Whether fictionalizing his dramatic exploits as a Royal Air Force pilot during World War II or concocting the ingeniously plotted fables that were dramatized on television as Tales of the Unexpected, Dahl was brilliant at provoking in his readers the overwhelming desire to know what happens next—and at satisfying that desire in ways that feel both surprising and inevitable.In this collection:-A Fine Son-Death of an Old Man-Parson’s Pleasure-Poison-The Hitch-Hiker-The Wish-Mrs. Bixby and the Colonel’s Coat-Dip in the Pool-The Landlady-Skin-Lamb to the Slaughter-Man from the South-The Way Up to Heavan-The Umbrella Man-Taste-The Swan-William and MaryFilled with devilish plot twists, his tales display a tantalizing blend of macabre humor and the absurdly grotesque. Dahl’s creations amuse and shock us in equal measure, gleefully reminding us of what might lurk beneath the surface of the ordinary.

    They’ve dated secretly for the past year and when he proposes marriage, Grace eagerly agrees. But when she tells her parents about the wedding, she’s shocked when her father tells her she can’t marry Joel. Can Grace get to the bottom of her father’s animosity toward Joel so they can have the happily ever after she’s always dreamed of? A Heart Full of Love  (also in An Amish Cradle)Ellie’s mother hasn’t stopped meddling in her personal life since Ellie lost her sight—and she’s taken it up a notch now that Ellie’s pregnant. When Ellie gives birth to twins, her mother insists on moving in to care for them. But when her mother’s behavior becomes unbearable, Ellie is forced to take a stand . . . and finally find out why Mamm can’t let go. Surprised by Love In a desperate move to evade her match-making mother, Emily Schwartz announces that she’s already seeing someone: Reuben Coblentz. The trouble is, Reuben is barely even a friend. Seeing how desperate she is, Reuben plays along. But when the past sneaks up on them, will this temporary arrangement turn into everlasting love? A Gift for Anne Marie  (also in An Amish Second Christmas)Anne Marie and Nathaniel have been best friends since they were kids. Now things are evolving . . . in ways everyone else predicted long ago. But when her mother suddenly decides to remarry in another state, Anne Marie’s new chapter with Nathaniel looks doomed to end before it begins.

    Each set of family members occupies a floor of the home, in accordance to their standing within the family. Poisonous rivalries between sisters-in-law, destructive secrets, and the implosion of the family business threaten to unravel bonds of kinship as social unrest brews in greater Indian society. This is a moment of turbulence, of inevitable and unstoppable change: the chasm between the generations, and between those who have and those who have not, has never been wider. The eldest grandchild, Supratik, compelled by his idealism, becomes dangerously involved in extremist political activism—an action that further catalyzes the decay of the Ghosh home.Ambitious, rich, and compassionate, The Lives of Others anatomizes the soul of a nation as it unfolds a family history, at the same time as it questions the nature of political action and the limits of empathy. It is a novel of unflinching power and emotional force.

    In the story, it is traced somewhere in the African continent and plays a crucial role in re-constructing the history of human evolution.

    A paperback original from a superb writer whose first novel was enthusiastically praised by Khaled Hosseini, bestselling author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, Haji, an American of Indo-Pakistani descent, writes with grace, heart, and wisdom about the collisions of culture and religion, tradition and modernity played out through individual lives.

    Meet the man who vacuums bewildered prairie dogs out of their burrows; a frustrated werewolf who roams the streets of Soho getting mistaken for Brian Blessed; a smug carbon-neutral eco-couple; a teenage girl who invites 45,000 MySpace friends to a house party; the author of a business book entitled Highly Successful Secrets to Standing on a Corner Holding Up a Golf Sale Sign and a man whose attempts to teach softball to a group of indolent British advertising executives sparks an international crisis.

    It's a story about the most explored life aspect named friendship which trapped four strange souls for life in the serenity of Delhi University (UD.U.) campus. Aniket falls victim to equally notorious life facet called love and very strangely that too, at first sight; and what follows is a restless journey of getting his love on board. Set against the backdrop of D.U. And IIT Bombay, the story reveals the dream of today's youth, their callowness, sec, love and not to forget the resolve for two critical life aspects; love & friendship. The journey took them across carousel of tough times linked to the chain of complex situations which ultimately pushed them to the brink of exploring their identity. Among this chaos and a DEADLY incident, can they realize their dreams!!! Can we live for a dream of our friends? Is love all about giving and taking nothing? Is it right to destroy oneself in love? Will these friendship win the battle of life and dream? Can we ever forget for our first love? Are the youth truly the new face of contemporary India? What will happen when dream meets fate, fate meets friendship and love cast its magic on everyone?

    It was a "big country needing big men and women to live in it." Here are three more of his fine short stories about the West. West of the Tularosa Ruth Kermitt, owner of the Tumbling K ranch, made a deal with old Tom McCracken, owner of the Firebox spread, to buy his ranch. That's why the Tumbling K's foreman, Ward McQueen, and some of the Tumbling K crew have come to take possession. But in a deserted bunkhouse on the Firebox, they find the body of Jimmy McCracken, son of the former owner, who was clearly killed in a gunfight. Then, Sheriff Bill Foster shows up with a posse. Riding with that posse is Neal Webb, who claims that he owns the Firebox and that he's got a transfer deed signed by Jimmy McCracken conveying that ownership. Webb seizes the opportunity to accuse Ward McQueen and his men of killing McCracken in order to claim possession of the Firebox. Despite his innocence, McQueen sees that he will have a tough time staying out of jail long enough to discover who the real killers are. Home in the Valley Steve Mehan had accomplished what many had believed to be impossible. He had taken cattle from the home range in Nevada to California in the dead of winter. Not only that, he had been successful in selling them. Now the money from the sale is on deposit with the Dake & Company bank in Sacramento. That $24,000 will save all five ranches in Paiute Valley that had supplied cattle for the drive. Mehan is feeling good about all of this when, to his shock, he reads in the newspaper that Dake & Company has failed. And there is one nasty hombre who is mighty happy to hear this. He sneeringly tells Mehan that those ranchers have lost out and since they can't pay their debt--and he will become the new owner. But Mehan isn't ready to give up. There is a bank branch in Portland, Oregon, and if Mehan can get to it and withdraw the money before the steamer boat heading for Portland arrives with the news of the bank failure, he wins. To do that, Mehan will have to start out immediately, hoping for stamina, luck, and a long relay of good horses to cover those hundreds of miles. West Is Where the Heart Is Jim London is on his way home. During the four years of the War between the States, he has not been home, seen his wife, Jane, or been able to send word of his whereabouts. For all she knew, he was dead. Fellows have told him she wouldn't have waited for him, but London believes differently. Then, just two hundred miles from home, London comes across a burned-out wagon train. Nine wagons had been hit by the Comanches, and they left only a ruin behind: overturned wagons, dead livestock, ransacked belongings, and dead bodies strewn on the ground. Yet Jim discovers that not everyone is dead. He finds little Betty Jane, a five-year-old who had been able to hide successfully during the attack. The only thing to be done is for him to take her along with him. But during their journey, he discovers that the child knows something that no one else does.

    enthralling’ BIBEK DEBROY‘A magical and thought-provoking adventure, Ahalya will intrigue and mesmerize readers’ CHITRA BANERJEE DIVAKARUNI‘An enigmatic tale about purity, chastity, seduction and redemption’ NAMITA GOKHALE‘Brilliant and intriguing’ ANAND NEELAKANTANIt is known that Ahalya was cursed by her husband, Gautam, for indulging in a physical relationship with Indra. But is there another story to Ahalya's truth? Who was Indra anyway? A king? A lover? A philanderer? The first book of the Sati series, Ahalya hinges on these core questions, narrating the course of her life, from innocence to infidelity.In the Sati series, Koral Dasgupta explores the lives of the Pancha Kanyas from Indian mythology, all of whom had partners other than their husbands and yet are revered as the most enlightened women, whose purity of mind precedes over the purity of body. The five books of the Sati series reinvent these women and their men, in the modern context with a feminist consciousness.

    Ironically, it also became the chant of millions on the streets of India against the project of Hindu Nationalism.Even as Arundhati Roy began to ask what lay between these two calls for Freedom—a chasm or a bridge?—the streets fell silent. Not only in India, but all over the world. The coronavirus brought with it another, more terrible understanding of Azadi, making a nonsense of international borders, incarcerating whole populations, and bringing the modern world to a halt like nothing else ever could.In this series of electrifying essays, Arundhati Roy challenges us to reflect on the meaning of freedom in a world of growing authoritarianism.The essays include meditations on language, public as well as private, and on the role of fiction and alternative imaginations in these disturbing times.The pandemic, she says, is a portal between one world and another. For all the illness and devastation it has left in its wake, it is an invitation to the human race, an opportunity, to imagine another world.

    O'Leary to Barack Obama. "Flexing impressive literary chops, the beer vendor/creative-writing professor captures both the tough, defensive exterior and the vulnerable, often-broken heart of his city."— Timeout Chicago"Chicago, a page at a time. Michael Czyzniejewski gets right to the point in telling the city's stories." — Chicago Tribune"...Michael Czyzniejewski’s “Chicago Stories,” forty fictional monologues riffing on the common culture of the Windy City’s shared history, projected forward into a possible future. Not quite historical fiction—more like historical jazz." — Newcity Lit"In 'Chicago Stories,' Michael Czyzniejewski summons all of Chicago — its ghosts, living and dead, its heroes and fools, sinners and saints, its people and places and all of its occasions — and in these pages they have gathered, strange and unlikely bedfellows, to sing a new song for Chicago. It will twist your arm behind your back, this song. It will break your fingers."— Billy Lombardo, author of The Man With Two Arms and The Logic of a Rose: Chicago Stories

    The book starts during the reign of Emperor Ashoka and ends in 1947, when India gains independence.The core of The Tenth Unknown revolves around a race between different individuals to acquire a set of nine books. The books are some of the world’s best kept secrets, and it is believed that the person who gets the entire set will gain information that can lead to unlimited power and wealth.The books mentioned in this novel have been protected down the ages by a secret society of men appointed by Emperor Ashoka. They are scattered around the world and hidden, and the clues about their location are hidden in the ruins of the ancient Nalanda University.The attempts to trace the books take on a new pace when the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler manages to lay his hands on one of the books. This causes panic across the world. The British are worried at the prospect of empowering the dictator with unlimited wealth and power.The task of tracing the remaining books and ensuring their safety falls on Prithvi Rathore, who is more English than Indian. Prithvi is quite happy with his comfortable existence and his regular game of cricket. However, his grandfather, who was a member of the secret society formed to protect the books, insists that it is Prithvi’s duty to trace the remaining books and keep them safe. A reluctant Prithvi agrees to take up the task. His main opponent in this task is Joseph Heidler, a rather untypical Nazi officer who has been ordered by Adolf Hitler to get the remaining books.As the two men try to fulfill their assigned tasks, the race becomes intensely action packed. Will the good men win over the bad? Who will be able to decrypt the clues hidden amidst the broken ruins of Nalanda?

    For each craves a change in her life: Devera desires a break from her humdrum marital routine; BiDi longs to reconnect with her distant fourteen-year-old daughter (the only girl on the high school hockey team), not to mention jump-start a sex drive stuck in neutral. So when Devera’s husband decides to fulfill his longtime dream of opening a nightclub in his basement, Your Oasis on Flame Lake arrives not a moment too soon. Nothing fancy, it’s just a BYOB joint where you can hang out, sing, dance, tell jokes, and be yourself. But then an unexpected crisis throws both families into chaos, forcing them all to take stock of their lives—and learn the power of forgiveness.

    She was used to devoting her time to the animals on her family’s ranch. Then widower Ben Caldwell and his two adorable children arrived in Pine Gulch, and suddenly, Caidy wanted more than a life in the shadows….As the town’s new vet, Ben needed a place to stay for the holidays—and for his family to heal from their own loss. He absolutely wasn’t looking for love again! But Caidy Bowman’s sparkling green eyes and sweet smile touched Ben’s broken heart, giving him hope for a new future. Their future—if he could convince the beautiful cowgirl that Christmas was a time for new beginnings….Originally published in 2012 FREE BONUS STORY INCLUDED IN THIS VOLUME!A Very Crimson Christmas It’s that time of year! For years there’d been only one woman in Liam Donovan’s life—his beloved nanny, who’d raised him as her own. But someone is clearly taking advantage of Ruth, which brings the studly CEO back to Crimson, the place he was all too happy to have left behind. And there Liam finds Ruth has live-in help—in the form of his high school love, Natalie Holt, and her adorable son… He better not fall for Nat a second time—because what if she is the cause of his nanny’s missing money?Originally published in 2015

    . . To Soorya Giri, arranged marriages have always seemed absurd. But while her career as an environmental lawyer has flourished, Soorya is still a virgin, living with her parents in suburban New Jersey. She wants to be married. And she is finally ready to do the unthinkable. . . Soorya's first bridal viewings are as awkward as she anticipated. But then she's introduced to Roger Vadepalli. Self-possessed, intelligent, and charming, Roger is clearly interested in marriage and seems eager to clinch the deal. Attracted to him in spite of her mistrust, Soorya is also drawn into a flirtation with Lou, a widowed colleague who is far from her family's idea of an acceptable husband. In choosing between two very different men, Soorya must reconcile her burgeoning independence and her conservative background. And she must decide what matters most to her-not just in a husband, but in a family, a culture, and a life. . . "One of the best [novels] I've read this year. I couldn't put it down. . .this book is a gem!" --Mary Monroe, "New York Times" bestselling author on "The Unexpected Son" "Compelling and memorable." -Mary Jo Putney, "New York Times" bestselling author on "The Forbidden Daughter" "Vivid, rich. . .expertly portrays a young woman caught between love and duty, hope and despair." -Anjali Banerjee on "The Dowry Bride" "Dazzles you with a taste of Desi culture in America." -Caridad Pineiro