A fair selection of the master's short story output. Roger Colet has written the introduction for the Penguin Classic edition..

    Into their midst comes eleven-year-old Ogden Ford, the mouthy, overweight, chain-smoking son of an American millionaire. Ogden (whom we meet again in Piccadilly Jim) is the object of a kidnap attempt which forms the basis of the plot. The comedy arises from Wodehouse's favourite topics of Anglo-American misunderstanding and the absurdities of school life.

    It is widely considered as a classic in Philippine literature. It is divided into 5 chapters: Paco, Macho, La Vidal, The Chinese Moon, and Doctor Monson.This is a novel, not be confused with the short story collection of the same name.

    The evacuation of Dunkirk proves that the British can rise to a challenge, even against seemingly insurmountable odds. But now the soldiers walk the streets of Dover, even wandering through Woolworths store, and take weary turns on the town's skating rink. Life, despite the threat of invasion and the reality of bombing, must go on and people must take comfort where they find it. Toby Hendry, a fighter pilot, is awaiting orders when he meets Giselle, a young Frenchwoman who took the chance to flee occupied France with the English troops. Their love affair feels like a summer idyll, but can it withstand the forces of war? Meanwhile, reserve naval commander Paul Instow has been called up to fight in a war for which he feels too old. Distracting him from his worries is Molly, a young Dover prostitute. Their relationship is tender and happy, but is this a love born from desperation or could it be something more permanent? And then there are Harold, Spots and Boot, three boys desperate to fight the German invaders, armed only with catapults and a stolen Bren gun... In Dover Beach Thomas chronicles the lives and loves of ordinary people in besiged Britain during these tense, but curiously elated days.

    The novel takes place in the space of four days in the life of Bob Jones, a black man who is constantly plagued by the effects of racism. Living in a society that is drenched in race consciousness has no doubt taken a toll on the way Jones behaves, thinks, and feels, especially when, at the end of his story, he is accused of a brutal crime he did not commit. "One of the most important American writers of the twentieth century ... [a] quirky American genius..."—Walter Mosley, author of Bad Boy Brawly Brown, Devil in a Blue Dress "If He Hollers is an austere and concentrated study of black experience, set in southern California in the early forties."—Independent Publisher

    In Saul Bellow’s masterly translation, the title story follows the exploits of Gimpel, an ingenuous baker who is universally deceived but who declines to retaliate against his tormentors. Gimpel and the protagonists of the other stories in this volume all inhabit the distinctive pre–World War II ghettos of Poland and, beyond that, the larger world created by Singer’s unforgettable prose.

    The story is very similar to that of the ancient German legend of Faust.

    Includes chapters on orbital mechanics, spacecraft construction, satellite-path radio wave propagation, modulation techniques, multiple access, and a detailed analysis of the communications link.

    When a political refugee from South Africa joins forces with an English agricultural expert, the time-honoured subsistence-farming method and old ways of life are challenged.

    His furtive departure makes it unlikely that he will ever return, but he and his family agree a bright future lies ahead. He meets an English woman and they build a life together. She is writing a thesis on narrative theory; he becomes a teacher in a cramped London school. His release is to weave stories, often fictional, for her and her comfortably suburban parents. These are romantic and reassuring tales of postcolonial Africa, of the scented terrace where he would sit and listen to his mother's lyrical voice. But for all these stories of warmth and hospitality, the man has not heard from his family since his departure, nor has he written to tell them of his new life. And then the barriers come down and he is able, finally, to return for a visit. He finds a different country, more ramshackle than he had ever imagined or remembered, a country that allows him to see his life with a new clarity. Out of this confrontation he comes to understand the transformations that have befallen him.

    Through the eyes of a man recollecting three episodes from his youth, William Styron explores with new eloquence death, loss, war and racism.

    Mumu (Russian: «Муму») is a short story by Ivan Turgenev, a Russian novelist and story writer, written in 1854.The story of Gerasim, a deaf and mute serf whose life of poverty is brought into sharp relief by his connection with Mumu, a dog he rescued, brought greater national attention to the cruelties of serfdom, and received praise for its brutal portrayal of this institution in Russian society.

    Khumalo’s salon, and she is secure in her status until the handsome, smooth-talking Dumisani shows up one day for work. Despite her resistance, the two become friends, and eventually, Vimbai becomes Dumisani’s landlady. He is as charming as he is deft with the scissors, and Vimbai finds that he means more and more to her. Yet, by novel’s end, the pair’s deepening friendship—used or embraced by Dumisani and Vimbai with different futures in mind—collapses in unexpected brutality.The novel is an acute portrayal of a rapidly changing Zimbabwe. In addition to Vimbai and Dumisani’s personal development, the book shows us how social concerns shape the lives of everyday people.

    Only her neighbour, Toby Kent, a struggling artist, knows the strange and horrifying secret that makes her afraid to return to England. Then one night, rescuing a stranger, Andrew Doyle, from attach by Montmarte apaches, Hannah unwittingly becomes entangled in circumstances that force her to flee from France to England and take up the mysterious offer she had received to become French tutor in the household of a Mr. Sebastian Ryder. But why should Mr. Ryder want to employ her? Does he know something about her of which she is unaware? Are there still more secrets in her past? A Heritage of Shadows is the haunting story of a girl, ignorant of her true identity and convinced that she is forever denied love on account of her shameful past, who is plunged into a world of nightmarish intrigue. As the tale unfolds, carrying her from England to Mexico and back again to Paris, Hannah finds herself caught up in a vicious struggle between two men of great wealth and power - a struggle which threatens her life - before the final discovery of where her happiness lies. Madeleine Brent, the bestselling author, has once again written a story packed with drama and suspense. It vividly recreates the atmosphere of the 1890s, exposing the darker and more sinister elements that lurked below that outwardly respectable era.

    Yee, a powerful political figure who works for the Japanese occupational government. As these two move deftly between Shanghai’s tea parties and secret interrogations, they become embroiled in the complicated politics of wartime — and in a mutual attraction that may be more than what they expected. Written in lush, lavish prose, and with the tension of a political thriller, Lust, Caution brings 1940s Shanghai artfully to life even as it limns the erotic pulse of a doomed love affair.