Book picks similar to
An Island Of Trees: Nature Stories And Poems by Ruskin Bond
2
indian-authors
read-when-i-was-a-kid
short-stories
The Fairy Tales of Hermann Hesse
Hermann Hesse - 1919
This landmark collection contains twenty-two of Hesse's finest stories in this genre, most translated into English here for the first time. Full of visionaries and seekers, princesses and wandering poets, his fairy tales speak to the place in our psyche that inspires us with deep spiritual longing; that compels us to leave home, and inevitably to return; and that harbors the greatest joys and most devastating wounds of our heart. Containing all the themes common in Hesse's great novels Siddhartha, Steppenwolf, and Demian—and mirroring events in his own life, these exquisite short pieces exhibit the same mystical and romantic impulses that contribute to the haunting brilliance of his major works. Several stories, including "The Poet," "The Fairy Tale About the Wicker Chair," and "The Painter," examine the dilemma of the artist, torn between the drive for perfection and the temptations of pleasure and social success. Other tales reflect changes and struggles within society: in "Faldum," a city is irrevocably transformed when each resident is granted his or her fondest wish; in "Strange News from Another Planet," "If the War Continues," and "The European," nightmarish landscapes convey Hesse's devastating critiques of nationalism, barbarism, and war. Illuminating and inspiring, The Fairy Tales of Hermann Hesse will challenge and enchant readers of all ages. A distinguished and historic publication, this fine translation by Jack Zipes captures their subtlety and elegance for decades nto come.
Dracula's Guest and Other Weird Tales
Bram Stoker - 2006
Comprised of spine-chilling tales published by Stoker’s widow after his death, as well as The Lair of the White Worm, an intensely intriguing novel of myths, legends, and unspeakable evils, this collection demonstrates the full range of Stoker’s horror writing.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Alfred Hitchcock's Ghostly Gallery
Alfred HitchcockWalter Brooks - 1962
Following his invitation to "browse through my gallery", readers will find ghoulish ghost stories "designed to frighten and instruct" -- instruct, that is, about the strange existence ghosts must endure! Stories include Miss Emmeline Takes Off by Walter Brooks; The Valley of the Beasts by Algernon Blackwood; The Haunted Trailer by Robert Arthur; The Truth About Pyecraft by H.G. Wells; The Isle of Voices by Robert Louis Stevenson; and more. Parents and kids can't help but chuckle at Hitchcock's comment, "I don't want to appear disloyal to television, but I think reading will be good for you." Contains some very spooky two-color illustrations by Fred Banbery.
Paingod and Other Delusions
Harlan Ellison - 1965
Passion is the keynote as you encounter the Harlequin and his nemesis, the dreaded Tictockman, in one of the most reprinted and widely taught stories in the English language; a pyretic who creates fire merely by willing it; the last surgeon in a world of robot physicians; a spaceship filled with hideous mutants rejected by the world that gave them birth. Touching and gentle and shocking stories from an incomparable master of impossible dreams and troubling truths.Contents:7 · New Introduction: Your Basic Crown of Thorns · in 19 · Spero Meliora · in 24 · Paingod · ss Fantastic Jun ’64 35 · “Repent, Harlequin!” Said the Ticktockman · ss Galaxy Dec ’65 49 · The Crackpots [Kyben] · nv If Jun ’56 89 · Sleeping Dogs · ss Analog Oct ’74 100 · Bright Eyes · ss Fantastic Apr ’65 112 · The Discarded [“The Abnormals”] · ss Fantastic Apr ’59 125 · Wanted in Surgery · nv If Aug ’57 156 · Deeper Than the Darkness · nv Infinity Science Fiction Apr ’57
The Complete Saki
Saki - 1976
The good wit of bad manners, elegantly spiced with irony and deftly controlled malice, has made Saki stories small, perfect gems of the English language. Here for the first time, are the collected writings of Saki--including all of his short stories ("Reginald", "Reginald in Russia", "The Chronicles of Clovis", "Beasts and Super-Beasts" "The Toys of Peace", and "The Square Egg"), his three novels (THE UNBEARABLE BASSINGTON, WHEN WILLIAM CAME and THE WESTMINSTER ALICE), and three plays (THE DEATHTRAP, KARL-LUDWIG'S WINDOW and THE WATCHED POT. You are invited to meet once again Clovis, Reginald, the Unbearable Bassington, and the other memorable characters etched so superbly by the pen of H.H. Munro. "In all literature, he was the first to employ successfully a wildly outrageous premise in order to make a serious point. I love that. And today the best of his stories are still better than the best of just about every other writer around."--Roald Dahl. Introduction by Noel Coward.(less)
American Gothic Tales
Joyce Carol OatesAmbrose Bierce - 1996
She is able to see the unbroken link of the macabre that ties Edgar Allan Poe to Anne Rice and to recognize the dark psychological bonds between Henry James and Stephen King. This remarkable anthology of gothic fiction, spanning two centuries of American writing, gives us an intriguing and entertaining look at how the gothic imagination makes for great literature in the works of forty-six exceptional writers. In showing us the gothic vision—a world askew where mankind’s forbidden impulses are set free from the repressions of the psyche, and nature turns malevolent and lawless—Joyce Carol Oates includes Henry James’s “The Romance of Certain Old Clothes,” Herman Melville’s horrific tale of factory women, “The Tartarus of Maids,” and Edith Wharton’s “Afterward,” which are rarely collected and appear together here for the first time.Added to these stories of the past are new ones that explore the wounded worlds of Stephen King, Anne Rice, Peter Straub, Raymond Carver, and more than twenty other wonderful contemporary writers. This impressive collection reveals the astonishing scope of the gothic writer’s subject matter, style, and incomparable genius for manipulating our emotions and penetrating our dreams. With Joyce Carol Oates’s superb introduction, American Gothic Tales is destined to become the standard one-volume edition of the genre that American writers, if they didn’t create it outright, have brought to its chilling zenith.rom Wieland, or The transformation / Charles Brockden Brown --The legend of Sleepy Hollow / Washington Irving --The man of adamant / Nathaniel Hawthorne --Young Goodman Brown / Nathaniel Hawthorne --The Tartarus of maids / Herman Melville --The black cat / Edgar Allan Poe --The yellow wallpaper / Charlotte Perkins Gilman --The romance of certain old clothes / Henry James --The damned thing / Ambrose Bierce --Afterward / Edith Wharton --The striding place / Gertrude Atherton --Death in the woods / Sherwood Anderson --The outsider / H.P. Lovecraft --A rose for Emily / William Faulkner --The lonesome place / August Derleth --The door / E.B. White --The lovely house / Shirley Jackson --Allal / Paul Bowles --The reencounter / Isaac Bashevis Singer --In the icebound hothouse / William Goyen --The enormous radio / John Cheever --The veldt / Ray Bradbury --The Dachau shoe / W.S. Merwin --The approved / W.S. Merwin --Spiders I have known / W.S. Merwin --Postcards from the Maginot Line / W.S. Merwin --Johnny Panic and the Bible of dreams / Sylvia Plath --In bed one night / Robert Coover --Schrödinger's cat / Ursula K. Le Guin --The waterworks / E.L. Doctorow --Shattered like a glass goblin / Harlan Ellison --Human moments in World War III / Don DeLillo --The anatomy of desire / John L'Heureux --Little things / Raymond Carver --The temple / Joyce Carol Oates --Freniere (from Interview with the Vampires) / Anne Rice --A short guide to the city / Peter Straub --In the penny arcade / Steven Millhauser --The reach / Stephen King --Exchange value / Charles Johnson --Snow / John Crowley --The last feast of Harlequin / Thomas Ligotti --Time and again / Breece D'J Pancake--Replacements / Lisa Tuttle --Spirit seizures / Melissa Pritchard --Cat in glass / Nancy Etchemendy --The girl who loved animals / Bruce McAllister --Ursus Triad, later / Kathe Koja and Barry N. Malzberg --(from Geek Love) The nuclear family: his talk, her teeth / Katherine Dunn --Subsoil / Nicholson Baker
Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos
Jim TurnerFritz Leiber - 1990
His chilling mythology established a gateway between the known universe and an ancient dimension of otherworldly terror, whose unspeakable denizens and monstrous landscapes - dread Cthulhu, Yog-Sothoth, the Plateau of Leng, the Mountains of Madness - have earned him a permanent place in the history of the macabre.In Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, a pantheon of horror and fantasy's finest authors pay tribute to the master of the macabre with a collection of original stories set in the fearsome Lovecraft tradition.Contents:- Iä! Iä! Cthulhu Fhtagn! (1990) by Jim Turner [as by James Turner] - The Call of Cthulhu (1928) by H.P. Lovecraft- The Return of the Sorcerer (1931) by Clark Ashton Smith- Ubbo-Sathla (1933) by Clark Ashton Smith- The Black Stone (1931) by Robert E. Howard- The Hounds of Tindalos (1929) by Frank Belknap Long- The Space-Eaters (1928) by Frank Belknap Long- The Dweller in Darkness (1944) by August Derleth- Beyond the Threshold (1941) by August Derleth- The Shambler from the Stars (1935) by Robert Bloch- The Haunter of the Dark (1936) by H.P. Lovecraft- The Shadow from the Steeple (1950) by Robert Bloch- Notebook Found in a Deserted House (1951) by Robert Bloch- The Salem Horror (1937) by Henry Kuttner- The Terror from the Depths (1976) by Fritz Leiber- Rising with Surtsey (1971) by Brian Lumley- Cold Print (1969) by Ramsey Campbell- The Return of the Lloigor (1969) by Colin Wilson- My Boat (1976) by Joanna Russ- Sticks (1974) by Karl Edward Wagner- The Freshman (1979) by Philip José Farmer- Jerusalem's Lot (1978) by Stephen King- Discovery of the Ghooric Zone (1977) by Richard A. LupoffCover illustration by John Jude Palencar
The Blue Moon Day
Santhosh Sivaraj - 2018
They had no other choice but to take a plunge into their deepest fear and leave the rest to destiny. Their characters was tested out of their comfort zone and it witnessed abstruse results; a PhD scholar fights to win a pizza making contest and a tennis prodigy running for his life in a war torn, bloodied Island. Extreme circumstances and their consequences made these ordinary individuals extraordinary . Was the test imposed on them by someone? Or did they invite it on themselves. The Blue Moon Day is that Once in a Blue Moon day story which questions an individual's priorities, ridicules the worldly routines and finally redefines happiness.
Heroes, Gods and Monsters of the Greek Myths
Bernard Evslin - 1966
The world of Greek mythology contains some of the most exciting and imaginative stories ever told. In Heroes, Gods and Monsters of the Greek Myths, bestselling author Bernard Evslin shares his passion for these fabulous tales and the eternal themes they so beautifully express. In this accessible overview, you’ll get to know the iconic gods, heroes, and tragic figures: Zeus, the all-powerful king of the gods; Hera, his cunning and jealous wife; King Midas, whose touch could turn anything into gold; the sculptor Pygmalion, who falls in love with his own creation; and many more. With each story, Evslin brings new life to these legendary characters and the magical world they inhabit. Translated into multiple languages, and with more than ten million copies sold, this invaluable resource has become a classic in itself. ContainsThe gods- Zeus- Hera- Athene- Poseidon- Hades- Demeter- Birth of the twins- Artemis- Apollo - Sons of Apollo- Hermes- Hephaestus - Aphrodite Nature myths- Prometheus- Pandora- Phaethon- Orpheus- Narcissus and Echo- Eros and Psyche- ArionDemigods. - Perseus- Daedalus- Theseus- AtalantaFables- Midas- Pygmalion
Swimming Lessons and Other Stories from Firozsha Baag
Rohinton Mistry - 1987
Its ceilings need plastering and some of the toilets leak appallingly, but its residents are far from desperate, though sometimes contentious and unforgiving. In these witty, poignant stories, Mistry charts the intersecting lives of Firozsha Baag, yielding a delightful collective portrait of a middle-class Indian community poised between the old ways and the new.
A Christmas Memory, One Christmas, & The Thanksgiving Visitor
Truman Capote - 1996
Taking its place next to Breakfast at Tiffany's and In Cold Blood on the Modern Library bookshelf is this new and original edition of Capote's most famous short stories: "A Christmas Memory, " "One Christmas, " and "The Thanksgiving Visitor." All three stories are distinguished by Capote's delicate interplay of childhood sensibility and recollective vision, evoking a strong sense of place.
The Girl With A Secret Crush
Sudha Nair - 2018
Twenty-nine-year-old Malini is single, a cat lover, and a proofreader with a secret crush.Vikram Mathur is a bestselling author with more than a dozen books and a debilitating problem—the writer's block.What Malini wants more than anything is to meet Vikram, but he doesn't even know she exists.What if wishes were to come true! Read this short and sweet story to find out.Will Malini get her heart's desire?Will Vikram be able to write his next bestseller?
Shadows on the Highway
C.S. Valentine - 2016
This collection of delightfully twisted, supernatural short stories will captivate your imagination and entertain your darker side. A monster with a love of bakery, an old woman living in fear with her ex-con nephew, a widow with only one chance left, and a demon with a dark and powerful heart, are some of the characters wrestling with their darker selves in this enjoyable collection.
Arabian Nights: The Marvels and Wonders of The Thousand and One Nights, Volume 1 of 2
Jack D. Zipes
First introduced into the West in 1704, the stories of The Thousand and One Nights are most familiar to American readers in sanitized children's versions. This modern edition, based on Richard F. Burton's unexpurgated translation, restores the lushness of the original Arabic. Here are the famous adventures of Sinbad, "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves," and "Aladdin and the Magic Lamp." Here too are less familiar stories, such as "Prince Behram and the Princess Al-Datma," a delightful early version of The Taming of the Shrew, and "The Wily Dalilah and her Daughter Zaynab," a hilarious tale about two crafty women who put an entire city of men in their place. Intricate and imaginative, these stories-within-stories told over a thousand and one nights continue to captivate readers as they have for centuries. "Arabian Nights: The Marvels and Wonders of The Thousand and One Nights, Volume 2 of 2, Adapted By Jack Zipes"
Mere Anarchy
Woody Allen - 2007
I was beginning to think it was me." -- Woody AllenHere, in his first collection since his three hilarious classics Getting Even, Without Feathers, and Side Effects, Woody Allen has managed to write a book that not only answers the most profound questions of human existence but is the perfect size to place under any short table leg to prevent wobbling."I awoke Friday, and because the universe is expanding it took me longer than usual to find my robe," he explains in a piece on physics called "Strung Out." In other flights of inspirational sanity we are introduced to a cast of characters only Allen could imagine: Jasper Nutmeat, Flanders Mealworm, and the independent film mogul E. Coli Biggs, just to name a few. Whether he is writing about art, sex, food, or crime ("Pugh has been a policeman as far back as he can remember. His father was a notorious bank robber, and the only way Pugh could get to spend time with him was to apprehend him") he is explosively funny.In "This Nib for Hire," a Hollywood bigwig comes across an author"s book in a little country store and describes it in a way that aptly captures this magnificent volume: "Actually," the producer says, "I'd never seen a book remaindered in the kindling section before."