collected in Spiritwalk

    Now living happily in Berkeley, married and the mother of twins, Nora Jane is back in college, pregnant again, launching a new career, and facing circumstances that imperil her domestic bliss.The nine stories that follow explore the hazards of recapturing and reviving old affairs. Featuring both new and familiar Gilchrist characters, all of these stories shed brilliant new light on the oldest emotion.

    O'Leary to Barack Obama. "Flexing impressive literary chops, the beer vendor/creative-writing professor captures both the tough, defensive exterior and the vulnerable, often-broken heart of his city."— Timeout Chicago"Chicago, a page at a time. Michael Czyzniejewski gets right to the point in telling the city's stories." — Chicago Tribune"...Michael Czyzniejewski’s “Chicago Stories,” forty fictional monologues riffing on the common culture of the Windy City’s shared history, projected forward into a possible future. Not quite historical fiction—more like historical jazz." — Newcity Lit"In 'Chicago Stories,' Michael Czyzniejewski summons all of Chicago — its ghosts, living and dead, its heroes and fools, sinners and saints, its people and places and all of its occasions — and in these pages they have gathered, strange and unlikely bedfellows, to sing a new song for Chicago. It will twist your arm behind your back, this song. It will break your fingers."— Billy Lombardo, author of The Man With Two Arms and The Logic of a Rose: Chicago Stories

    The three novels included in this volume are Musical Chairs, Frequent Flyer, and Elvis, Jesus & Coca-Cola.

    Miyake is an older man with an obsession in building the perfect bonfire. He befriends Junko, a young woman who lives with her boyfriend Keisuke and is estranged from her family. Whenever Miyake is going to light a bonfire, he calls Junko to come down and watch it burn; and the two of them have an unusual connection. Junko’s boyfriend, Keisuke, is a musician who lives in the here and now and has difficulty understanding Miyake and Junko’s relationship.Much of the story revolves around a philosophical discussion between Miyake and Junko. It is important to understand that Murakami wrote this story shortly after the Kobe earthquake; and the themes of death, an uncertain future and the larger meaning of life resonate throughout the prose.

    Funny, poignant and smart, full of unforgettable characters, these stories explore the violence of family, the constraints of small-town life and the elusive promise of escape.In "Ice Cream Man," an adolescent girl struggles to come to terms with her mother's death and her father's seeming indifference while conducting a secret affair with an older man from the local arena. Gerald, the young boy in "Big Dog Rage," goes to extreme and reckless measures to thwart the expectations of his parents, teachers, and the local priest, leaving his childhood friend to look longingly on. And in the title story, Bethany sees her gentle fiancé anew as she enters the raucous world of his hard-drinking family. Receiving a sharp shot to the mouth from her future sister-in-law Bethany finds her place in this clan secured.With her incisive, resonant prose, Lynn Coady elicits laughter, sadness, and compassion. Play the Monster Blind is a keenly observed, imaginative collection from one of the most distinctive talents to arrive on Canada's literary scene in years.

    Henry, originally published in 1906, has become one of the best known and most beloved of Chistmas tales. An exuberant couple urged on by their love, make great sacrifices in order to purchase the perfect Christmas gift for the other. The husband sells his gold watch in order to buy expensive combs for his wife's luxurious locks. While the wife sells her hair to the wigmaker in order to buy a chain suitable for her husband's handsome timepiece. When all is revealed on Christmas Eve, the sweet irony of their dual generosity leaves them, whether they know it or not, as the wisest of gift givers: "But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. O all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi."The artist Joel Priddy employs the same twists of reciprocity in his own work and is well suited to adapting and updating this classic for a modern audience.

    You’ll discover how far a prisoner will go to be with his dying wife, and what lurks between the walls of that Louisiana jailhouse to keep him there. You’ll find out how deep a man can cut himself to dig out the past. You’ll meet a college professor whose fear of flying might be the least of his worries. And you’ll learn how a sister’s love for sweet treats can reunite a broken family…whether they want it or not. Aliens and lot lizards…disembodied lips…the voice of God Himself… Thirteen stories and a brand new novella from horror author Wesley Southard. Within these pages, we all go a little mad…

    Concentrating on a number of significant games in British football during the 2011-2012 season, Hornby chronicles the emotional, political, and societal highlights and woes that played out on the field. There were alleged racist clashes, revealing the deep cultural fissures still present in British life. There was a fairy-tale return for the legendary Thierry Henry, and the terrifying collapse of Bolton's Fabrice Muamba, clinically dead for seventy-eight minutes after a heart attack. Throughout, Hornby delves into the impact of the economy on the beloved sport of Britain. As sheikhs and oligarchs buy and sell teams and players at astronomical financial levels, other teams are left behind to struggle with diminished talent. And as income inequality hits all-time highs worldwide, so it does in British football.It was a season of tumultuous incident and enormous entertainment, a season more glorious than most. By the end, in May 2012, fans of most clubs had been enthralled, appalled, depressed, elated, shocked, and enraged. Along the way, football had somehow managed to encompass politics, high finance, the law, and matters of life and death. Read all about it, and relive it, here.

    Jack encountered Gilbert Chesterton’s Father Brown tales a few years later and they ultimately became the prime influence in his science fiction. The issue with Father Brown was never a question of who committed the murder, but rather what in heaven’s name is going on here? Why does an astronaut, in “Cathedral,” sacrifice her life to collide with an asteroid that she knows poses no threat to the Earth? Why does a scientist who’s designed an actual working AI in “The Play’s the Thing,” hide what’s he’s done? How is it that the lives of two people working at Moonbase in “Blinker” depend on a quasar? In “Lucy,” Jack shows us why sending automated vehicles to explore the distant outposts of the solar system may not be a good idea. And in “Searching for Oz,” an alternate history story, how things might have been if SETI had gotten what it was looking for. He describes our reaction in “Listen Up, Nitwits,” when a voice begins speaking to us, apparently from Jupiter, in Greek. And in “The Lost Equation,” a Holmes adventure, we discover who really was first to arrive at e=mc2. Jack also provides two episodes, “Maiden Voyage” and “Waiting At the Altar,” from Priscilla Hutchins’ qualification flight; and an effort by a sixteen-year-old Alex Benedict, in the title story with his uncle Gabe and Chase Kolpath’s mom, Tori, who are trying to understand why a brilliant radio entertainer, lost in the stars when his drive unit suffered a malfunction, never said goodbye. These and fourteen other rides into odd places await the reader.

    An older married man.  Their haunted relationship evolves in a floating melange of restaurants and hotel rooms against the looming backdrop of their separate, anonymous cities.  Although erotically charged, the affair is never consummated - yet the love Fiona feels intensifies into an obsession that continues to possess her long after Raymond leaves her.  Along the way, at receptions and restaurant tables, at dinner parties and on trips, Fiona meets other men and women in relationships that are coming together or falling apart-friendships, marriages, love affairs - each offering their own version of love's nature.  And, throughout, Raymond's wife Helen holds a central place.  For Fiona, Helen herself is "the other woman" - mysterious, enviable and untouchable.

    

    

    Next to the Louis L’Amours, one could find the adventures of The Executioner, the Destroyer, the Death Merchant, and many more action heroes that were hell-bent on bringing America back from the brink. That time was the 1970s & ’80s. A bygone era filled with wide-eyed innocence and mustaches.Those stories are back! The new quarterly magazine Blood & Tacos is bringing back the action, the fun, and the adventure. Also, the mustaches.In each issue of Blood & Tacos, some of today’s hottest crime writers will choose an era and create a new pulp hero and deliver a brand-new adventure. Each issue will include 5-6 stories featuring action-packed mayhem written in the style of that bygone era. The stories might not always be politically correct, but whether satire or homage, they will deliver on every page. Fast and fun, action and adventure, Blood & Tacos.If the stories weren’t enough, Blood & Tacos will also feature fine pulpy art, reviews of some of the fine (and not so fine) novels from the same period, and maybe even a recipe or two.So enjoy this serving of Blood & Tacos. And remember, if it’s too cheesy, it’s a quesadilla.***Blood & Tacos is the brainchild of Johnny Shaw, screenwriter and author of the novel Dove Season: A Jimmy Veeder Fiasco. When he’s not writing or teaching, he is usually in an undisclosed warzone working as the demolitions expert in the mercenary group, The Bushmasters. He also enjoys badminton. His website can be found at Johnnyshaw.net. Or follow him on Twitter at @BloodandTacos.Blood & Tacos is published by Creative Guy Publishing, the company that brought you such fine books as Amityville House of Pancakes (Vols 1-3), Stays Crunchy in Milk, Installing Linux on a Dead Badger, Brine, and many others with odd titles but excellent stories.

    A collection of four books in the "Bulldog Drummond" series, written by "Sapper", (a pseudonym of Herman Cyril McNeale) in the early 1920s.The stories follow the adventures of Captain Hugh "Bulldog" Drummond, D.S.O., M.C., a wealthy former WWI officer of the Loamshire Regiment, who, after the war, spends his new-found leisure time as a private detective.Drummond is a James Bond-like figure and a rougher version of the adventurers depicted by the likes of John Buchan and Rider Haggard.Included in this volume: Book One: Bulldog Drummond; Book Two: The Black Gang; Book Three: The Third Round; Book Four: The Final Count.