Here are urban upheavals reimagined as frontier myth; travelogues through countries that might have been created by Kafka; cryptic dialogues that bore down to the bedrock of our longings, dreams, and angsts. Like all of Donald's work, the sixty stories collected in this volume are triumphs of language and perception, at once unsettling and irresistible.

    Henry Prize Stories 2012 gathers twenty of the best short stories of the year, selected from thousands published in literary magazines. These remarkable stories explore the boundaries of the imagination in settings as various as an army training camp in China, the salt mines of Detroit, a divided Balkan town, and the eye of a hurricane. Also included are essays from the eminent jurors on their favorite stories, observations from the winners on what inspired them, and an extensive resource list of magazines.

    What we have here in this big fat volume is a cockeyed chrestomathy of 37 Algren pieces... with his hallmark stamped on every link." —The New York Times Book Review"The range of the book is satisfying—rich, will titillate even the most fastidious dilettante or culture vulture... also contains pieces that will make you laugh your head off. Once you begin reading it, you will not be able to put it aside." —The Chicago Tribune"Essential Algren." —The Washington Post"Very good, fast, funny and tough... Algren, where have you been hiding?" —The San Francisco ChronicleHere again is Algren's rich output from the 1960s and '70s, tough, streetwise stories and travelogues from around the world: accounts of brothels in Vietnam and Mexico, stories of the boxing ring, and reminiscences of his beloved Chicago White Sox, among other subjects.

    Passions hopelessly conceived, affections betrayed, marriages made and broken: the joys, fears, loves and awakenings of women echo throughout these twelve unforgettable stories, laying bare the unexceptional and yet inescapable pain of human contact.

    She had a face of feral sweetness, its color yellow; her eyes were long and dark, her mouth a taut bow, her nostrils upturned as if she were scenting the wind."In "How Shall I Know You?," a melancholic and ailing writer reluctantly travels east of London to give a lecture before a literary society. Mr. Simister, the organization's secretary, lures the world-weary novelist turned biographer with promises of a modest stipend and lodging at a charming bed-and-breakfast for her trouble. Nevertheless, on that rainy day she meets Mr. Simister at the train station, she wonders why she ever agreed to come in the first place. Driving past steel-shuttered windows and Day-Glo banners, Mr. Simister takes the writer to her hotel for the evening, which turns out to be crumbling and isolated rather than picturesque. As she crosses the threshold into the dank stench of Eccles House she is faced with the feral porter, Louise, and suffers through an evening that may be more than she bargained for.From Hilary Mantel's brilliant and darkly comic collection of contemporary stories, The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher, comes a tale told with her distinctive blend of subversive wit and gimlet-eyed characterization. "How Shall I Know You?" showcases the extraordinary genius of Hilary Mantel, called one of our "greatest living novelists" (NPR).

    Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online.

    Here we meet Roxanne, the tomboy who consistently chooses men who are not her equal; the loving Marta, whose husband keeps a separate house where he retreats when married life overwhelms him; and Bebe, a married mother of two teenagers who leaves it all behind when her lover comes on a motorcycle to claim her. With painfully keen perception, Nelson creates stories that linger in the mind long after they are read, and which create a unique view of relations between the sexes in the small towns and big cities of America.

     Hayley Martin and Fiona Chambers have been best friends since they were ten. From the moment that beautiful Fiona stood up to the school bullies for Hayley, the misfit, the two have been inseparable. Twenty years on, they still share everything, and even run their own business together. Until a dark secret threatens to test their loyalty to breaking point… What would you do if you discovered that your best friend could be your worst enemy? Cover design by Kristen Radtke.

    Howard (1906-36) is best known for his stories about Conan the Barbarian. However, Howard was a prolific writer of fantasy, horror, historical adventure, Westerns, detective, sports stories, true confessions and other genre fiction. During his short career, he created a number of memorable characters in the pages of Weird Tales and other pulp magazines, including the the vengeful Puritan swashbuckler Solomon Kane, King Kull of Valusia, and the Pictish chieftain Bran Mak Morn.This companion volume to The Complete Chronicles of Conan contains stories featuring Conan's brothers-in-arms, from Howard's very first professionally published story, through the exploits of Kane, Kull, and the Picts, to a number of Oriental adventures, an early draft of a Conan story, and a posthumously published space opera in the style of Edgar Rice Burroughs.Compiled and with a historical afterword by Stephen Jones, and lavishly illustrated by Les Edwards, this is a volume that no Robert E. Howard fan will want to miss.

    Adeline vows to never speak again. But that’s not her only secret. After her mother takes a housekeeping job at a lighthouse off the tip of Cape Ann, a local woman vanishes. The key to the mystery lies with Adeline, the silent witness. New York Times bestselling author of The Rules of Magic Alice Hoffman crafts a beautiful, heart-wrenching short story.Alice Hoffman’s Everything My Mother Taught Me is part of Inheritance, a collection of five stories about secrets, unspoken desires, and dangerous revelations between loved ones. Each piece can be read or listened to in a single setting. By yourself, behind closed doors, or shared with someone you trust.

    . . and then they part . . . Forever?Before the bestselling and award-winning Wyoming Wildflowers series, there was another love story, one that laid the foundation for all those that came after.Ed Currick’s and Donna Roberts’ worlds couldn’t have been any more different – a rancher from Wyoming and an up-and-coming Broadway musical actress on a national tour. What could have been a momentary encounter sparks desire . . . and more. But can there be anything but heartbreak ahead when they have only days before their dreams pull them apart?Enjoy the entire Wyoming Wildflowers series. Get this much-anticipated prequel by USA Today bestselling author Patricia McLinn now!

    These are some of the inhabitants of People From My Neighborhood. In their lives, details of the local and everyday—the lunch menu at a tiny drinking place called the Love, the color and shape of the roof of the tax office—slip into accounts of duels, prophetic dreams, revolutions, and visitations from ghosts and gods. In twenty-six “palm of the hand” stories—fictions small enough to fit in the palm of one’s hand—Hiromi Kawakami creates a universe ruled by mystery and transformation.

    In “Who Will Greet You at Home,” a National Magazine Award finalist for The New Yorker, A woman desperate for a child weaves one out of hair, with unsettling results. In “Wild,” a disastrous night out shifts a teenager and her Nigerian cousin onto uneasy common ground. In "The Future Looks Good," three generations of women are haunted by the ghosts of war, while in "Light," a father struggles to protect and empower the daughter he loves. And in the title story, in a world ravaged by flood and riven by class, experts have discovered how to "fix the equation of a person" - with rippling, unforeseen repercussions. Evocative, playful, subversive, and incredibly human, What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky heralds the arrival of a prodigious talent with a remarkable career ahead of her.

    Desperate for human connection, they listen through walls and engage in such obsessions as collecting hairs left behind by lovers. These 24 passionately and intricately rendered stories secure Lutz's place at the forefront of the contemporary fiction of disaffection.

    We're In Trouble is, for the most part, a book about death - quite often, about how death affects the young ... Sometimes, when you're reading the stories, you forget to breathe, which probably means that you read them with more speed than the writer intended ... They're beautifully written, and they have bottom ... striking and dramatic' Nick Hornby, Believer