Book picks similar to
McSweeney's #63 by Stephen DixonRita Chang-Eppig
fiction
mcsweeney-s
short-stories
anthologies-and-collections
James Joyce's Dubliners
Harold Bloom - 2000
-- Presents the most important 20th-century criticism on major works from The Odyssey through modern literature-- The critical essays reflect a variety of schools of criticism-- Contains critical biographies, notes on the contributing critics, a chronology of the author's life, and an index
We Rose Up Slowly
Jon Gresham - 2015
11, No. 1, June 2017 "Gresham's surrealistic stories, at their best, shake us from within, and deepen the notion that we are islands of consciousness; in this way, they compel us to confront our own intellectual detachments and emotional blindspots in order for us to engage better with the world. They are also fundamentally stories about our modern world, its cross-cultural realities, and the fractured lives we lead in them. We Rose Up Slowly is an absorbing and disturbing read definitely worth spending an afternoon with." Sam Ng in Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, July 2016 Read more about the book on the We Rose Up Slowly Facebook Page or on the author's website.
The Wooden Nickel
William Carpenter - 2002
He can identify every car in town from the sound of its engine, but his world is changing faster then he can fathom. His wife has become an artist, selling sea-glass sculptures to tourists. His daughter is bound for college, while his son has turned angry and lawless. Lucky's own heart is failing him, too. An operation has kept it ticking, but he can't run the boat alone any more. As the spring lobster season opens, the only deckhand Lucky can find to help load his traps is Ronette, the not-quite-divorced wife of the local lobster wholesaler. When the two make it out to the fishing grounds, someone else's buoys are bobbing in his ancestral waters. Before he knows it, Lucky is in a lobster war and has abandoned all the rules: family, health, finance, even the rules of the sea that have guided him throughout his life. As waves of trouble turn into a flood tide, Lucky's pride propels him into an epic confrontation with his enemies and a rogue whale -- a battle his unreliable heart may not survive. The Wooden Nickel is a classic story of a man raging against a changing world, full of pathos and comedy. It is a remarkable novel by a writer with a powerful, distinct, and original voice.
The Invisibles
Rachel Dacus - 2019
Two sisters. One Ghost. An impossible sacrifice.Feuding half-sisters inherit a cottage on the Italian coast, along with its resident spirit and a secret manuscript. Their rivalry explodes through a struggle for control of their haunted house, but Italy infuses its magic into them until a shocking night changes everything for the sisters and their friends.A tale of sisterhood and the supernatural, perfect for fans of Mary Ellen Taylor and Barbara O'Neal."Two sisters, very different, both love and frustrate each other. When their father dies, they are co-inheritors of his house in Italy and must agree on what to do with it. They descend on the house and, slowly and gently, come to terms with their differences and reinforce the love they’ve always had for each other ... Romance blooms in all directions as each sister finds what she most needs, in a most surprising way." – Diane Byington, author of WHO SHE IS
The Horror Collection: Gold Edition
Kevin J. Kennedy - 2018
Featuring stories by Amy Cross, Mike Duke, Matthew Brockmeyer, Lex H. Jones, J.C. Michael and Kevin J. Kennedy.
The Tropic of Cancer, The Tropic of Capricorn, & Time Killers: Stories
Henry Miller - 2003
Granta 141: Canada
Catherine Leroux - 2017
Guest Edited by Catherine Leroux and Madeleine Thien.2017 marks the 150th anniversary of the Canadian Confederation, when the British colonies of Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick were united.In this special issue of Granta, we celebrate the diversity of social, political and literary life in Canada, the largest country in the western hemisphere, and one of the few where the experiment of multiculturalism appears to have workedBringing you the best new fiction, reportage, photography, poetry and memoir from Canada, this issue showcases the best of both the English and French literary communities, throwing a spotlight on an enigmatic nation with a rich literary heritage.
H. P. Lovecraft Tales of Horror
H.P. Lovecraft - 2017
P. Lovecraft have been a source of fascination for readers since they were published in the early twentieth century, and legions of fans continue to reinvent his dark and fantastical world to this day. This collection of short stories by the master of the macabre contains more than a dozen of his most popular works, including -The Call of Cthulhu,- -The Shadow Over Innsmouth,- and -The Dunwich Horror.- Each story will leave the reader feeling unsettled and uncertain, but also appreciative of the unique elements that Lovecraft introduced to the literary world.
Bone Meal Broth
Adam Cesare - 2012
Bone Meal Broth adds a few more.The nine stories in this collection vary in style and content, but all of them strive to unsettle.Inside Bone Meal Broth you'll meet a P.I. who works the dark streets of a post-biological-cataclysm New Orleans, a sleazy glamor photographer with a pest problem, and a misanthrope who's just made the most important (and deadly) purchase of his life. And those are the heroes.You'll visit the grotesque inhabitants of America's backwoods and shrink from the quiet terrors of suburbia. No matter your dark preference: a cup of Bone Meal Broth will hit the spot.
Love, Or Something Like Love
O Thiam Chin - 2013
A band of swordsmen on a failed mission. The forbidden love of Zheng He, the great Chinese Admiral. A young daughter forming a strange bond with her deceased father’s cat. Presenting ten stories in his fifth collection, O Thiam Chin plumbs the joy and despair, hopes and fears of men and women caught up by their past and confounded by lost loves. Taut, dark and visceral, these stories reveal, once again, the mysteries that lie in the heart of man.
Brown Lord of the Mountain
Walter Macken - 1967
But Donn longs for a wider kingdom. He deserts his bride, roams the world, fights in wars, is footloose - yet finds that he is homesick. Sixteen years later he returns to take up the threads of his old life, to learn to love his afflicted daughter, and to bring progress to the neglected green valley. Light comes, water flows, the land prospers. Then, on a night of innocent festivity, a monstrous crime is perpetrated. His kingdom violated, Donn dedicates himself to a terrible revenge that can only destroy the avenger as well as the hunted
Electricity
Victoria Glendinning - 1995
'Electricity' is the story of a spirited, sensual young woman's adventures in 1880s, recounted with wit, candour and an intimacy of closely observed domestic and technical detail.
Ransom Seaborn
Bill Deasy - 2006
Deasy quietly explores the ties that bind, and the evolution of a heart that everyone will recognize, and root for" -- Jane McCafferty, author of "One Heart" --- Ransom Seaborn is an astonishing literary debut in the spirit of Gatsby and Holden Caulfield.
White Swan, Black Swan
Adrienne Sharp - 2001
Art, passion, history intersect with burning immediacy in this beautifully crafted book.”–CHITRA BANERJEE DIVAKARUNI Author of The Mistress of SpicesThe world’s most famous choreographer becomes infatuated with a talented young dancer who proves both siren and muse . . . A rising star plunges into an affair with a principal but finds that the ecstasy on the stage cannot be matched in the bedroom . . . A dying legend reflects on the fading beauty of a life in motion, lost to everything but memory. In this beguiling collection, Adrienne Sharp captures the essence and passion of ballet and its fleeting world and translates them into unforgettable stories. White Swan, Black Swan heralds the arrival of a unerringly graceful new voice in American fiction.
Fortune Smiles
Adam Johnson - 2015
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.