This rich treasury includes Tolkien's most beloved short fiction plus his essay on fantasy. Publisher's Note Tolkien's Magic Ring, by Peter S. Beagle The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son Tree and Leaf On Fairy-Stories Leaf by Niggle Farmer Giles of Ham The Adventures of Tom Bombadil The Adventures of Tom Bombadil Bombadil Goes Boating Errantry Princess Mee The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late The Man in the Moon Came Down Too Soon The Stone Troll Perry-the-Winkle The Mewlips Oliphaunt Fastitocalon Cat Shadow-bride The Hoard The Sea-Bell The Last Ship

    Stories are the way we organize the chaos in our lives, orchestrate voluminous factual material, and -- if we are very good -- shed some light on the human condition." Here are twenty-six pieces that showcase the best travel writing from 2005, filled with "keen observations that transform ordinary journeys into extraordinary ones" (Library Journal). Mark Jenkins journeys into a forgotten valley in Afghanistan, Kevin Fedarko takes a wild ride through the rapids of the Grand Canyon, and Christopher Solomon reports on the newest fad to hit South Korea: downhill skiing. For David Sedaris, a seemingly routine domestic flight is cause for a witty rumination on modern airline travel. Alain de Botton describes the discreet charms of Zurich, and Ian Frazier recalls leaving the small Midwestern town he called home. Michael Paterniti gives a touching portrait of the world's tallest man -- eight and a half feet and growing, while P.J. O'Rourke visits an airplane manufacturer to see firsthand how the French make the world's biggest passenger plane. George Saunders is dazzled by a trip to the "Vegas of the Middle East," Rolf Potts takes on tantric yoga for dilettantes, and Sean Flynn documents a seedier side of travel -- the newest hotspot in the international sex trade. Culled from a wide variety of publications, these stories, as Cahill writes, all "touched me in one way or another, changed an attitude, made me laugh aloud, or provided fuel for my dreams. I wish the reader similar joys."

     There's A Litte Bit Of Dino Inside All Of Us Lured by the promise of endless possibilities, Dino, a young man from Sicily tries to make a new home in Germany. Equipped only with an intense curiosity and a knack for meeting new people, he's eager to delve into local customs and cuisine, if there only wasn't this pesky business of learning German ... Follow Dino on his adventures through 4 different German cities, experience daily life in Germany through the eyes of a newcomer, learn about the country and its people, and learn German effortlessly along the way! This book is designed to help beginners make the leap from studying isolated words and phrases to reading (and enjoying) naturally flowing German short stories. Learning German Doesn't Have To Be A Chore Just got started on your German learning journey? Memorized a few words but struggle with longer texts? We've all been there. This book is designed to help beginners make the leap from studying isolated words and phrases to reading (and enjoying!) authentic German fiction. Using simplified sentence structures and a very basic vocabulary, this story series is carefully crafted to allow even novice learners to boost their confidence and speed up their German learning journey. Each chapter comes with a complete German-English dictionary, with a special emphasis on collocative phrases (high frequency word combinations), short sentences and useful expressions. By working with these building blocks instead of just single words, learners can accelerate their understanding, boost retention and active usage of new German language material and make the language learning process more fluid and fun. What You'll Find In This Book 40 German short stories about German culture, language and cuisine tons of phrases and expressions you will actually use in daily life a detailed German-English vocabulary after each chapter short quizzes to boost your text-comprehension a relatable protagonist and other fun characters hand-drawn illustrations by the author the beginning of a grand German learning adventure ... Read, Learn & Collect Them All Yes! That's right. Once you're done reading the four episodes contained in this collector's edition, the story continues! Follow our protagonist to Palermo, Zurich, Vienna and many other cities in the next installment! Before you know it, you'll have traveled half of Europe and picked up more German than years' worth of expensive courses. Learning German has never been more fun. What You'll NOT Find In This Book dull characters designed by academics archaic words and phrases nobody uses in real life

    The collection boasts great variety from "famous to first-timers, sifted from major magazines and little reviews, grand and little worlds" (St. Louis Post-Dispatch), ensuring yet another rewarding, eduring edition of the oldest and best-selling Best American.The idiot President / Daniel Alarcón --Yurt / Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum --Rubiaux rising / Steve de Jarnatt --Beyond the pale / Joseph Epstein --A shadow table / Alice Fulton --NowTrends / Karl Taro Greenfeld --The farms / Eleanor Henderson --Sagittarius / Greg Hrbek --Hurricanes anonymous / Adam Johnson --The anniversary trip / Victoria Lancelotta --A man like him / Yiyun Li --The briefcase / Rebecca Makkai --Magic words / Jill McCorkle --One dog year / Kevin Moffett --Modulation / Richard Powers --Them old cowboy songs / Annie Proulx --Into the gorge / Ron Rash --Ostracon / Alex Rose --The peripatetic coffin / Ethan Rutherford --Muzungu / Namwali Serpell --Contributors' notes --100 other distinguished stories of 2008 --Editorial addresses of American and Canadian magazines publishing short stories

    Instead of pausing to look up every word, you’ll absorb new vocabulary from the context of the story, and have the satisfaction of that moment when you say: “I totally understood that sentence!” Carefully written Italian, using straightforward grammar that is comprehensible for beginner and intermediate level learners, so that you can enjoy reading and learn new grammatical structures without the feeling of overwhelm and frustration that you get from other books. Plenty of natural dialogues in each story, so that you can learn conversational Italian whilst you read, and improve your speaking ability at the same time! Regular plot summaries, comprehension questions and word reference lists, so that help is always on hand when you need it. You’ll be able to focus on enjoying reading and having fun, rather than fumbling around with dictionaries and struggling through dense text with no support. A five-step plan for reading the stories in this book the smart way. This detailed introductory chapter gives you specific, step-by-step instructions for effective reading in Italian, so that you know exactly how to make the most out of the book and maximise your learning! Italian Short Stories for Beginners Volume 2 is written especially for students from beginner to intermediate level (A1-B1 on the Common European Framework of Reference). The eight captivating stories are designed to give you a sense of achievement and a feeling of progress when reading. You’ll finally be able to enjoy reading in Italian, grow your vocabulary in a natural way, and improve your comprehension at the same time. Based on extensive research into how people most enjoy and benefit from reading in a new language, this book eliminates all the frustrations you have experienced when trying to read in Italian: Dull topics that are no fun to read Books so long you never reach the end Endless chapters that make you want to give up Impenetrable grammar that frustrates you at every turn Complex vocabulary that leaves you with your head buried in the dictionary Instead, you can just concentrate on what you came for in the first place - enjoying reading and having fun! If you’re learning Italian and enjoy reading, this is the book you need to rekindle your passion for the language and take your Italian to the next level!

    A content moderator for "the world's biggest search engine," who spends her days culling videos of beheadings and suicides, turns from stalking her rapist online to following him in real life. At a camp for recovering internet trolls, a sensitive misfit goes missing. A wounded mother raises the second incarnation of her child.In You Will Never Be Forgotten, Mary South explores how technology can both collapse our relationships from within and provide opportunities for genuine connection. Formally inventive, darkly absurdist, savagely critical of the increasingly fraught cultural climates we inhabit, these ten stories also find hope in fleeting interactions and moments of tenderness. They reveal our grotesque selfishness and our intense need for love and acceptance, and the psychic pain that either shuts us off or allows us to discover our deepest reaches of empathy. This incendiary debut marks the arrival of a perceptive, idiosyncratic, instantly recognizable voice in fiction--one that could only belong to Mary South.

    "PINK STEAM is not kitschy, it is a culturally astute document of the real written by a master at the height of her powers"--Jennifer Moxley. The intimate secrets of Dodie Bellamy's life--sex, shoplifting, voyeurism, and writing are illuminated in Bellamy's incredibly tailored latest work where true confession bleeds into high theory into trash cinema. PINK STEAM barges beyond the cliches of gendered experience; unafraid of the personal, unabashed by politics and sex, Bellamy makes confusion her OK Corral. Dodie Bellamy is the author of CUNT-UPS and FEMININE HIJINX, both available at SPD.

    Henry Prize Stories 2012 gathers twenty of the best short stories of the year, selected from thousands published in literary magazines. These remarkable stories explore the boundaries of the imagination in settings as various as an army training camp in China, the salt mines of Detroit, a divided Balkan town, and the eye of a hurricane. Also included are essays from the eminent jurors on their favorite stories, observations from the winners on what inspired them, and an extensive resource list of magazines.

    In his dispatches he focuses on the human-scale effect of the war, portraying everyone from the guys in a bomber crew to Bob Hope on his USO tour and even fighting alongside soldiers behind enemy lines. Taken together, these writings create an indelible portrait of life in wartime.

    For each volume, a series editor reads pieces from hundreds of periodicals, then selects between fifty and a hundred outstanding works. That selection is pared down to twenty or so very best pieces by a guest editor who is widely recognized as a leading writer in his or her field. This unique system has helped make the Best American series the most respected -- and most popular -- of its kind. The Best American Travel Writing 2004 transports readers from Patagonia to Ivory Coast to small-town Vermont. Readers are treated to car and truck trips across America, can fall "in lust" in the South Pacific, and go into the heart of the Congo to rescue gorillas. This year's volume is edited by Pico Iyer, who writes in his fascinating introduction, "Restlessness is part of the American way. It's part of what brought many of the rest of us to America." The Best American Travel Writing 2004 displays American restlessness at its most tantalizing and entertaining.

    It is like coffee and car alarms and a dim stairway and a stain and it's like smoke.' ('Placing a Call') How does love change us? And how do we change ourselves for love - or for lack of it? Ten stories by acclaimed author Deborah Levy explore these delicate, impossible questions. In Vienna, an icy woman seduces a broken man; in London gardens, birds sing in computer start-up sounds; in ad-land, a sleek copywriter becomes a kind of shaman. These are twenty-first century lives dissected with razor-sharp humour and curiosity, stories about what it means to live and love, together and alone.

    Collected here for the first time in paperback, the essays, articles, observations—and even some untypical country-music lyrics—offer a rare overview of the eclectic sensibility of an American original. Whether rocking with the Doors, depoliticizing Picasso’s Guernica, lamenting the angst-ridden state of contemporary literature, or drooling over tomato sandwiches and a species of womanhood he calls “the genius waitress,” Tom Robbins’s briefer writings exhibit the five traits that perhaps best characterize his novels: an imaginative wit, a cheerfully brash disregard for convention, a sweetly nasty eroticism, a mystical but keenly observant eye, and an irrepressible love of language. Embedded in this primarily journalistic compilation are brand-new short stories, a sheaf of largely unpublished poems, and an offbeat assessment of our divided nation. Wherever you open Wild Ducks Flying Backward, you’ll encounter the serious playfulness that percolates from the mind of a self-described “romantic Zen hedonist” and “stray dog in the banquet halls of culture.”

    Now, in his fifty-seventh book, Louis Auchincloss delivers a brilliant collection of ten new, previously unpublished, stories; once again, he unfailingly "voices truths with elegant precision" (Publishers Weekly). MANHATTAN MONOLOGUES charts a colorful New York century through a series of personal accounts from the rarefied circle that fills Auchincloss's best short fiction. Here are characters who confidently finesse their way through society's uppermost tiers and yet are just as easily undone by the smallest upset in a day. Like all of Auchincloss's richest creations, they bump up against their consciences, with often surprising results. What, for instance, is a woman to do when she must choose between true love and high society when making a marriage? How can a man stay true to himself, his family, and his country when it goes to war? How can a determined marriage broker salvage matters when the young man she has so painstakingly steered toward a love match becomes charmed by another woman? These tales, and many more, fashion a glamorous, yet all too human, societal portrait -- from the aristocratic loyalties of the early twentieth century to the complicated twists of modern-day mergers and acquisitions. MANHATTAN MONOLOGUES is Louis Auchincloss at his most clever, his most discerning, his best.

    His commentaries on “All Things Considered” and his radio spots for Motel 6 have delighted millions, but he’s never been funnier than in this, his second collection of casual essays. Here are further musings ont he everyday joys and embarrassments of being a husband, father, citizen, and breadwinner by the author of As Far As You Can Go Without a Passport. Fans will be comforted by the familiarity of this return visit to Bodett country. Those new to his work will discover one of the freshest, friendliest voices among writers of humor today.

    In An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris, Perec compiled a melancholic, slightly eerie and oddly touching document in which existence boils down to rhythm, writing turns into time and the line between the empirical and the surreal grows surprisingly thin.