Each story contains the common elements of the gothic tale--a warped sense of time, a claustrophobic setting, a link to archaic modes of thought, and the impression of a descent into disintegration. Yet taken together, they reveal the progression of the genre from stories of feudal villains amid crumbling ruins to a greater level of sophistication in which writers brought the gothic tale out of its medieval setting, and placed it in the contemporary world. Bringing together the work of such writers as Eudora Welty, Thomas Hardy, Edgar Allan Poe, William Faulkner, Arthur Conan Doyle, Joyce Carol Oates, and Jorge Luis Borges, The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales presents a wide array of the sinister and unsettling for all lovers of ghost stories, fantasy, and horror.

    In one narrative, a man wakes up one morning to find the odor of dead fish won't go away, but no one else can smell it. In another, a couple's visit with friends to watch the Academy Awards has the protagonist envying his friends' lawn and lifestyle. In these and eleven other stories, Christopher Meeks balances tragedy and wit. As novelist David Scott Milton explains, "In this collection, Christopher Meeks examines the small heartbreaks of quiet despair that are so much a part of all our lives. He does it in language that is resonant, poetic, and precise.... If you like Raymond Carver, you'll love Meeks. He may be as good--or better."

    Here are classic tales from writers including Truman Capote, Shirley Jackson, Dylan Thomas, Saki and Chekhov, as well as little-known treasures such as Italo Calvino's wry sideways look at Christmas consumerism, Wolfdietrich Schnurre's story of festive ingenuity in Berlin, Selma Lagerlof's enchanted forest in Sweden, and Irène Nemerovsky's dark family portrait. Featuring santas, ghosts, trolls, unexpected guests, curmudgeons and miracles, here is Christmas as imagined by some of the greatest short story writers of all time.

    This is to keep you on the edge with each turn in the alleys of the Labyrinth.Labyrinth: Short Stories is an array of fifteen tales that cover genres like adventure, romance, paranormal, fantasy, history, and many more.Summary Of The BookLabyrinth: Short Stories, published in 2012, is a collection of fifteen short stories written by various Indian authors. Each tale belongs to a different genre and era, thereby giving this book a unique and refreshing feel. Labyrinth: Short Stories starts off with The Martyr, which has been written by Mainak Dhar. It revolves around young Kemal who finds himself in the middle of a war in Afghanistan. Puppet Show, by Aditi Chincholi, explains how a doctor cannot find a way to break a spell that has been cast over the natives of a valley.Bagheera Log Huts takes readers into the heart of an Indian jungle, where the search for a wild cat turns into an unexpected adventure. Shawn Pereira’s I'll Be Back describes an out-of-body experience, which shows how things can take a downward spiral when one is caught in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Aditi Chincholi’s second story, Sym World, is set in a fantasy land which the protagonist Kyoto has willingly entered, but cannot find a way out. In Mortified, written by Jeevan Varma, readers will find themselves in a small Indian township where a mortified Sharmaji is going to be attacked. This is followed by Crashing Impacts, a tale of love and sacrifice that spans almost ten years.Rishabh Chaturvedi’s The Night Of The Wokambee describes how Revant is in a quandary when a strange creature visits his house every night. Both Mists of Time by Niharika Puri, and Russkaya Rulyetka by Shawn Pereira, illustrate how a person makes impulsive decisions when he is overcome with rage and jealousy. Candies shows readers that the pursuit of love is filled with ups and downs. Travel Through The Night, authored by Rishabh Chaturvedi, follows the protagonist into dense sugarcane plantations, where he encounters strange spirits who block his path. A Day of Battle is set during the great epic battle of the Mahabharata, and the author Abhishek Dwivedi shares stories of the bravery of some of the best warriors that this world has ever seen. The next story, Farming On Facebook by Sushant Dharwadkar, takes a huge time leap, and shows how the present generation is unaware of the real world, as their focus lies only on the screens in front of them. About The AuthorsLabyrinth: Short Stories has been written by Mainak Dhar, Richard Fernandes, Jeevan Verma, Rishabh Chaturvedi, Niharika Puri, Aditi Chincholi, Abhishek Dwivedi, Sushant Dharwadkar, Rohit Das, and Shawn Pereira. They are a part of the initiative by Litizen.com. Professionally they are accountants, chefs, media professionals, doctors, and students.

    Exploring many of the same themes as in his longer works, these small masterpieces move from the tender and romantic White Nights, an archetypal nineteenth-century morality tale of pathos and loss, to the famous Notes from the Underground, a story of guilt, ineffectiveness, and uncompromising cynicism, and the first major work of existential literature. Among Dostoevsky's prototypical characters is Yemelyan in The Honest Thief, whose tragedy turns on an inability to resist crime. Presented in chronological order, in David Magarshack's celebrated translation, this is the definitive edition of Dostoevsky's best stories.

    In Cutty Sark and Landfill, the bond between adolescent son and mother reverberates with the force of an unspoken passion, bringing unexpected consequences for the son. In A Princeton Idyll, a woman is forced to realize, decades later, her childhood role in the destruction of a famous, beloved grandfather's life. In Magda Maria, a man tries to break free of the enthralling and dangerous erotic obsession of his life. In the gripping title story, Oates boldly reimagines the true-crime story of Andrea Yates, the Texas mother who drowned her children in 2001. Several stories—Suicide by Fitness Center, The Glazers, and Dear Joyce Carol,—take a less tragic turn, exploring with mordant humor the shadowy interstices between self-awareness and delusion.Dramatic, intensely rendered, and always provocative, Dear Husband, provides an unsettling and fascinating look into the mysterious heart of America.

    

    -- Presents the most important 20th-century criticism on major works from The Odyssey through modern literature-- The critical essays reflect a variety of schools of criticism-- Contains critical biographies, notes on the contributing critics, a chronology of the author's life, and an index

    Chilling and witty, prescient and personal, delectable and tart, these highly imaginative, vintage Atwoodian mini-fictions speak on a broad range of subjects, reflecting the times we live in with deadly accuracy and knife-edge precision.In pieces ranging in length from a mere paragraph to several pages, Atwood gives a sly pep talk to the ambitious young; writes about the disconcerting experience of looking at old photos of ourselves; gives us Horatio's real views on Hamlet; and examines the boons and banes of orphanhood. Bring Back Mom: An Invocation; explores what life was really like for the "perfect" homemakers of days gone by, and in The Animals Reject Their Names she runs history backward, with surprising results.Chilling and witty, prescient and personal, delectable and tart, The Tent is vintage Atwood, enhanced by the author's delightful drawings.

    Here, as she sees them, are the complexities, the agonies and joys, the textures of African life and society.The collection, bridging as it does Mrs. Lessing's entire writing career, contains much of her most extraordinary work. Beyond that, it is a brilliant portrait of a world that is vital to all of us, shadowy to most of us - perceived by an artist of the first rank writing with passion and honesty about her native land.It is a central book in the work of one of the most important of today's writers.

    I am Daniel Handler, the author of this book. Did you know that authors often write the summaries that appear on their book's dust jacket? You might want to think about that the next time you read something like, "A dazzling page-turner, this novel shows an internationally acclaimed storyteller at the height of his astonishing powers.""Adverbs" is a novel about love -- a bunch of different people, in and out of different kinds of love. At the start of the novel, Andrea is in love with David -- or maybe it's Joe -- who instead falls in love with Peter in a taxi. At the end of the novel, it's Joe who's in the taxi, falling in love with Andrea, although it might not be Andrea, or in any case it might not be the same Andrea, as Andrea is a very common name. So is Allison, who is married to Adrian in the middle of the novel, although in the middle of the ocean she considers a fling with Keith and also with Steve, whom she meets in an automobile, unless it's not the same Allison who meets the Snow Queen in a casino, or the same Steve who meets Eddie in the middle of the forest. . . .It might sound confusing, but that's love, and as the author -- me -- says, "It is not the nouns. The miracle is the adverbs, the way things are done." This novel is about people trying to find love in the ways it is done before the volcano erupts and the miracle ends. Yes, there's a volcano in the novel. In my opinion a volcano automatically makes a story more interesting.

    Past winners and shortlisted authors have included the Pulitzer winners Junot Díaz, Anthony Doerr and Adam Johnson, plus Hilary Mantel, Ali Smith, Yiyun Li, CK Stead and Elizabeth Strout.Six Shorts 2017 brings together the six stories shortlisted for this year's award: ‘Reputation Management’ by Kathleen Alcott; ‘Half of What Atlee Rouse Knows about Horses’ by Bret Anthony Johnston; ‘The Hazel Twig and the Olive Tree’ by Richard Lambert; ‘The Tenant’ by Victor Lodato; ‘Every Little Thing’ by Celeste Ng; and ‘Mr Salary’ by Sally Rooney.Chosen by a hugely experienced and prestigious judging panel that included Booker-winner Anne Enright, Orange- and Whitbread-winner Rose Tremain, Booker-shortlistee Neel Mukherjee and critic and novelist Mark Lawson, the six stories represent the very best in contemporary English-language short fiction.

    Schiller's version is based on an ancient Greek legend recorded by the Roman author Gaius Julius Hyginus.The most prominent theme of "Run, Melos!" is unwavering friendship. Despite facing hardships, the protagonist Melos does his best to save his friend's life, and in the end his efforts are rewarded.

    Winner of six Emmys (he was nominated nine times), two Sylvania Awards, on Peabody Award, and one Christopher Award for his teleplays, Serling came as close as anyone to dominating an era that abounded with talented men. His plays "Requiem for a Heavyweight" and "Patterns" are usually the first items on the lips of television aficionados reminiscing about the good old days. Yet as television changed, Rod Serling kept pace. He became producer and chief writer for the famous "Twilight Zone" series. These bizarre and fantastic adventures into the occult and demonic were without doubt one of the most creative, imaginative and successful enterprises in the history of television.Now Rod Serling has applied his prodigious writing talents to a new medium: one in which he is perhaps destined to make his greatest mark. The three novellas that compromise THE SEASON TO BE WARY betray the skillful hand of a master storyteller and prose stylist. Fired with a savage yet disciplined irony, paced with deliberate cadence that rises to a starting denouement, each story explores the theme of a terrible vengeance delivered for terrible deeds performed.In "The Escape Route," ex-Gruppenfuehrer Joseph Strobe - ex-deputy assistant commander of Auschwitz, ex-confidant of Heinrich Himmler - putters about his little rathole in Buenos Aires chewing over the good times he had breaking Jews. Yet his snug little world is turned upside down b the capture of Adolf Eichmann, and Strobe soon finds himself on the wrong end of a terrifying hunt."Color Scheme" recounts the life and times of the great King Connacher, racist and rabble-rouser, who makes his living on the stump, preaching the lynching gospel, only to find himself one summer evening the victim of an extraordinary case of mistaken identity.In "Eyes," Miss Claudia Menlo, who in her fifty lifeless years has been denied nothing that she wanted - except her sight - manipulates people with the same purposeful indifference with which she fondles the expensive bric-a-brac in her lavishly cluttered dwelling. Yet her insistant will is brutally thwarted by the one set of circumstances she cannot control.Serling has infused these simple, forceful tales with an extraordinary richness of character and detail. There is, for example, the Prussian officer Gruber, who cannot stomach the pigs like Strobe he helped create and with whom he is forced to share his guilt. And there is Indian Charlie Hatcher, the most memorable portrait of a burned-out prizefighter since Serling's own justly famous Mountain Rivera.The power, the drive, the complexity and subtlety of these novellas mark Rod Serling as one of the most important and graceful fiction writers. Mr. Serling is a graduate of Antioch College and lives in Southern California with his wife and two children.

    Some are "Momotaro, "The Son of a Peach", "The Jellyfish and the Monkey", "The Mirror of Matsuyama", "The Bamboo Cutter and the Moon Child", "The Stones of Five Colors and the Empress Jokwa."