In this collection of nine short stories, Carter pinpoints the symbolism of city streets and weaves allegories around forests and jungles of strange and erotic landscapes of the imagination.

    The spellbinding world of Hiromi Kawakami; the hair-raising horror of Otsuichi; the haunting, poignant prose of Banana Yoshimoto; even the poetic word-play of Yoko Tawada whatever a readers taste, he or she is sure to find something of interest and value in this book, suitable for students at the intermediate level and above. As in real Japanese novels, the text on each page runs from top to bottom and from right to left. Each double-page spread features translations of all the difficult passages. In the back of the book, moreover, is a built-in Japanese-English learners dictionary and a notes section covering issues of nuance, usage, grammar and culture that come up in each story. Best of all, the books comes with a free audio CD containing narrations of the stories, performed by a professional voice actress.

    The years pass but no one looks any older. One night a doctor tells the story of a young woman who gives birth to a baby in the most horrible way! Evil psychic powers, obsession and the supernatural in the most ordinary, everyday places. A spine-chiller from the master of horror.

    Nine of his finest stories were selected by Mishima himself for translation in this book; they represent his extraordinary ability to depict, with deftness and penetration, a wide variety of human beings in moments of significance. Often his characters are sophisticated modern Japanese who turn out to be not so liberated from the past as they had thought.In the title story, "Death in Midsummer," which is set at a beach resort, a triple tragedy becomes a cloud of doom that requires exorcising. In another, "Patriotism," a young army officer and his wife choose a way of vindicating their belief in ancient values that is as violent as it is traditional; it prefigured his own death by seppuku in November 1970. There is a story in which the sad truth of the relationship between a businessman and his former mistress is revealed through a suggestion of the unknown, and another in which a working-class couple, touching in their simple love for each other, pursue financial security by rather shocking means.Also included is one of Mishima's "modern Nō plays," remarkable for the impact which its brevity and uncanny intensity achieve. The English versions have been done by four outstanding translators: Donald Keene, Ivan Morris, Geoffrey Sargent, and Edward Seidensticker.Photograph on back cover by T. Kamiya; cover design by David Ford

    Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.

    But when an old-fashioned pureblood and a modern changeling decide to court, what form can that courtship possibly take?It's time for a first date, a first romantic encounter, and a first assassination attempt. Just the usual assortment of complications for a man, a woman, and the complicated world between them. And of course, it doesn't help that the man is a King of Cats, and has his own share of demons to bring to the table..."No Sooner Met" is best read after Ashes of Honor, and contains spoilers for the series up through book six.

    Multi-dimensional swashbuckling would be hard enough, but our two unfortunate souls broke up a week ago.Can friendship blossom from the ashes of a relationship? In infinite dimensions, all things are possible.

    Summer is a simple story of a nine-year-old girl who dies while on summer vacation. While her youthful killers try to hide her body, she tells us the story--from the point of view of her dead body--of the childrens' attempt to get away with murder. Black Fairy Tale is classic J-horror: a young girl loses an eye in an accident, but receives a transplant. Now she can see again, astonishingly what she sees out of her new left eye is the experiences and memories of its previous owner. Its previous deceased owner.

    This short story is taken from one of Steinbeck's early works, "The Pastures of Heaven."

    But with the master storyteller Josh Malerman as your tour guide, you'll discover the secrets that hide behind its closed doors. These six novellas tell the story of a place where the rain is always falling, nighttime is always near, and your darkest fears and desires await. Welcome to Goblin. . . .A Man in Slices: A man proves his "legendary love" to his girlfriend with a sacrifice even more daring than Vincent van Gogh's--and sends her more than his heart.Kamp: Walter Kamp is afraid of everything, but most afraid of being scared to death. As he sets traps around his home to catch the ghosts that haunt him, he learns that nothing is more terrifying than fear itself.Happy Birthday, Hunter!: A famed big-game hunter is determined to capture--and kill--the ultimate prey: the mythic Great Owl who lives in Goblin's dark forests. But this mysterious creature is not the only secret the woods are keeping.Presto: All Peter wants is to be like his hero, Roman Emperor, the greatest magician in the world. When the famous magician comes to Goblin, Peter discovers that not all magic is just an illusion.A Mix-Up at the Zoo: The new zookeeper feels a mysterious kinship with the animals in his care . . . and finds that his work is freeing dark forces inside him.The Hedges: When his wife dies, a man builds a hedge maze so elaborate no one ever solves it--until a little girl resolves to be the first to find the mysteries that wait at its heart.

    Now he's starring in a big-budget action thriller that offers him the chance to become a box-office titan.Except the action and the thrills aren't just in the movie. Dangerous and destabilizing new technology is floating around behind the scenes. Police and cartel lords lurk in the shadows. An assassin is on the loose, and has already claimed his first victim.Sean could be next in the killer's sights, unless he can find out what the bad guys want, who's hiding it, and how many people he's going to have to betray in order to save his life--- and more importantly, his celebrity!

    Winner of the prestigious Drue Heinz Prize in 1993 -- selected by a panel chaired by Tobias Wolff -- O'Nan's collection In the Walled City features twelve stories that delve into the lives and souls of an astonishing range of characters, from an old Chinese grocer to a young policeman separated from his family and descending into madness. Intimate and generous, these stories brilliantly illuminate the connections that bind us and the obligations and sorrows of love.

    In its harrowing chronicle of the breakup of a relationship, Interiors confirmed Cash's remarkable talents as a lyricist, with songs that were intelligent and astonishingly frank, songs that with their stark empathy transcended the self-involvement that had come to confine the work of many "confessional" singer-songwriters. The Wheel (1993) was further evidence that she had few equals in her field. As one of our most literate lyricists, Cash naturally began to turn to longer prose pieces, and in her first collection, Bodies of Water, she reveals the full breadth and depth of her talent. These stories are a series of portraits of the inner lives of women seeking self-forgiveness, resolution, and freedom in the face of the familiar betrayals of everyday existence. A mother spends a comically forlorn New Year's Eve alone with her young children. Alone in Paris, a traveler faces her loneliness as middle age approaches. A dinner party becomes a battleground of concealed disappointment. It is at the margins of reality and dreams, the boundaries between art and insanity, that Cash's characters come to learn that their redemption is to be found in facing the past, and finally, in retrieving power from it.

    All four stories in this volume have been previously published.Volume One Contents•The Girl in the Carnival Gown•Last Stand•Nos Galan Gaeaf•A Haunted House of Her Own

    Published only recently, it set sales records in the millions of copies and soon crossed over to other media as well--first as a radio and TV drama, then as a blockbuster movie. The popularity of the novel has spread across Asia as well, with hugely successful translations into Korean and Chinese. In the West, readers may be reminded of The Bridges of Madison County, another best-selling novel of blazing midlife passion--one with a very different outcome.Here the lovers are Kuki, a 54-year-old employee in a publishing company, and Rinko, a childless, 37-year-old woman unhappily married to a cold fish of a husband, a professor of medicine. Stuck in a dead-end job and an uneventful marriage, Kuki is irresistibly drawn to Rinko from their first encounter, seeing through her demure demeanor to the passionate woman beneath. She returns his feelings with ever-increasing abandon, despite lingering fears about where her sexual awakening may lead her. In the end, both are prepared to risk all for their relationship: family, career, and social standing, even life itself.The story contrasts the lovers' defiantly freewheeling passion--described in imaginative, smoldering detail--with a rigid society where people are expected to play a prescribed role, whether as dutiful wife or compliant office worker. In escaping these conventional roles, the lovers often escape the city as well, immersing themselves in the traditional beauties of Japanese nature and art as they give themselves over to each other and the pleasure of the moment. And ultimately they make a much more radical escape: one that will ensure that they are left in peace, to enjoy an abiding love.Perhaps not all the choices they make will seem reasonable, or even understandable, to Western readers. But their story, with elements as modern as yesterday's headlines and as timeless as the tug between love and death, opens a window into the secrets of the Japanese soul.