Michael Martone is its own appendix, comprising fifty “contributors notes,” each of which identifies in exorbitant biographical detail the author of the other forty-nine. Full of fanciful anecdotes and preposterous reminiscences, Martone’s self-inventions include the multiple deaths of himself and all his family members, his Kafkaesque rebirth as a giant insect, and his stints as circus performer, assembly-line worker, photographer, and movie extra. Expect no autobiographical consistency here. A note revealing Martone's mother as the ghost-writer of all his books precedes the note beginning, “Michael Martone, an orphan . . . “ We learn of Martone’s university career and sketchy formal education, his misguided caretaking of his teacher John Barth’s lawn, and his impersonation of a poor African republic in political science class, where Martone's population is allowed to starve as his more fortunate fellow republics fight over development and natural resource trading-cards. The author of Michael Martone, whose other names include Missy, Dolly, Peanut, Bug, Gigi-tone, Tony's boy, Patty's boy, Junior's, Mickey, Monk, Mr. Martone, and “the contributor named in this note," proves as Protean as fiction itself, continuously transforming the past with every new attribution but never identifying himself by name. It is this missing personage who, from first note to last, constitutes the unformed subject of Michael Martone.

    The 12 tales in this book vary in setting from a Polaris base in Scotland to a frail remnant of hippy "happiness" in Tasmania, and in subject-matter from male gynaecologists' interference with female organs to a rich woman confessing to the night sea that she has lied and cheated and "murdered".

    While the bricks with which Chinquee constructs her fictions - failed or failing relationships, childhood friendships, and the intricacies of family life - are not uncommon, the architecture she creates with them is rare indeed: stories now full of light, now somber, now opening the reader's eyes to an utterly new space.

    Chaon mines the psychological landscape of his characters to dazzling effect. Each story radiates with sharp humor, mystery, wonder, and startling compassion. Among the Missing lingers in the mind through its subtle grace and power of language.

    Nothing is certain in this world where weddings and birthday parties go unpredictably awry, strangers blurt out disturbing confessions, and even the family pets reveal themselves to be agents of discord and disruption.In this short-story collection by one of the most gifted fiction writers of our time, Francine Prose shows us how the seemingly tranquil surface of ordinary happiness barely conceals the darker, more mysterious and brutal truths about this deceptively peaceable kingdom.

    There are cheating husbands. There are private clubs, crowded restaurants, psychiatric wards. There is one magic cinema and everyone has a secret of some kind.Russell Smith is the author of Girl Crazy and How Insensitive. Confidence, recently longlisted for the 2015 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, is his US debut.

    Propelled by a terrific instinct for storytelling, and concerned with the convolutions of modern love and the importance of place, this collection is about the battlefields-and fields of victory-that exist in seemingly harmless spaces, in kitchens and living rooms and cars. Set mostly in the American West, the stories feature small-town lawyers, ranchers, doctors, parents, and children, and explore the moral quandaries of love, family, and friendship. A ranch hand falls for a recent law school graduate who appears unexpectedly- and reluctantly-in his remote Montana town. A young father opens his door to find his dead grandmother standing on the front step. Two women weigh love and betrayal during an early snow. Throughout the book, Meloy examines the tensions between having and wanting, as her characters try to keep hold of opposing forces in their lives: innocence and experience, risk and stability, fidelity and desire.Knowing, sly, and bittersweet, Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It confirms Maile Meloy's singular literary talent. Her lean, controlled prose, full of insight and unexpected poignancy, is the perfect complement to her powerfully moving storytelling.

    Interwoven with themes of brutality and faith, guilt and fear, helplessness and survival, the characters in these stories struggle to make meaning out of chaos. In "Redeployment", a soldier who has had to shoot dogs because they were eating human corpses must learn what it is like to return to domestic life in suburbia, surrounded by people "who have no idea where Fallujah is, where three members of your platoon died." In "After Action Report", a Lance Corporal seeks expiation for a killing he didn't commit, in order that his best friend will be unburdened. A Morturary Affairs Marine tells about his experiences collecting remains - of U.S. and Iraqi soldiers both. A chaplain sees his understanding of Christianity, and his ability to provide solace through religion, tested by the actions of a ferocious Colonel. And in the darkly comic "Money as a Weapons System", a young Foreign Service Officer is given the absurd task of helping Iraqis improve their lives by teaching them to play baseball. These stories reveal the intricate combination of monotony, bureaucracy, comradeship and violence that make up a soldier's daily life at war, and the isolation, remorse, and despair that can accompany a soldier's homecoming. Redeployment is poised to become a classic in the tradition of war writing. Across nations and continents, Klay sets in devastating relief the two worlds a soldier inhabits: one of extremes and one of loss. Written with a hard-eyed realism and stunning emotional depth, this work marks Phil Klay as one of the most talented new voices of his generation.

    Here are stories culled from hundreds of writing programs such as the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and Johns Hopkins and from summer conferences such as Sewanee and Bread Loaf—as well as a complete list of contact information for these programs. This collection showcases tomorrow’s literary stars: Julie Orringer, Adam Johnson, William Gay, David Benioff, Rattawut Lapcharoensap, Maile Meloy, Amanda Davis, Jennifer Vanderbes, and John Murray are just some of the acclaimed authors whose early work has appeared in this series since its launch in 2000. The best new American voices are heard here first.

    Why are three violent policemen in search of The Greatest Dad in theWorld? More importantly, why are two young men at a fast foodrestaurant talking about freezing bees? And good god, why are theretwo young ladies in the backyard during a Halloween party, shavingeach others' legs with a piece of a broken jaw bone?What will become of the old woman who slits her young boyfriend'sthroat? And why does she give him a calculator for his birthday?Will anyone survive?Where will you be when the Self-Esteem Holocaust comes home?

    A collection of short stories by the author of Transactions in a Foreign Currency features a tale of a two childhood friends who renew old ties and recall old wounds, and a suburban dinner party that uncovers dark truths.

    Or so believes Larry, who returns home from Desert Storm to find his hair gone and his bones rapidly disintegrating. Then there’s Lance Corporal James Laverne of the US Marines, who grows a third ear in Kuwait. And in the audaciously comic novella “Notes from a Bunker Along Highway 8,” a Green Beret deserts his team after seeing a vision of George Washington, only to find a new calling—administering aid to wounded Iraqi civilians; he’s hindered only by the furtive nature of his mission and an unruly band of chimpanzees. Together these narratives form a bracing amalgamation of devastating humor and brilliant cultural observation, in which Gabe Hudson fearlessly explores the darker implications of American military power.

    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.

    In Fortune Smiles - his first book since Orphan Master - he continues to give voice to characters rarely heard from, while offering something we all seek from fiction: a new way of looking at our world.In six masterly stories, Johnson delves deep into love and loss, natural disasters, the influence of technology, and how the political shapes the personal. "George Orwell Was a Friend of Mine" follows a former warden of a Stasi prison in East Germany who vehemently denies his past, even as pieces of it are delivered in packages to his door. "Nirvana," which won the prestigious Sunday Times short story prize, portrays a programmer whose wife has a rare disease finding solace in a digital simulacrum of the president of the United States. In "Hurricanes Anonymous" - first included in the Best American Short Stories anthology - a young man searches for the mother of his son in a Louisiana devastated by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. And in the unforgettable title story, Johnson returns to his signature subject, North Korea, depicting two defectors from Pyongyang who are trying to adapt to their new lives in Seoul, while one cannot forget the woman he left behind. Unnerving, riveting, and written with a timeless quality, these stories confirm Johnson as one of America's greatest writers and an indispensable guide to our new century.

    The collection includes the following titles: Almost by Elizabeth Benedict, Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum, The Hearts of Horses by Molly Gloss, The Last Chinese Chef by Nicole Mones, The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell, and The Magician's Assistant by Ann Patchett.