He's got everything he ever wanted, except his health. The knives are out. His rivals sense blood. Their time is now. But Thompson's not going down without a fight. Violence in the Blood documents Thompson's rise to power from the backstreets of Glasgow to the industrial heartland of the Midlands. Join the rampage as Malkie and his crew blaze a trail of mayhem and destruction north and south of the border.

    These stories span characters and emotional states with canny details that touch the depths of your soul. Picturing the complexities of love, misery and mystery, the stories try to gnaw your heart like never before.• What does a flower teach us we often fail to see?• “The belly is an ungrateful wretch.” Is it true?• Ever wondered about the sparseness and illusions in life?• Does death put an end to true love?• Have all the ascetics won over their emotions?With the power of simple language, this book transports the readers to a world scarcely thought of in our bustling lives. The allegories maintain an intense rhythm of life prompting the readers to perceive things from a unique angle.“A whole bookful to make you think, cry, think again and move on.”

    When not plying his trade, he passes his time managing a jazz club in the City of Light. To make ends meet, he freelances by offering his services to help rid the earth of the world's worst criminals. Max is enjoying his ritual post-job vodka when he meets a stunning woman; a haunting visage of his former fiancé. Suddenly, he finds himself the target of an assassination plot in his beloved city of Paris. Fighting for his life, Max must overcome his own demons to stay alive.

    Co-author with his brother Frederick of the brilliant and devastating casino memoir, Double Down: Reflections on Gambling and Loss, Steven Barthelme seems to cast an eye at his own history and the characters he's known. These are men and women who are down --- but stirringly, not quite out. An unmissable, arresting book from one of the most seminal short story writers of the last twenty years.

    A traveling salesman consigned to a late-night bus ride. A prison inmate stripped of everything but his pride. A teenage runaway. Mismatched lovers. In his debut collection of short fiction, award-winning novelist Craig Lancaster returns to the terrain of his Montana home and takes on the notion of separation in its many forms - from comfort zones, from ideas, from people, from security, from fears. These ten stories delve into small towns and big cities, into love and despair, into what drives us and what scares us, peeling back the layers of our humanity with every pag

    In this follow-up collection, the editors once again tackle the question: “How short can a story be and truly be a story?” Determined to find the best flashes from America in the twenty-first century, James Thomas and Robert Shapard searched everywhere for stories that were not merely good but memorable. Moving, and certainly unforgettable, this collection includes stories from the best and most popular fiction writers of our time, including Ron Carlson, Robert Coover, Steve Almond, Amy Hempel, A. M. Homes, Grace Paley, and Paul Theroux. In addition, Rick Moody properly defines armoire, Lydia Davis delves into a world of cats, and Dave Eggers explores narrow escapes. Over and over, these stories prove that often less is more.

    All robots must follow the three laws, but that leaves room for a surprisingly wide range of unexpected outcomes...THE THREE LAWS OF ROBOTICS1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.2. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

    A fictional town full of very real people who survive the attack of Hurricane Hugo and then find their bearings in the aftermath—often in wild and hilarious ways. The days leading up to the impending disaster are not at all unusual—no portents of disaster, no signs of impending calamity. Bryce works his night shift at the hot dog factory, Isaac drives the bus to school, Evelyn attends a funeral. But when the electricity fails in the middle of the night on September 21, 1989, it marks the moment when everything will change: Hugo has arrived.The storm builds, the wind whips by faster and faster, and interpersonal dramas, grudges, and rivalries are dredged up along with the flotsam and debris. Meanwhile, flood markers, painted red, track the height of the water from past rainstorms, and as the creek level rises higher than ever before, so do the emotions of the townspeople.Alternating between weather forecasts and short stories, Floodmarkers is an exquisitely crafted day-in-the-life of a town. And as Nic Brown has us look bravely at the eye of the storm, he cleverly shows us that human nature can stir up a spectacular tempest all its own.

    Written in a lucid, simple style, the stories are narrated in a manner that the reader, himself will be transported into the world of great men, artists, philosophers. Spanning a vast territory of topics, the tales are crafted in a manner that they will create psychological awareness in life. Latent emotions of anger, greed, love, inferiority complex are woven into the intricate fabric of the stories and readers will find themselves inspired by interesting stories from the lives of Vincent Van Gogh, Thomas Edison, Steve Jobs, Helen Keller and other great people—who had through their work radicalised not only their own lives, but also the lives and thoughts of the human race. The profound wisdom of great philosophers like Buddha, Socrates, Ramanand Paramhansa, King Janaka, Sufi Saint Rabia, the captivating antics of the eccentric Mullah Nasruddin, Christ’s message to the earthlings, Ghalib’s passion, Walt Disney’s dreams, Vincent Van Gogh’s art and much more will urge us to relook at our concepts and philosophies of life. This story book is a must-read for people of all age groups. They will greatly benefit from these stories, thereby transforming their thinking and way of living and instilling hope and confidence that it is possible to lead a happy and stress-free life. The pithy morals at the end of each story, shall help re-strengthen faith in yourself and help you to look at the world in a different light.This book is available in English, Hindi and Gujarati.

     As usual, Maupin’s tone is both bittersweet and achingly funny in this tale of a post-catastrophic San Francisco and a young man’s resilient love for his mother. Cover Design by Darryl Vance

    

    

    last year, this updated collection contains the best of Robertson Davies' newspaper and magazine articles written over the past 50 years. "Each piece is entertaining and enlightening. . . ".--Publishers Weekly.

    It's chilling. It's easy to become discouraged, to second-guess everything you write. There seemed to be no one to stand up to the censors ... so I began to speak out about my experiences. And once I did, I found that I wasn't as alone as I'd thought." —from Judy Blume's introduction to Places I Never Meant to Be Judy Blume is not alone: Many of today's most distinguished authors of books for young people have found their work censored or challenged. Eleven of them have contributed original stories to this collection. Along with a story written by the late Norma Klein when she was a student at Barnard College, they comprise a stunning literary achievement as well as a battle cry against censorship. Contributors: • David Klass • Norma Klein • Julius Lester • Chris Lynch • Harry Mazer • Norma Fox Mazer • Walter Dean Myers • Katherine Paterson • Susan Beth Pfeffer • Rachel Vail • Jacqueline Woodson • Paul Zindel

    Unmarried, he’s keen to settle and as he and Gerda spend more and more time onboard together they realise that each has found someone very special.But it’s the afternoon before they dock in Liverpool, and tragedy strikes. As the torpedoed ship lists to one side Jack and Gerda must make frightening decisions that become a matter of life or death …A beautiful, romantic and moving tale based on a true story.***This is a short story, which you can also buy as part of the Love…Maybe Eshort Collection***