But ambition quickly took wing. The house swelled to 225 rooms and became - until 2012 when it was topped by the home of a billionaire in Mumbai, India – the world’s largest residence ever built for a private citizen. Here’s the story of the house that Vanderbilt built - from the gardens by Frederick Law Olmsted to the John Singer Sargent portraits that adorn its walls.

    Where tinkerers and dreamers craft and re-craft a world of automatons, clockworks, calculating machines, and other marvels that never were. Where scientists and schoolgirls, fair folk and Romans, intergalactic bandits, utopian revolutionaries, and intrepid orphans solve crimes, escape from monstrous predicaments, consult oracles, and hover over volcanoes in steam-powered airships.

    This new series aims to reprint the best short stories published in the previous calendar year by British writers, whether based in the UK or elsewhere. The editor’s brief is wide ranging, covering anthologies, collections, magazines, newspapers and web sites, looking for the best of the bunch to reprint all in one volume. Neither genre nor Granta shall be overlooked in the search for the very best new short fiction.The first book of the series includes stories published in 2010 by the following authors: David Rose, Hilary Mantel, Lee Rourke, Leone Ross, Claire Massey, Christopher Burns, Adam Marek, SJ Butler, Heather Leach, Alan Beard, Kirsty Logan, Philip Langeskov, Bernie McGill, John Burnside, Robert Edric, Michèle Roberts, Dai Vaughan, Alison Moore and Salley Vickers.Table of Contents:Flora – David RoseWinter Break – Hilary MantelEmergency Exit – Lee RourkeLove Silk Food – Leone RossFeather Girls – Claire MasseyForeigner – Christopher BurnsDinner of the Dead Alumni – Adam MarekThe Swimmer – SJ ButlerSo Much Time in a Life – Heather LeachStaff Development – Alan BeardThe Rental Heart – Kirsty LoganNotes on a Love Story – Philip LangeskovNo Angel – Bernie McGillSlut’s Hair – John BurnsideComma – Hilary MantelMoving Day – Robert EdricTristram and Isolde – Michèle RobertsLooted – Dai VaughanWhen the Door Closed, It Was Dark – Alison MooreEpiphany – Salley Vickers

    Eleven stories by Joshua Ferris, many of which were first published in The New Yorker, on topics such as the modern tribulations of marriage, ambition, and the fear of missing out.The dinner party --The valetudinarian --The pilot --A night out --The breeze --Ghost town choir --More abandon (or whatever happened to Joe Pope?) --Fragments --The stepchild --Life in the heart of the dead --A fair price

    The journey promises to be a memorable one.

    It's the promise of heaven on earth, but the hell that follows is a constant hunger, a cold emptiness. The craving to get high is an intense yearning not unlike that of any other blood-thirsty monster.The best way to tell the truths of addiction is through a story, and dark truths such as these need a piece of horror to do them justice.The stories inside feature the insidious nature of addiction told with compassion yet searing honesty. Drug overdoses are now the leading cause of accidental deaths, and some of the most incredible names in horror fiction have tackled this modern day epidemic. A WICKED THIRST, by Kealan Patrick BurkeTHE ONE IN THE MIDDLE, by Jessica McHughEVERYWHERE YOU'VE BLED AND EVERYWHERE YOU WILL, by Max Booth IIIFIRST, JUST BITE A FINGER, by Johann ThorssonLAST CALL, by John FD TaffTORMENT OF THE FALLEN, by Glen KrischGARDEN OF FIENDS, by Mark MatthewsRETURNS, by Jack Ketchum

    When your heart breaks, there's nothing more comforting than realizing that you aren't alone—that others can relate to the gut-wrenching pain of saying good-bye to a relationship that once felt so right. Each of us is bound to enter into a relationship or two that doesn't work out, but that doesn't make those months or years spent caring for an ex a total failure. Every heartbreak is a chance to learn, grow, and heal.

    First, a cave-boy loses his mother, falls in love, and learns a deadly lesson. He is followed by an extraordinary cast of characters: a murderess who impersonates her victim; a fisherman who believes he has become a different species; a Roman emissary who realizes the bitter truth about the Empire; a crippled nun who is healed miraculously by a disturbing apparition; an old crusader whose faith is destroyed by witnessing the ultimate relic; two witches, lovers, who burn at the stake. Each related tale traces a path in a journey of discovery of the secrets of the land.In the tradition of Kipling's Puck of Pook's Hill, Schwob's Imaginary Lives, and Borges' A Universal History of Infamy, Moore travels through history, blending truth and conjecture, in a novel that is dazzling, moving, sometimes tragic, but always mesmerizing.This edition presents Voice of the Fire for the first time in hardcover format, with full color illustrations by Jose Villarrubia.

    Obsidian Worlds brings together his 11 best-selling sci-fi shorts into a mind-bending philosophical anthology.In Your Averaged Joe, a man’s headache is large enough to hold the multiverse. Q46F is an obsessive-compulsive android who finds love in a zombie-embroiled apocalypse. The end of the world isn’t all that bad – The Experience Machine will fulfil your every desire (and some you hadn’t considered). A sex bot dares to dream of freedom in Dinner with Flexi. But mind what you eat, because The Photons in the Cheese Are Lost. Don’t fret though: The Cryo Killer guarantees that your death will be painless, or your money back when you’re thawed. Unless, that is, you’re The Man with Two Legs.Plug into Obsidian Worlds for these and other immersive stories, including the hilarious Time-Traveling Chicken Sexer. Your brain will never be the same again.

    . . called up the flavors of an elaborate and bold cuisine, bent on making the flavors’ highest notes vibrate, juxtaposing them in modulations, in chords, and especially in dissonances that would assert themselves as an incomparable experience.” — From Under the Jaguar Sun   These intoxicating stories delve down to the core of our senses. Taste, hearing, and smell. Amid the flavors of Mexico’s fiery chilies and spices, a couple on holiday discovers dark truths about the maturing of desire in the title story, “Under the Jaguar Sun.” In “A King Listens,” a gripping portrait of a frenzied mind, the menacing echoes in a huge palace spur a tyrant’s thoughts to the heights of paranoid intensity. “The Name, the Nose” drives to a startling conclusion as men across time and space pursue the women whose aromas have enchanted them. Mordant and deliciously offbeat, this trio of tales is a treat from a master of short fiction. “[Calvino is] a learned, daring, ingeniously gifted magus . . . Under the Jaguar Sun . . . fuses fable with neuron . . . The reader is likely to salivate.” — Cynthia Ozick, New York Times Book Review

    Co-author with his brother Frederick of the brilliant and devastating casino memoir, Double Down: Reflections on Gambling and Loss, Steven Barthelme seems to cast an eye at his own history and the characters he's known. These are men and women who are down --- but stirringly, not quite out. An unmissable, arresting book from one of the most seminal short story writers of the last twenty years.

    In the award-winning title story, the narrator recounts the events of an expedition to the Belgian Congo in 1928 to collects gorillas for the Louisville Museum of Natural History. A mother invents a fairy-tale world for her son in 'Halfway People'. Twin sisters backpacking through Europe receive a mysterious invitation. A rebellious teenager is sent to a brutal reform school hidden away in paradise. A young woman inherits the family submarine. In 'The Dark', a researcher tracking plague outbreaks finds himself in the Viet Cong tunnels of Vietnam. A mystery writer visits an archaeological dig in Egypt and sets a curse in motion. In two stories, 'Booth's Ghost' and 'Standing Room Only', Fowler explores the circumstances of Lincoln's assassination from the perspectives of John Wilkes Booth's family and friends.Fowler, perhaps best known for her novels, is a master of the short story form: the secret history, the account of first contact, the murderous, ordinary tensions of family life. She draws on fairy tales, historical narratives, and war reportage, measuring the human capacities for hope and despair, brutality and kindness in the fantastic tradition of writers such as Shirley Jackson, T.H. White, Karen Russell, and Ursula K. Le Guin.

    Included here are the works of masters of the form and of bright new talents, including: Neal Asher, Paolo Bacigalupi, Stephen Baxter, Elizabeth Bear, Chris Beckett, David Gerrold, Dominic Green, Daryl Gregory, Joe Haldeman, Gwyneth Jones, james patrick Kelly, Jay Lake and Ruth Nestvold, Ken MacLeod, Ian McDonald, Vonda N. McIntyre, David Moles, Steven Popkes, Hannu Rajaniemi, Alastair Rynolds, Robert Reed, Christ Roberson, Mary Rosenblum, William Sanders, Bruce Sterling, Michael Swanwick, Harry Turtledove, Peter Watts and Derryl Murphy, Liz Williams, and Gene Wolfe.Supplementing the stories are the editor's insightful summation of the year's events and list of honorable mentions, making this book both a valuable resource and the single best place in the universe to find stories that stir the imagination, and the heart.Contents xi • Acknowledgments (The Year's Best Science Fiction Twenty-Third Annual Collection) • essay by Gardner Dozoisxiii • Summation: 2005 • essay by Gardner Dozois1 • The Little Goddess • [India 2047] • (2005) • novella by Ian McDonald32 • The Calorie Man • [The Windup Universe] • (2005) • novelette by Paolo Bacigalupi55 • Beyond the Aquila Rift • (2005) • novelette by Alastair Reynolds81 • Second Person, Present Tense • (2005) • novelette by Daryl Gregory98 • The Canadian Who Came Almost All the Way Back From the Stars • (2005) • shortstory by Ruth Nestvold and Jay Lake (aka The Canadian Who Came Almost All the Way Home From the Stars)115 • Triceratops Summer • (2005) • shortstory by Michael Swanwick125 • Camouflage • [The Great Ship Universe] • (2005) • novella by Robert Reed171 • A Case of Consilience • (2005) • shortstory by Ken MacLeod181 • The Blemmye's Strategem • (2005) • novelette by Bruce Sterling205 • Amba • (2005) • novelette by William Sanders229 • Search Engine • (2005) • novelette by Mary Rosenblum244 • Piccadilly Circus • (2005) • shortstory by Chris Beckett258 • In the Quake Zone • (2005) • novella by David Gerrold331 • La Malcontenta • (2005) • shortstory by Liz Williams338 • The Children of Time • (2005) • shortstory by Stephen Baxter350 • Little Faces • (2005) • novelette by Vonda N. McIntyre376 • Comber • (2005) • shortstory by Gene Wolfe384 • Audubon in Atlantis • [Lost Continent of Atlantis] • (2005) • novella by Harry Turtledove422 • Deus Ex Homine • (2005) • shortstory by Hannu Rajaniemi433 • The Great Caruso • (2005) • shortstory by Steven Popkes447 • Softly Spoke the Gabbleduck • [Polity Universe] • (2005) • novelette by Neal Asher465 • Zima Blue • (2005) • shortstory by Alastair Reynolds481 • Planet of the Amazon Women • (2005) • novelette by David Moles503 • The Clockwork Atom Bomb • (2005) • shortstory by Dominic Green518 • Gold Mountain • [Celestial Empire] • (2005) • shortstory by Chris Roberson532 • The Fulcrum • (2005) • novelette by Gwyneth Jones554 • Mayfly • (2005) • shortstory by Peter Watts and Derryl Murphy565 • Two Dreams on Trains • (2005) • shortstory by Elizabeth Bear571 • Angel of Light • (2005) • shortstory by Joe Haldeman578 • Burn • (2005) • novella by James Patrick Kelly651 • Honorable Mentions: 2005 • essay by Gardner Dozois

    This set is no longer available.

    Soon after her untimely death in 1965, Jackson’s children discovered a treasure trove of previously unpublished and uncollected stories, many of which are brought together in this remarkable collection. Here are tales of torment, psychological aberration, and the macabre, as well as those that display her lighter touch with humorous scenes of domestic life. Reflecting the range and complexity of Jackson’s talent, Just an Ordinary Day reaffirms her enduring influence and celebrates her singular voice, rich with magic and resonance.  Praise for Just an Ordinary Day   “Jackson at her best: plumbing the extraordinary from the depths of mid-twentieth-century common. [Just an Ordinary Day] is a gift to a new generation.”—San Francisco Chronicle  Praise for Shirley Jackson   “[Jackson’s] work exerts an enduring spell.”—Joyce Carol Oates   “Shirley Jackson’s stories are among the most terrifying ever written.”—Donna Tartt   “An amazing writer . . . If you haven’t read [Jackson] you have missed out on something marvelous.”—Neil Gaiman   “Shirley Jackson is unparalleled as a leader in the field of beautifully written, quiet, cumulative shudders.”—Dorothy Parker   “An author who not only writes beautifully but who knows what there is, in this world, to be scared of.”—Francine Prose   “The world of Shirley Jackson is eerie and unforgettable.”—A. M. Homes   “Jackson enjoyed notoriety and commercial success within her lifetime, and yet it still hardly seems like enough for a writer so singular. When I meet readers and other writers of my generation, I find that mentioning her is like uttering a holy name.”—Victor LaValle