Parker --Saint / V.S. Pritchett --Other side of the hedge / E.M. Forster --Brooksmith / Henry James --Jockey / Carson McCullers --Courting of Dinah Shadd / Rudyard Kipling --Shot / Alexander Poushkin, translated by T. Keane --Graven Image / John O'Hara --Putois / Anatole France, translated by Frederic Chapman --Only the dead know Brooklyn / Thomas Wolfe --A.V. Laider / Max Beerbohm --Lottery / Shirley Jackson --Masque of the Red Death / Edgar Allan Poe --Looking back / Guy de Maupassant, translated by H.N.P. Sloman --Man higher up / O. Henry --Summer of the beautiful white horse / William Saroyan --Other two / Edith Wharton --Theft / Katherine Anne Porter --Good man is hard to find / Flannery O'Connor --Man of the house / Frank O'Connor --Man who shot snapping turtles / Edmund Wilson --Gioconda smile / Aldous Huxley --Curfew tolls / Stephen Vincent Benet --Father wakes up the village / Clarence Day --Ivy Day in the committee room / James Joyce --Chrysanthemums / John Steinbeck --Door / E.B. White --Upheaval / Anton Chekhov --How beautiful with shoes / Wilbur Daniel Steele --Haunted house / Virginia Woolf --Catbird seat / James Thurber --Schartz-Metterklume method / H.H. Munro --Death of a Bachelor / Arthur Schnitzler --Apostate / George Milburn --Phoenix / Sylvia Townsend Warner --That evening sun / William Faulkner --Law / Robert M. Coates --Tale / Joseph Conrad --Girl from Red Lion, PA / H.L. Mencken --Main currents of American thought / Irwin Shaw --Ghosts / Lord Dunsany --Minister's black veil / Nathaniel Hawthorne --String of beads / W. Somerset Maugham --Golden honeymoon / Ring Lardner --Man who could work miracles / H.G. Wells --Foreigner / Francis Steegmuller --Thrawn Janet / Robert Louis Stevenson --Chaser / John Collier

    Volume 1 features all new and original stories from authors Joe R. Lansdale, John Skipp, Cody Goodfellow, Jeff Strand, J. F. Gonzalez, Stephen Mark Rainey, Nate Southard, Shane McKenzie and (in deluxe hardcover retail editions only) William Meikle. Each story is preceded by a full page/full bleed color illustration by artist Zach McCain. Table of Contents “Santa Explains” by Joe R. Lansdale “The Endless Black of Friday” by Nate Southard “Red Rage” by Stephen Mark Rainey “Pointy Canes” by Jeff Strand “Naughty” by Shane McKenzie “Krampusnacht in Cell Block J” by Cody Goodfellow “The Shittiest Guy in the World (A Christmas Fable)” by John Skipp “Belsnickel” by J. F. Gonzalez “The Color That Stole Christmas” by William Meikle (Deluxe Hardcover Editions Only)