Elegantly structured, these stories span the globe and beyond, from small-town America and sunny Caribbean islands to the Arctic Ocean and the very gates of Heaven itself. And though some of the stories are steeped in mythology, they remain grounded in universal experiences: loss of identity, leaving home, parenthood, joy, and longing.Crisscrossing the pages of Awayland are travelers and expats, shadows and ghosts. A girl watches as her homesick mother slowly dissolves into literal mist. The mayor of a small Midwestern town offers a strange prize, for stranger reasons, to the parents of any baby born on Lenin's birthday. A chef bound for Mars begins an even more treacherous journey much closer to home. And a lonely heart searches for love online--never mind that he's a Cyclops. With her signature tenderness, Ramona Ausubel applies a mapmaker's eye to landscapes both real and imagined, all the while providing a keen guide to the wild, uncharted terrain of the human heart.

    Miyake is an older man with an obsession in building the perfect bonfire. He befriends Junko, a young woman who lives with her boyfriend Keisuke and is estranged from her family. Whenever Miyake is going to light a bonfire, he calls Junko to come down and watch it burn; and the two of them have an unusual connection. Junko’s boyfriend, Keisuke, is a musician who lives in the here and now and has difficulty understanding Miyake and Junko’s relationship.Much of the story revolves around a philosophical discussion between Miyake and Junko. It is important to understand that Murakami wrote this story shortly after the Kobe earthquake; and the themes of death, an uncertain future and the larger meaning of life resonate throughout the prose.

    In stories filled with heart and humour, Tim Gautreaux explores the stresses and strains of everyday life as his characters struggle to make amends for their mistakes and hope for different, better days to come.

    On a blistering desert landscape in World War II, two armies face each other. One belongs to the legendary French Foreign Legion, but the other belongs to the French Foreign Legion also, one side working for the Allies, the other for the Germans. In this vivid historical recreation of one of the strangest battles in modern warfare, a terrible twist of Fate compels comrades-in-arms, who trained together, ate together, and slept in the same barracks, to become mortal enemies.David Morrell is the prize-winning author of First Blood, the novel in which Rambo was created. His numerous New York Times bestsellers include the classic espionage novel, The Brotherhood of the Rose, the basis for the only television miniseries to be broadcast after a Super Bowl. An Edgar, Anthony, and Macavity nominee, Morrell is a recipient of the International Thriller Writers’ prestigious Thriller Master award.“Nobody does this kind of thing better than David Morrell.”—Lee Child, New York Times bestselling author of The Affair“A titan among thriller writers.”—Joseph Finder, New York Times bestselling author of Buried Secrets

    This story was first published in THOSE WHO MAKE US: CANADIAN CREATURE, MYTH, AND MONSTER STORIES.

    The eight-hour work day, the Ponzi scheme and the rhythm and blues have risen from its streets. But Chicago is not just a city of the past. In this dynamic issue, GRANTA brings the one-time industrial hub to life through the eyes of exciting new writers, from home grown stars like George Saunders and Dave Eggers, to immigrants who have come to the city from Bosnia, China and Ethiopia.In this issue, Aleksandar Hemon plays football with Italians and Tibetans along Lake Shore Drive. Chicago born MacArthur 'genius' grant-winning photographer Camilo José Vegara captures the demolition of the city's massive public housing estates. Richard Powers recollects the flood of 1992. Don DeLillo remembers Nelson Algren. Alex Kotlowitz explores the cost of urban violence and Dinaw Mengestu describes moving back home to run his dying father’s messenger business. Plus a sneak preview of Peter Carey's new novel.Finally, Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka meditates on the meaning of the city's most visible son, Barack Obama. Out of these stories, which will be wrapped in a beautiful cover by Chris Ware, will arise a vivid portrait of a city remaking itself: a city shredded by violence but poised for a new future; a city that once again has a legitimate claim to being the home of the world's best writers.

    Carlson uncannily captures the complexity of his characters' inner lives.

    Set mainly amid Indian reservations and uranium mills, these twelve stories create a kaleidoscopic view of family, myth, love, landscape, and loss in a place where infinite skies and endless roads suggest a world of possibility, yet dreams are deceiving, like an oasis, just beyond reach. Whether it’s a young woman pushed quite literally to the edge on a desolate mountain pass, an orphaned brother and sister trying to patch together an existence one stitch at a time, a cop who suspects his kleptomaniac wife is stealing from other people — materially and emotionally — or a wily roadside hypnotist whose alleged power is both wonderful and strange, Ann Cummins’s characters want to transcend the circumstances of their lives, to believe in the eventuality of change. Again and again, Ann Cummins generates imagery of white-hot intensity and pushes the limits of both the human spirit and the short story form. Gritty, seductive, and always daring, this unforgettable collection puts forth a haunting new vision of hope and heartache in contemporary America and confirms the arrival of an important new voice.

    hard drinkers, passionate lovers, good haters, living on the edge, hurling fury at a complacent world."

    Among them are some of Stanley Elkin's finest, including the fabulistic "On a Field, Rampant," the farcical "Perlmutter at the East Pole," and the stylized "A Poetics for Bullies." Despite the diversity of their form and matter, each of these stories shares Elkin's nimble, comic, antic imagination, a dedication to the value of form and language, and a concern with a single theme: the tragic inadequacy of a simplistic response to life.

    By sending us to alternate universes and chronicling ordinary magic, introducing us to mythical beasts and talking animals, and engaging with a wide spectrum of emotion from tenderness to fear, each of these stories challenge the way we see our place in the cosmos. The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2019 represents a wide range of the most accomplished voices working in science fiction and fantasy, in fiction, today—each story dazzles with ambition, striking prose, and the promise of the other and the unencountered.

    Illustrator and writer's Carolyn Marie Castagna's first shared short story.A small icicle hanging from a roof peers inside a window at a small reading room, and learns about magical human qualities, and the importance of the one most special human feeling.

    

    In THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME a professional hunter finds out what it feels like to be hunted as a wild animal- for he is the prey? In TO BUILD A FIRE a trapper fights desperately against stark fear in the cruel Arctic night... In LEININGEN VERSUS THE ANTS a settler battles for his very life against a teeming horde of millions of deadly ants...These are only a few of the thrilling stories you'll read in this fascinating book.

    He is famous not only for his love of the hills, but for imbuing the countryside with life and vibrancy through moving descriptions. The simple people who inhabit his stories evoke sympathy and laughter in equal measure. This wonderful collection of seventy stories, including classics like ‘A Face in Dark’, ‘The Kitemaker’, ‘The Tunnel’, ‘The Room of Many Colours’, ‘Dust on the Mountain’ and ‘Times Stops at Shamli’, is a must-have for any bookshelf.