And in the title story, a stunning meditation on imagination, memory, and loss, a middle-aged cancer patient walks into the woods to commit suicide, only to encounter a troubled young boy who, over the course of a fateful morning, gives the dying man a final chance to recall who he really is. A hapless, deluded owner of an antique store; two mothers struggling to do the right thing; a teenage girl whose idealism is challenged by a brutal brush with reality; a man tormented by a series of pharmaceutical experiments that force him to lust, to love, to kill—the unforgettable characters that populate the pages of Tenth of December are vividly and lovingly infused with Saunders' signature blend of exuberant prose, deep humanity, and stylistic innovation.Writing brilliantly and profoundly about class, sex, love, loss, work, despair, and war, Saunders cuts to the core of the contemporary experience. These stories take on the big questions and explore the fault lines of our own morality, delving into the questions of what makes us good and what makes us human.Unsettling, insightful, and hilarious, the stories in Tenth of December—through their manic energy, their focus on what is redeemable in human beings, and their generosity of spirit—not only entertain and delight; they fulfill Chekhov's dictum that art should "prepare us for tenderness."

    C. Boyle is one of the most inventive and wickedly funny short story writers at work today. Over the course of twenty-five years, Boyle has built up a body of short fiction that is remarkable in its range, richness, and exuberance. His stories have won accolades for their irony and black humor, for their verbal pyrotechnics, for their fascination with everything bizarre and queasy, and for the razor-sharp way in which they dissect America's obsession with image and materialism. Gathered together here are all of the stories that have appeared in his four previous collections, as well as seven that have never before appeared in book form. Together they comprise a book of small treasures, a definitive gift for Boyle fans and for every reader ready to discover the "ferocious, delicious imagination" (Los Angeles Times Book Review) of a "vibrant sensibility fully engaged with American society" (The New York Times).

    R. Martin Ill. Alicia AustinThe George Business by Roger Zelazny Ill. Geofrey DarrowOne Winter in Eden by Michael Bishop Ill. Val & John LakeyA Drama of Dragons by Craig Show Gardner Ill. Gini Shurtleff Silken Dragon by Steven Edward McDonald Ill. Ron MillerDragon Lore by Steve Rasnic Tem Ill. Victoria PoyserEagle Worm By Jessica Amanda Salmonson Ill. Glen EdwardsThe Dragon of Dunloon by Arthur Dembling Ill. Dileen MarshIf I die Before I Wake by Greg Bear Ill. Greg BearAs Above, so Below by John M. Ford Ill. Judy King RienietsCock Fight by Jane Yolen Ill. T. WindlingFrom Bach to Broccoli By Richard Kearns Ill. Geofrey DarrowDragon Touched by Dave Smeds Ill. Michael Hague

    Contents:Mana (1937)Jay Score (1941)Homo Saps (1941)Metamorphosite (1946)Hobbyist (1947)Late Night Final (1948)Dear Devil (1950)Fast Falls the Eventide (1952)I Am Nothing (1952)Weak Spot (1954)Allamagoosa (1955)Into Your Tent I'll Creep (1957)Study in Still Life (1959)

    Now, in this eagerly anticipated follow-up -- drawn from his four years living in Moscow and traveling the breadth of the Russian landscape -- Kalfus creates unforgettable etchings of individual lives throughout a century of turbulent history, in tales that range from hair-raising to comic to fabulous. Imaginative, densely detailed, and consistently rewarding, PU-239 And Other Russian Fantasies is a brilliant showcase for "one of the most interesting writers working today" (The San Diego Union-Tribune).

    In Europe, however (particularly in Germany, Italy, and France where he is published by the great publishing houses), he is critically recognized as one of America's greatest realist writers.

    It has become a feature of the designer's job to define the problems that exist in his network, choose and analyse several optimization parameters during the analysis process, and then prioritize and evaluate these parameters in the architecture and design of the system.

    In this case, an entire cult is involved.Winner, 1992 Nebula Award and 1993 Hugo Award, Best Short Story."At the Rialto": A look at a scientific conference held in Chaos Central, and an attempt to explain the link among quantum physics, mid-life romance, and the Frederick's of Hollywood bra museum.Winner, 1989 Nebula Award, Best Short Story."Death on the Nile": The story of a vacation to Egypt gone seriously wrong.Winner, 1994 Hugo Award, Best Short Story."Why the World Didn't End Last Tuesday": Armageddon by committee."Close Encounter": Yes, everyone hates hospitals. They're just hating them for the wrong reasons.

    Hempel, fiercely admired by writers and reviewers, has a sterling reputation that is based on four very short collections of stories, roughly fifteen thousand stunning sentences, written over a period of nearly three decades. These are stories about people who make choices that seem inevitable, whose longings and misgivings evoke eternal human experience. With compassion, wit, and the acutest eye, Hempel observes the marriages, minor disasters, and moments of revelation in an uneasy America. When "Reasons to Live, " Hempel's first collection, was published in 1985, readers encountered a pitch-perfect voice in fiction and an unsettling assessment of the culture. That collection includes "San Francisco," which Alan Cheuse in "The Chicago Tribune" called "arguably the finest short story composed by any living writer." In "At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom, " her second collection, frequently compared to the work of Raymond Carver, Hempel refined and developed her unique grace and style and her unerring instinct for the moment that defines a character. Also included here, in their entirety, are the collections "Tumble Home" and "The Dog of the Marriage." As Rick Moody says of the title novella in Tumble Home, "the leap in mastery, in seriousness, and sheer literary purpose was inspiring to behold.... And yet," he continues, ""The Dog of the Marriage, " the fourth collection, is even better than the other three...a triumph, in fact." "The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel" is the perfect opportunity for readers of contemporary American fiction to catch up to one of its masters. Moody's passionate and illuminating introduction celebrates both the appeal and the importance of Hempel's work.

    Its central character is Edward Cavan, a brilliant English professor, who commits suicide. His death sets off a shock wave among Cavan's friends -- and changes things for some of them forever."It is impossible not to be interested in (Sarton's characters) and concerned with what concerns them". -- The New Yorker

    Originally published with Current 93's 1997 album of the same name.

    In 1983 Little, Brown and Company's posthumous publication of this book electrified the literary world with a force that still resounds across two decades. A collection of stories that depict the world of Pancake's native rural West Virginia with astonishing power and grace, The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake has remained continuously in print and is a perennial favorite among aspiring writers, participants in creative writing programs, and students of contemporary American fiction. "Trilobites", the first of Pancake's stories to be published in The Atlantic, elicited an extraordinary immediate response from readers and continues to be widely anthologized.

    A Junior Library Guild book, and Mystery Writers of America EDGAR nominee.

    These are worlds undreamt-of by any other mind. Only David Foster Wallace could convey a father's desperate loneliness by way of his son's daydreaming through a teacher's homicidal breakdown ("The Soul Is Not a Smithy"). Or could explore the deepest and most hilarious aspects of creativity by delineating the office politics surrounding a magazine profile of an artist who produces miniature sculptures in an anatomically inconceivable way ("The Suffering Channel"). Or capture the ache of love's breakdown in the painfully polite apologies of a man who believes his wife is hallucinating the sound of his snoring ("Oblivion"). Each of these stories is a complete world, as fully imagined as most entire novels, at once preposterously surreal and painfully immediate. Oblivion is an arresting and hilarious creation from a writer "whose best work challenges and reinvents the art of fiction" (Atlanta Journal-Constitution).Mister squishy --The soul is not a smithy --Incarnations of burned children --Another pioneer --Good old neon --Philosophy and the mirror of nature --Oblivion --The suffering channel

    The reader is drawn as if by magnetic force into a world rendered in breathtaking, painterly detail. These stories are marvelous entertainments, rich with amusement, yet Taylor renders his characters truly and understands them in a profoundly meaningful way.