M. Homes as one of the most provocative and daring writers of her generation. Here you'll find the cult classic A Real Doll, the tale of a teenage boy's erotic obsession with his sister's favorite doll; Adults Alone, which first introduced Paul and Elaine, the crack-smoking yuppie couple whose marriage careens out of control in Homes's novel Music for Torching; and Looking for Johnny, in which a kidnapped boy, having failed his abductor's expectations, is returned home. Brilliantly conceived, sharply etched, and exceptionally satisfying, these stories explore the American dream in ways you're not likely soon to forget. Working in Kodacolor hues, Homes offers an uncanny picture of a surreal suburbia-outrageous and utterly believable.

    A young girl suffers her first betrayal. A widow flirts with an elderly blind man against the wishes of her grown-up children. A neighborhood loan shark teaches o white social worker a lesson in responsibility. And there is more. Sharing the world of Toni Cade Bambara's "straight-up fiction" is a stunning experience.

    Bawdy, funny, touching, and downright outrageous, there's simply no one else like Roald Dahl.This volume is a diabolical collection of 28 of Dahl's best stories. Shiver to classics like The Man From the South, Taste, Royal Jelly and The Great Switcheroo and hard-to-find gems like Poison, The Wish and Neck. It's the perfect remedy for a sleepless night. From Someone Like YouTasteLamb to the SlaughterMan from the SouthThe SoldierDip in the PoolGalloping FoxleySkinPoisonWishNeckSound MachineNunc DimittisGreat Automatic GrammatizatorClaud's DogRatcatcherRumminsMr HoddyMr FeaseyFrom Kiss KissLandladyWilliam and MaryThe Way Up to HeavenRoyal JellyGeorgy PorgyGenesis and CatastropheEdward the ConquerorPigChampion of the WorldFrom Switch BitchGreat SwitcherooLast ActBitch

    Fine line-drawings by Laszlo Kubinyi enhance the mysterious and sometimes chilling mood.The lady's maid's bell (1904)The eyes (1910)Afterward (1910)Kerfol (1916)The triumph of night (1914)Miss Mary Pask (1925)Bewitched (1925)Mr Jones (1928)Pomegranate seed (1931)The looking glass (1935)All souls' (1937)

    Whether he writes a gothic morality tale in which a male exotic dancer is haunted by his maiden aunt from beyond the grave, or about a self-help guru who tells his followers his mission is to discover who's been "crapping in your oatmeal," Saunders's stories are both indelibly strange and vividly real.

    From the tale of commitment, loneliness and hope in Of Mice and Men, to the tough yet charming portrait of people on the margins of society in Cannery Row, to The Pearl's examination of the fallacy of the American dream, Steinbeck stories of realism, that were imbued with energy and resilience.

    Among other fine works, the collection also includes “Wunderkind,” McCullers’s first published story written when she was only seventeen about a musical prodigy who suddenly realizes she will not go on to become a great pianist. Newly reset and available for the first time in a handsome trade paperback edition, The Ballad of the Sad Café is a brilliant study of love and longing from one of the South’s finest writers.

    "Another""What It Means When a Crowd in a Faraway Nation Takes a Soldier Representing Your Own Nation, Shoots Him, Drags Him from His Vehicle and Then Mutilates Him in the Dust""The Only Meaning of the Oil-Wet Water""On Wanting to Have Three Walls Up Before She Gets Home""Climbing to the Window, Pretending to Dance""She Waits, Seething, Blooming""Quiet""Your Mother and I""Naveed""Notes for a Story of a Man Who Will Not Die Alone""About the Man Who Began Flying After Meeting Her""Up the Mountain Coming Down Slowly""After I Was Thrown in the River and Before I Drowned"From the Trade Paperback edition.

    In 'The Life and Times of Estelle Walks Above', an intellectual feminist Spokane Indian woman saves the lives of dozens of white women all around her, to the bewilderment of her only child. In 'Do You Know Where I Am?' two college sweethearts rescue a lost cat - a simple act that has profound moral consequences for the rest of their lives together. In 'What You Pawn I Will Redeem', a homeless Indian man must raise $1,000 in twenty-four hours to buy back the fancy dance outfit stolen from his grandmother fifty years earlier.Even as they often make us laugh, Sherman Alexie's stories are driven by a haunting lyricism and naked candour that cut to the heart of the human experience.

    A rich and emotionally resonant collection of twelve stories of hope, momentary joy, and powerful endurance.

    "Eight Men" presents eight stories of black men living at violent odds with the white world around them. As they do in his classic novels, the themes here reflect Wright's views on racism and his fascination with what he called "the struggle of the individual in America.

    In their intensity of perception, their neon-lit evocation of a strange world brought uncomfortably close to our own, the stories in Jesus' Son offer a disturbing yet eerily beautiful portrayal of American loneliness and hope.Contains:Car Crash While HitchhikingTwo MenOut on BailDundunWorkEmergencyDirty WeddingThe Other ManHappy HourSteady Hands at Seattle GeneralBeverly Home'

    Some of her most acclaimed work is set there. Collected in this volume are "The Light in the Piazza, " which is her signature piece, and six other Italian tales in which her American characters encounter and respond to the mysteries of Italian mores. Her plots are so alluring and enigmantic that the great Boccaccio would have been charmed by their delightful ironies and their sinister contrasts of dark and light. Elizabeth's Spencer's exceptional artisty has merited renown for her as one of America's best writers of short stories.

    From the author of anonymous and pseudonymous tales comes a collection on nine newly discovered stories uncovered by tireless literary detective work.

    She has been called “an American virtuoso of the short story form” (Salon) and “one of the quiet giants . . . of American fiction” (Los Angeles Times Book Review). Now, for the first time, Davis’s short stories will be collected in one volume, from the groundbreaking Break It Down (1986) to the 2007 National Book Award nominee Varieties of Disturbance. The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis is an event in American letters.