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Little Birds
Anaïs Nin - 1979
From the beach towns of Normandy to the streets of New Orleans, these thirteen vignettes introduce us to a covetous French painter, a sleepless wanderer of the night, a guitar-playing gypsy, and a host of others who yearn for and dive into the turbulent depths of romantic experience.
I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream
Harlan Ellison - 1967
This edition contains the original introduction by Theodore Sturgeon and the original foreword by Harlan Ellison, along with a brief update comment by Ellison that was added in the 1983 edition. Among Ellison's more famous stories, two consistently noted as among his very best ever are the title story and the volume's concluding one, Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes.Since Ellison himself strongly resists categorization of his work, we won't call them science fiction, or SF, or speculative fiction or horror or anything else except compelling reading experiences that are sui generis. They could only have been written by Harlan Ellison and they are incomparably original.CONTENTS"I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream""Big Sam Was My Friend""Eyes of Dust""World of the Myth""Lonelyache""Delusion for Dragonslayer""Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes"
The Driver's Seat
Muriel Spark - 1970
One day she walks out of her office, acquires a gaudy new outfit, adopts a girlier tone of voice, and heads to the airport to fly south. On the plane she takes a seat between two men. One is delighted with her company, the other is deeply perturbed. So begins an unnerving journey into the darker recesses of human nature.
Angela Carter's Book of Fairy Tales
Angela Carter - 1992
This collection contains lyrical tales, bloody tales and hilariously funny and ripely bawdy stories from countries all around the world - from the Arctic to Asia - and no dippy princesses or soppy fairies. Instead, we have pretty maids and old crones; crafty women and bad girls; enchantresses and midwives; rascal aunts and odd sisters.
Dark Tales
Shirley Jackson - 2016
This collection of classic and newly reprinted stories provides readers with more of her unsettling, dark tales, including the "The Possibility of Evil" and "The Summer People." In these deliciously dark stories, the daily commute turns into a nightmarish game of hide and seek, the loving wife hides homicidal thoughts and the concerned citizen might just be an infamous serial killer. In the haunting world of Shirley Jackson, nothing is as it seems and nowhere is safe, from the city streets to the crumbling country pile, and from the small-town apartment to the dark, dark woods. There's something sinister in suburbia.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.
Doctor Faustus and Other Plays
Christopher Marlowe
This edition offers his five major plays, which show the radicalism and vitality of his writing in the few years before his violent death. Tamburlaine Part One and Part Two deal with the rise to world prominence of the great Scythian shepherd-robber; The Jew of Malta is a drama of villainy and revenge; Edward II was to influence Shakespeare's Richard II. Doctor Faustus, perhaps the first drama taken from the medieval legend of a man who sells his soul to the devil, is here in both its A- and its B- text, showing the enormous and fascinating differences between the two. Under the General Editorship of Dr. Michael Cordner of the University of York, the texts of the plays have been newly edited and are presented with modernized spelling and punctuation. In addition, there is a scholarly introduction and detailed annotation.
Grief is the Thing with Feathers
Max Porter - 2015
Their father, a Ted Hughes scholar and scruffy romantic, imagines a future of well-meaning visitors and emptiness.In this moment of despair they are visited by Crow - antagonist, trickster, healer, babysitter. This self-described sentimental bird is attracted to the grieving family and threatens to stay until they no longer need him. As weeks turn to months and physical pain of loss gives way to memories, this little unit of three begin to heal.In this extraordinary debut - part novella, part polyphonic fable, part essay on grief, Max Porter's compassion and bravura style combine to dazzling effect. Full of unexpected humour and profound emotional truth, Grief is the Thing with Feathers marks the arrival of a thrilling new talent.
While Mortals Sleep: Unpublished Short Fiction
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. - 2011
In these previously unpublished gems, Vonnegut’s originality infuses a unique landscape of factories, trailers, and bars—and characters who pit their dreams and fears against a cruel and sometimes comically indifferent world.Here are stories of men and machines, art and artifice, and how ideals of fortune, fame, and love take curious twists in ordinary lives. An ambitious builder of roads, commanding an army of bulldozers, graders, and asphalt spreaders, fritters away his free time with miniature trains—until the women in his life crash his fantasy land. Trapped in a stenography pool, a young dreamer receives a call from a robber on the run, who presents her with a strange proposition. A crusty newspaperman is forced onto a committee to judge Christmas displays—a job that leads him to a suspiciously ostentatious ex-con and then a miracle. A hog farmer’s widow receives cryptic, unsolicited letters from a man in Schenectady about “the indefinable sweet aches of the spirit.” But what will she find when she goes to meet him in the flesh?These beautifully rendered works are a testament to Vonnegut’s unique blend of observation and imagination. Like a present left behind by a departed loved one, While Mortals Sleep bestows upon us a shimmering Kurt Vonnegut gift: a poignant reflection of our world as it is and as it could be.
Fifty-One Tales
Lord Dunsany - 1915
His fiction is an acknowledged influence on entire generations of writers, ranging from H.P. Lovecraft to James Branch Cabell, from Clark Ashton Smith to Lin Carter. Although many of his most famous stories are longer in length, the miniature portraits of Fifty-One Tales (originally published in 1915 and sometimes reprinted under the title The Food of Death) are an ideal introduction to Dunsany. Nowhere is the jewel-like quality of his prose more evident than in the short tales, seminal works which runs the gamut from whimsy to fantasy to social satire.CONTENTS:"The Assignation" "Charon" "The Death of Pan" "The Sphinx at Gizeh" "The Hen" "Wind and Fog" "The Raft Builders" "The Workman" "The Guest" "Death and Odysseus" "Death and the Orange" "The Prayer of the Flowers" "Time and the Tradesman" "The Little City" "The Unpasturable Fields" "The Worm and the Angel" "The Songless Country" "The Latest Thing" "The Demagogue and the Demi-Monde" "The Giant Poppy" "Roses" "The Man with the Golden Ear-rings" "The Dream of King Karna-Vootra" "The Storm" "A Mistaken Identity" "The True History of the Hare and the Tortoise" "Alone the Immortals" "A Moral Little Tale" "The Return of Song" "Spring in Town" "How the Enemy Came to Thlūnrāna" "A Losing Game" "Taking Up Piccadilly" "After the Fire" "The City" "The Food of Death" "The Lonely Idol" "The Sphinx in Thebes (Massachusetts)" "The Reward" "The Trouble in Leafy Green Street" "Furrow-Maker" "Lobster Salad" "The Return of the Exiles" "Nature and Time" "The Song of the Blackbird" "The Messengers" "The Three Tall Sons" "Compromise" "What We Have Come To" "The Tomb of Pan" "The Poet Speaks With Earth" (English version only) "The Mist" (American version only)
The Man Who Knew Too Much
G.K. Chesterton - 1922
K. Chesterton (1874–1936) is best known as the creator of detective-priest Father Brown (even though Chesterton's mystery stories constitute only a small fraction of his writings). The eight adventures in this classic British mystery trace the activities of Horne Fisher, the man who knew too much, and his trusted friend Harold March. Although Horne's keen mind and powerful deductive gifts make him a natural sleuth, his inquiries have a way of developing moral complications. Notable for their wit and sense of wonder, these tales offer an evocative portrait of upper-crust society in pre–World War I England.
Look at Me
Anita Brookner - 1983
A lonely art historian absorbed in her research seizes the opportunity to share in the joys and pleasures of the lives of a glittering couple, only to find her hopes of companionship and happiness shattered.
The Law and the Lady
Wilkie Collins - 1875
The jury had not evidence enough to convict him -- nor enough to comfortably exonerate him. Eustace could not bear the weight of her discovery; he fled to the continent, to live in anonymity. But Valeria knew her husband, and she loved him. She knew he was innocent, too, with the sort of intuition that guides the lucky flawlessly. And she set out to prove it to the world.
The Lady in the Van: And Other Stories
Alan Bennett - 2000
From his acclaimed story collection Smut to his hilarious and sharply observed The Uncommon Reader, Bennett has consistently remained one of literature's most acute observers of Britain and life's many absurdities.In this new collection, drawn from his wide-ranging career, you'll read some of Bennett's finest work, including the title story, the basis for a new feature film starring Maggie Smith. The book also includes the rollicking comic masterpiece "The Laying on of Hands" and the bittersweet "Father! Father! Burning Bright," Bennett's classic tale of the tense relationship between a man and his dying father.
The Nose
Catherine Cowan - 1836
After disappearing from the Deputy Inspector's face, his nose shows up around town before returning to its proper place.
The Young Visiters
Daisy Ashford - 1919
The notebook containing the novel was rediscovered by her in adult life and sent by a friend to Frank Swinnerton, the English novelist, critic, editor and essayist. Published in 1919 by Chatto and Windus, with its original misspellings and an arch introduction by “Peter Pan” author J. M. Barrie, it was an immediate bestseller. Its child's view of high society (dukes and earls having ‘levies’ and residing in the ‘Crystall Pallace’) and its heavily romantic plot make it an engaging and enduring popular work. Source: jrank.org