Angela Carter takes real people and literary legends - most often women - who have been mythologized or marginalized and recasts them in a new light. In a style that is sensual, cerebral, almost hypnotic, "The Fall River Axe-Murders" portrays the last hours before Lizzie Borden's infamous act: the sweltering heat, the weight of flannel and corsets, the clanging of the factory bells, the food reheated and reserved despite the lack of adequate refrigeration, the house "full of locked doors that open only into other rooms with other locked doors." In "Our Lady of the Massacre" the no-nonsense voice of an eighteenth-century prostitute/runaway slave questions who is civilized - the Indians or the white men? "Black Venus" gives voice to Charles Baudelaire's Creole mistress, Jeanne Duval: "you could say, not so much that Jeanne did not understand the lapidary, troubled serenity of her lover's poetry but, that it was a perpetual affront to her. He recited it to her by the hour and she ached, raged and chafed under it because his eloquence denied her language." "The Kiss" takes the traditional story of Tamburlaine's wife and gives it a new and refreshing ending. Sometimes disquieting, sometimes funny, always thought-provoking, Angela Carter's stories offer a feminist revision of images that lie deep in the public psyche.

    They are stories about the woods, houses hidden in the gaps between mountains. Behind them, the skeletons of old and powerful machines rust into the slate and leaves. Water red with iron leeches from the empty mines and pools near a stone foundation. The boy there plays in the bones because he is a child and this will be his childhood. He watches while winter comes falling slowly down over the road. Sometimes he remembers a girl, her hair and the perfume she wore. These are stories about her and where she might have gone. He waits for sleep because in the next story he will leave. The boy watches an airplane blink red past his window. From here, you can't hear its violence.

    Confidence, intuition, and research are a con man’s specialties, and indeed when the Bastard shows up to Farmer Wilson’s door he is armed with all those things, plus information, whiskey, and charm. These are materials of a masterful storyteller, and though you’ll have to bring your own whiskey, DeWitt is equally armed. With his assured, ventriloquist prose, DeWitt is a kind of law-abiding con man, able to convince us, on a basic gut level, of outlandish scenarios and outsized personalities." - Halimah Marcus, Editor-in-Chief, Electric Literature's Recommended Reading About the Author: Patrick deWitt is the author of the critically acclaimed Ablutions: Notes for a Novel, as well as The Sisters Brothers, which was short-listed for the Booker Prize. Born in British Columbia, he has also lived in California and Washington, and now resides in Portland, Oregon. His newest novel is Undermajordomo Minor. About the Publisher: Electric Literature is an independent publisher amplifying the power of storytelling through digital innovation. Electric Literature’s weekly fiction magazine, Recommended Reading, invites established authors, indie presses, and literary magazines to recommended great fiction. Once a month we feature our own recommendation of original, previously unpublished fiction.

    The eight short stories of this collection have a dual theme: Ireland - its people, its personality - and woman - woman betrayed, or sacrificed, innocence involuntarily lost, happiness stolen or mislaid..

    Now go deeper into Matt's world in this FLAT-OUT MATT novella. Live his side of the story, break when his heart breaks, and fall for the unlikely hero all over again.Take an emotional skydive for two prequel chapters and seven FLAT-OUT LOVE chapters retold from his perspective, and then land with a brand-new steamy finale chapter from Julie.Author's Note: Two chapters, The Sleepover and Keep Going, contain more mature content than Flat-Out Love (Keep Going, in particular), and were written based on reader demand. They wouldn't have fit in well with the original Flat-Out Love, but given that this is a fan-driven companion piece, I think they work. While the content here is upped a bit, the scenes are tastefully done. (So, you know sorry to those who wanted lewd and graphic.)

    With a passionate introduction by Enright, The Granta Book of the Irish Short Story traces this great tradition through decades of social change and shows the pleasure Irish writers continue to take in the short-story form. Deft and often devastating, these short stories dodge the rolling mythologies of Irish life to produce truths that are delightful and real. Includes Roddy Doyle, Elizabeth Bowen, Frank O’Connor, Seán Ó Faoláin, Edna O’Brien, Colm Tóibín, Clarie Keegan and William Trevor.The road to the shore / Michael McLaverty --The pram / Roddy Doyle --An attack of hunger / Maeve Brennan --Summer voices / John Banville --Summer night / Elizabeth Bowen --Music at Annahullion / Eugene McCabe --Naming the names / Anne Devlin --Shame / Keith Ridgway --Memory and desire / Val Mulkerns --The mad Lomasneys / Frank O'Connor --Walking Away / Philip Ó Ceallaigh --Villa Marta / Clare Boylan --Lilacs / Mary Lavin --Meles Vulgaris / Patrick Boyle --The trout / Seán Ó Faoláin --Night in Tunisia / Neil Jordan --Sister Imelda / Edna O'Brien --The key / John McGahern --A priest in the family / Colm Tóibín --The supremacy of grief / Hugo Hamilton --The swing of things / Jennifer C Cornell --Train Tracks / Aidan Mathews --See the tree, how big it's grown / Kevin Barry --Visit / Gerard Donovan --Everything in this country must / Colum McCann --Curfew / Sean O'Reilly --Language, truth and lockjaw / Bernard MacLaverty --Midwife to the fairies / Éilís Ní Dhuibhne --Men and women / Clare Keegan --Mothers were all the same / Joseph O'Connor --The dressmaker's child / William Trevor

    Amy Bloom writes great short stories. Her first collection, Come to Me, was a finalist for the National Book Award, and here she deepens and extends her mastery of the form.Real people inhabit these pages, the people we know and are, the people we long to be and are afraid to be: a mother and her brave, smart little girl, each coming to terms with the looming knowledge that the little girl will become a man; a wildly unreliable narrator bent on convincing us that her stories are not harmless; a woman with breast cancer, a frightened husband, and a best friend, all discovering that their lifelong triangle is not what they imagined; a man and his stepmother engaged in a complicated dance of memory, anger, and forgiveness. Amy Bloom takes us straight to the center of these lives with rare generosity and sublime wit, in flawless prose that is by turns sensuous, spare, heartbreaking, and laugh-out-loud funny.These are transcendent stories: about the uncertain gestures of love, about the betrayals and gifts of the body, about the surprises and bounties of the heart, and about what comes to us unbidden and what we choose.A blind mand can see how much I love you --Rowing to Eden --Lionel and Julia (Night vision, Light into dark) --Stars at elbow and foot --Hold tight --The gates are closing --The story

    Offers a selecttion of the master of human comedy's short stories from the 1930s and 1940s.

    From the bestselling author of Good in Bed comes a new collection of stories.

    Six short tales of chilling suspense from bestselling author Sophie Hannah, plus an exclusive extract from her psychological thriller, THE CARRIER, published in February 2013.An ebook original from the queen of pyschological suspense, these short stories take ordinary domestic situations and peel back the lid to view the dysfunctional churning beneath...

    Always intellectually playful, but also very moving and funny, Smith explores the ways and whys of storytelling.

    Inquisitor Eisenhorn investigates, and finds that the trail laid by this unassuming servant of the Imperium leads to unexpected places and a dangerous showdown.

    

    Her father blames her when one of her sisters is one of the taken.

    It was edited by Harlan Ellison, illustrated by Ed Emshwiller. Like its predecessor, Again, Dangerous Visions and the 46 stories within it received many awards. The Word for World Is Forest, by Ursula K. Le Guin, won a Hugo for Best Novella. When It Changed by Joanna Russ won a Nebula Award for Best Short Story. For a 2nd time, Ellison received a special Hugo for editing the anthology. Again, Dangerous Visions was to be followed by a 3rd anthology, The Last Dangerous Visions. At this point, Ellison has said that it will probably never see the light of day.Introduction: An Assault of New Dreamers by Harlan Ellison The Counterpoint of View by John Heidenry Ching Witch! by Ross Rocklynne The Word for World Is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin For Value Received by Andrew J. Offutt Mathoms from the Time Closet: 1/Robot's Story, 2/Against the Lafayette Escadrille, 3/Loco Parentis by Gene Wolfe Time Travel for Pedestrians by Ray Nelson Christ, Old Student in a New School (poem) by Ray Bradbury King of the Hill by Chad Oliver The 10:00 Report Is Brought to You by... by Edward Bryant The Funeral by Kate Wilhelm Harry the Hare by James B. Hemesath When It Changed by Joanna Russ The Big Space Fuck by Kurt Vonnegut Bounty by T.L. Sherred Still-Life by K.M. O'Donnell (Barry N. Malzberg) Stoned Counsel by H.H. Hollis Monitored Dreams & Strategic Cremations: 1/The Bisquit Position, 2/The Girl with Rapid Eye Movements by Bernard Wolfe With a Finger in My I by David Gerrold In the Barn by Piers Anthony Soundless Evening by Lee Hoffman [█] by Gahan Wilson The Test-Tube Creature, Afterward by Joan Bernott And the Sea Like Mirrors by Gregory Benford Bed Sheets Are White by Evelyn Lief Tissue: At the Fitting Shop & 53rd American Dream by James Sallis Elouise and the Doctors of the Planet Pergamon by Josephine Saxton Chuck Berry, Won't You Please Come Home by Ken McCullough Epiphany for Aliens by David Kerr Eye of the Beholder by Burt K. Filer Moth Race by Richard Hill In re Glover by Leonard Tushnet Zero Gee by Ben Bova A Mouse in the Walls of the Global Village by Dean R. Koontz Getting Along by James Blish & Judith Ann Lawrence Totenbüch by Parra y FiguéredoThings Lost by Thomas M. Disch With the Bentfin Boomer Boys on Little Old New Alabama by Richard A. Lupoff Lamia Mutable by M. John Harrison Last Train to Kankakee by Robin Scott Empire of the Sun by Andrew Weiner Ozymandias by Terry Carr The Milk of Paradise by James Tiptree, Jr.