In the years since, he’s written a third collection, The Night in Question, as well as a pair of genre-defining memoirs (This Boy’s Life and In Pharaoh’s Army), the novella The Barracks Thief, and, most recently, a novel, Old School.Now he returns with fresh revelations—about biding one’s time, or experiencing first love, or burying one’s mother—that come to a variety of characters in circumstances at once everyday and extraordinary: a retired Marine enrolled in college while her son trains for Iraq, a lawyer taking a difficult deposition, an American in Rome indulging the Gypsy who’s picked his pocket. In these stories, as with his earlier, much-anthologized work, he once again proves himself, according to the Los Angeles Times, “a writer of the highest order: part storyteller, part philosopher, someone deeply engaged in asking hard questions that take a lifetime to resolve.”

    Show Them a Good Time tells the stories of women slotted away into restrictive roles: the celebrity's girlfriend, the widower's second wife, the lecherous professor's student, the corporate employee. And yet, the genius of Flattery's characters is to blithely demolish the boundaries of these limited and limiting social types with immense complexity and caustic intelligence. Nicole Flattery's women are too ferociously mordant, too painfully funny to remain in their places.In this fiercely original and blazingly brilliant debut, Flattery likewise deconstructs the conventions of genre to serve up strange realities: In Not the End Yet, Flattery probes the hilarious and wrenching ambivalence of Internet dating as the apocalypse nears; in Sweet Talk, the mysterious disappearance of a number of local women sets the scene for a young girl to confront the dangerous uncertainties of her own sexuality; in this collection's center piece, Abortion, A Love Story, two college students in a dystopian campus reconfigure the perilous stories of their bodies in a fraught academic culture to offer a subversive, alarming, and wickedly funny play that takes over their own offstage lives. And yet, however surreal or richly imagined the setting, Flattery always shows us these strange worlds from startlingly unexpected angles, through an unforgettable cast of brutally honest, darkly hilarious women and girls.Like the stories of Mary Gaitskill, Miranda July, Lorrie Moore, Joy Williams, and Ottessa Moshfegh, Show Them a Good Time is the work of a profoundly resonant and revelatory literary voice – at once spiky, humane, achingly hilarious-- that is sure to echo through the literary culture for decades to come.

    A content moderator for "the world's biggest search engine," who spends her days culling videos of beheadings and suicides, turns from stalking her rapist online to following him in real life. At a camp for recovering internet trolls, a sensitive misfit goes missing. A wounded mother raises the second incarnation of her child.In You Will Never Be Forgotten, Mary South explores how technology can both collapse our relationships from within and provide opportunities for genuine connection. Formally inventive, darkly absurdist, savagely critical of the increasingly fraught cultural climates we inhabit, these ten stories also find hope in fleeting interactions and moments of tenderness. They reveal our grotesque selfishness and our intense need for love and acceptance, and the psychic pain that either shuts us off or allows us to discover our deepest reaches of empathy. This incendiary debut marks the arrival of a perceptive, idiosyncratic, instantly recognizable voice in fiction--one that could only belong to Mary South.

    In “Books and Roses” one special key opens a library, a garden, and clues to at least two lovers’ fates. In “Is Your Blood as Red as This?” an unlikely key opens the heart of a student at a puppeteering school. “‘Sorry’ Doesn’t Sweeten Her Tea” involves a “house of locks,” where doors can be closed only with a key—with surprising, unobservable developments. And in “If a Book Is Locked There’s Probably a Good Reason for That Don't You Think,” a key keeps a mystical diary locked (for good reason).  Oyeyemi’s tales span multiple times and landscapes as they tease boundaries between coexisting realities. Is a key a gate, a gift, or an invitation?

    Not stories of triumph over adversity, but something completely other. Described in language that is brilliantly sardonic, Woods's characters return repeatedly to places where they don't belong—often the places where they were born. In "Zombie," a coming-of-age story like no other, two young girls find friendship with a mysterious woman in the local cemetery. "Take the Way Home That Leads Back to Sullivan Street" describes a lesbian couple trying to repair their relationship by dropping acid at a Mensa party. In "A New Mohawk," a man in romantic pursuit of a female political activist becomes inadvertently much more familiar with the Palestine/Israel conflict than anyone would have thought possible. And in the title story, Woods brings us into the mind of a queer goth teenager who faces ostracism from her small-town evangelical church.In the background are the endless American wars and occupations and too many early deaths of friends and family. This is fiction that is fresh and of the moment, even as it is timeless.

     In Magical Mr. Goat, a young girl's imaginary friend yearns to become "more than friends." In Unprotected, an unused prophylactic recalls his years spent trapped inside a teen boy's wallet. The stories in Simon Rich's new book are bizarre, funny, and yet...relatable. Rich explores love's many complications-losing it, finding it, breaking it, and making it-and turns the ordinary into the absurd. With razor-sharp humor and illustrations, and just in time for Valentine's Day, Rich takes readers for an exhilarating, hilarious ride on the rollercoaster of love.

    Pearlman writes about the predicaments of being human. The title story involves an affair, an illegitimate pregnancy, anorexia, and adolescent drug use, but the real excitement comes from the intricate attention Pearlman devotes to the interior life of young Emily, who wishes she were a bug. In "Sonny," a mother prays for her daughters to be barren so they never have to experience the death of a child. "The Golden Swan" transports the reader to a cruise ship with lavish buffets-and a surprise stowaway. In prose that is as wise as it is poetic, Pearlman shines light on small, devastatingly precise moments to reflect the beauty and grace found in everyday life. She maps the psychological landscapes of her exquisitely rendered characters with unending compassion and seeming effortlessness. Both for its artistry and for the lives of the characters it presents, Honeydew is a collection that will pull readers back time and again. These stories demonstrate once more that Pearlman is a master of the form and that hers is a vision unfailingly wise and forgiving.

    Ballard has been one of Britain's most celebrated novelists. From the beginning he has been equally admired for his distinctive and highly influential short stories, the first of which - "Prima Belladonna" and "Escapement" - appeared in Science Fantasy and New Worlds in 1956. Now, all of his published stories - including four not previously featured in a collection - have been arranged in the order of original publication, providing an unprecedented opportunity to review the career of one of Britain's greatest writers.A Washington Post Best Book of 2009, Boston Globe Best Book, Los Angeles Times Favorite Book, and San Francisco Chronicle Best Book.Contents:- Prima Belladonna [Vermilion Sands] (1956)- Escapement (1956)- The Concentration City (1957, variant of Build-Up)- Venus Smiles [Vermilion Sands] (1957)- Manhole 69 (1957)- Track 12 (1958)- The Waiting Grounds (1959)- Now: Zero (1959)- The Sound-Sweep (1960)- Zone of Terror (1960)- Chronopolis (1960)- The Voices of Time (1960)- The Last World of Mr. Goddard (1960)- Studio 5, The Stars [Vermilion Sands] (1961)- Deep End (1961)- The Overloaded Man (1961)- Mr F. is Mr F. (1961)- Billennium (1961)- The Gentle Assassin (1961)- The Insane Ones (1962)- The Garden of Time (1962)- The Thousand Dreams of Stellavista [Vermilion Sands] (1962)- Thirteen to Centaurus (1962)- Passport to Eternity (1962)- The Cage of Sand (1962)- The Watch-Towers (1962)- The Singing Statues [Vermilion Sands] (1962)- The Man on the 99th Floor (1962)- The Subliminal Man (1963)- The Reptile Enclosure (1963)- A Question of Re-Entry (1963)- The Time-Tombs (1963)- Now Wakes the Sea (1963)- The Venus Hunters (1963)- End-Game (1963)- Minus One (1963)- The Sudden Afternoon (1963)- The Screen Game [Vermilion Sands] (1963)- Time of Passage (1964)- Prisoner of the Coral Deep (1964)- The Lost Leonardo (1964)- The Terminal Beach (1964)- The Illuminated Man (1964)- The Delta at Sunset (1964)- The Drowned Giant (1964)- The Gioconda of the Twilight Noon (1964)- The Volcano Dances (1964)- The Beach Murders (1966)- The Day of Forever (1966)- The Impossible Man (1966)- Storm-Bird, Storm-Dreamer (1966)- Tomorrow Is a Million Years (1966)- The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered as a Downhill Motor Race (1966)- Cry Hope, Cry Fury! [Vermilion Sands] (1967)- The Recognition (1967)- The Cloud-Sculptors of Coral D [Vermilion Sands] (1967)- Why I Want to Fuck Ronald Reagan (1968)- The Dead Astronaut (1968)- The Comsat Angels (1968)- The Killing Ground (1969)- A Place and a Time to Die (1969)- Say Goodbye to the Wind [Vermilion Sands] (1970)- The Greatest Television Show on Earth (1972)- My Dream of Flying to Wake Island (1974)- The Air Disaster (1975)- Low-Flying Aircraft (1975)- The Life and Death of God (1976)- Notes Towards a Mental Breakdown (1976)- The 60 Minute Zoom (1976)- The Smile (1976)- The Ultimate City (1976)- The Dead Time (1977)- The Index (1977)- The Intensive Care Unit (1977)- Theatre of War (1977)- Having a Wonderful Time (1978)- One Afternoon at Utah Beach (1978)- Zodiac 2000 (1978)- Motel Architecture (1978)- A Host of Furious Fancies (1980)- News from the Sun (1981)- Memories of the Space Age (1982)- Myths of the Near Future (1982)- Report on an Unidentified Space Station (1982)- The Object of the Attack (1984)- Answers to a Questionnaire (1985)- The Man Who Walked on the Moon (1985)- The Secret History of World War 3 (1988)- Love in a Colder Climate (1989)- The Enormous Space (1989)- The Largest Theme Park in the World (1989)- War Fever (1989)- Dream Cargoes (1990)- A Guide to Virtual Death (1992)- The Message from Mars (1992)- Report from an Obscure Planet (1992)

    What happens when a man lives his life backwards, or a family owns a diamond as big as the Ritz Hotel?How can a boring girl become more popular, a careless young woman become more sensible, or a cut-glass bowl destroy a married woman's life?What does a young man do to save the girl that he likes from an evil ghost, or to forget old feelings for a woman when she marries another man?Read this collection of short stories by one of America's finest storytellers to find out.

    The absurdity of both life and death are on full display; in "Zombies," the best and brightest of a high school prep school become tragically addicted to the latest drug craze: electric shocks from cardiac defibrillators. In "Knock, Knock," a son hopes to tell one last off-color joke to a father in his final moments, while in "Tunnel of Love," a massage therapist runs the curious practice of providing 'relief' to dying clients. And in "Expedition," fans will be thrilled to find to see a side of Tyler Durden never seen before in a precursor story to Fight Club.Funny, caustic, bizarre, poignant; these stories represent everything readers have come to love and expect from Chuck Palahniuk. They have all the impact of a sharp blow to the solar plexus, with considerable collateral damage to the funny bone.

    Now, the award-winning writer, whose stories have appeared in four consecutive editions of The Best American Short Stories, returns with a highly anticipated collection bearing her signature mix of intelligence, wit, and heart. A reality show producer manipulates two contestants into falling in love, even as her own relationship falls apart. Just after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a young boy has a revelation about his father’s past when a renowned Romanian violinist plays a concert in their home. When the prized elephant of a traveling circus keels over dead, the small-town minister tasked with burying its remains comes to question his own faith. In an unnamed country, a composer records the folk songs of two women from a village on the brink of destruction. These transporting, deeply moving stories—some inspired by her own family history—amply demonstrate Makkai’s extraordinary range as a storyteller, and confirm her as a master of the short story form. “Richly imagined.” —Chicago Tribune   “Impressive.” —O, The Oprah Magazine   “Engrossing.” —Minneapolis Star-Tribune   “Inventive.” —W Magazine

    In these stories, reminiscent of Shirley Jackson and Julio Cortázar, three young friends distract themselves with drugs and pain in the midst a government-enforced blackout; a girl with nothing to lose steps into an abandoned house and never comes back out; to protest a viral form of domestic violence, a group of women set themselves on fire. But alongside the black magic and disturbing disappearances, these stories are fueled by compassion for the frightened and the lost, ultimately bringing these characters—mothers and daughters, husbands and wives—into a surprisingly familiar reality. Written in hypnotic prose that gives grace to the grotesque, Things We Lost in the Fire is a powerful exploration of what happens when our darkest desires are left to roam unchecked, and signals the arrival of an astonishing and necessary voice in contemporary fiction.

    In eight tragi-comic stories, Einstein's Beach House: Stories features ordinary men and women rising to life's extraordinary challenges.

    What we know of identity is smashed and in its place, true individuals emerge, each bristling with a unique sexuality, a belief-system all their own. Reminiscent of Jane Bowles, William Burroughs, and Colette, her writing glows with an authenticity that is intoxicating and rare. A National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 HonoreeWhiting Award WinnerPEN/Hemingway Award FinalistLambda Literary Award FinalistLonglisted for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction & The Story

    The lurking wolf in Little Red Riding Hood, the gingerbread house that lures Hansel and Gretel, the beauty asleep in her castle—these fables represent some of our deepest, most primeval fears and satisfy our longing for good to win out over evil (preferably in the most gruesome way possible). In this captivating new collection, critically acclaimed author Jean Thompson takes the classic fairy tale and brings it into the modern age with stories that capture the magic and horror in everyday life. The downtrodden prevail, appearances deceive, and humility and virtue triumph in The Witch, as lost children try to find their way home, adults cursed by past unspeakable acts are fated to experience their own horror in the present, and true love—or is it enchantment?—conquers all. The Witch and Other Tales Re-Told is a haunting and deeply entertaining collection, showcasing the inimitable Thompson at the height of her storytelling prowess.