Past winners and shortlisted authors have included the Pulitzer winners Junot Díaz, Anthony Doerr and Adam Johnson, plus Hilary Mantel, Ali Smith, Yiyun Li, CK Stead and Elizabeth Strout.Six Shorts 2017 brings together the six stories shortlisted for this year's award: ‘Reputation Management’ by Kathleen Alcott; ‘Half of What Atlee Rouse Knows about Horses’ by Bret Anthony Johnston; ‘The Hazel Twig and the Olive Tree’ by Richard Lambert; ‘The Tenant’ by Victor Lodato; ‘Every Little Thing’ by Celeste Ng; and ‘Mr Salary’ by Sally Rooney.Chosen by a hugely experienced and prestigious judging panel that included Booker-winner Anne Enright, Orange- and Whitbread-winner Rose Tremain, Booker-shortlistee Neel Mukherjee and critic and novelist Mark Lawson, the six stories represent the very best in contemporary English-language short fiction.

    The incomparable Lewis Nordan's first two collections of short fiction--WELCOME TO THE ARROW-CATCHER FAIR and THE ALL-GIRL FOOTBALL TEAM--originally published in 1983 and 1986, have long been out of print in all editions. Collectors' items, these two books are now almost impossible for Nordan fans to find anywhere.To rectify that, Algonquin is delighted to announce a selection of fifteen of the best stories from the two books, newly arranged and introduced by fellow Mississippian, bookseller Richard Howorth, and with a foreword by the author. Critics have called Lewis Nordan's fiction "extraordinary" and "marvelous" and "stunning" and "scorching" and "story-telling genius." The selected stories show that genius in the making. "Characters that people the South hobble and dance across the pages of his short stories."--United Press International; "Delightfully eccentric situations and colorful language add up to a work that is even stronger than WOLF WHISTLE."--Library Journal.

    Henry Tuhoe is the quintessential twenty-first-century man. He has a vague, well-compensated job working for a multinational  conglomerate—but everyone around him is getting laid off as the company outsources everything it can to third-world countries. He has a beautiful wife—his college  sweetheart—and an idyllic new home in the leafy suburbs, complete with pool. But his wife won’t let him touch her, even though she demanded he get a vasectomy; he’s seriously overleveraged on the mortgage; and no matter what chemicals he tries the pool remains a corpselike shade of ghastly green. Then Henry’s boss offers him a choice: go to the tiny, magical, about-to-be-globalized Kingdom of Galado to oversee the launch of a new customer-service call center for a boutique bottled water company the conglomerate has just acquired, or lose the job with no severance. Henry takes the transfer, more out of fecklessness than a sense of adventure. In Galado, a land both spiritual and corrupt, Henry wrestles with first-world moral conundrums, the life he left behind, the attention of a steroid-abusing, megalomaniacal monarch, and a woman intent on redeeming both his soul and her country. The result is a riveting piece of fiction of and for our times, blackly satirical, moving, and profound.

    His stories take place at the crossroads of the fantastical, searing, and hilarious. His characters grapple with parenthood and family, war and games, marijuana and cake, memory and love. These stories never go to the expected place, but always surprise, entertain, and move…In "Arctic Lizard," a young boy narrates a post-apocalyptic version of the world where a youth army wages an unending war, rewarded by collecting prizes. A father tries to shield his son from the inevitable in "Fly Already." In "One Gram Short," a guy just wants to get a joint to impress a girl and ends up down a rabbit hole of chaos and heartache. And in the masterpiece "Pineapple Crush," two unlikely people connect through an evening smoke down by the beach, only to have one of them imagine a much deeper relationship.The thread that weaves these pieces together is our inability to communicate, to see so little of the world around us and to understand each other even less.

    

    As the perspective shifts among the characters - spanning fifteen years, returning to Israel and then going back again to the Midwest - Osnat tries (and often fails) to belong. Danit Brown gives us an irreverent portrait of a young woman for whom finding a foothold in the world is an obsession, a challenge, and a great adventure.From the Trade Paperback edition.

    A young military couple faces a future shadowed by injury and untold secrets. A dying alcoholic attempts to reconcile with his estranged children. And an elderly woman's nurse weathers life with her irascible charge by making payments on a decrepit houseboat--the Mattaponi Queen. The land is parceled into lots, work opportunities are few, and the remaining inhabitants must choose between desire and necessity as they navigate the murky stream of possession, love, and everything in between.

    Now the stories alone are available for the first time in trade paperback.

    The exalted, memorable characters in Kirn's acclaimed debut short story col lection confront the real hard bargains in life that spring up from the business of simply living, and Kirn transforms these hard-luck stories into strapping moral lessons which evoke the bonds that unite us all.

    He and his family live an idyllic life of peace and solitude, punctuated by afternoon tea, long strolls in the garden, and summer showers. Or would if they weren't in a Wodehouse story.The apple of Lord Emsworth's eye is the Empress of Blandings, a splendid Berkshire sow who has twice won honors in the Fat Pig class at the local agricultural show. Besides keeping his pig in shape, Emsworth must deal with his sister's snobby demeanor, his brother's crazy memoirs, and a rival pig whose bulk might dash the Empress's hopes of another medal. Throw in a few young lovers and you have yourself a perfect brew of hilarious adventures. Included in this omnibus are Summer Lightning, Heavy Weather, and Blandings Castle. Evelyn Waugh once said, "The gardens of Blandings Castle are that original garden from which we are all exiled. All those who know them long to return."

    Mysterious, funny, insightful, and heartbreaking, these are tales of expatriates and exiles, wise children and straying saints. Together they compose a secret history, at once intimate and panoramic, of modern times.

    All of Edgar's problems become mundane, however, when he and his lesbian Blackfoot nurse's aide best friend, Pat Fillmore, become responsible for the disappearance of their fellow worker, Beverley Fey, after an LSD party gone awry. Ballantine's own brand of delicious quirkiness and storytelling is smooth and compelling, and God Clobbers Us All is guaranteed to satisfy Ballantine fans as well as convert those lucky enough to be discovering his work for the first time.

    He drinks gin out of his coffee cup and has sex dreams about the Holy Ghost. His best friend Eli isn’t perfect either, but he’s a chess genius, so Maloney sees an opportunity in traveling around the country so Eli can win major chess tournament after chess tournament (while Maloney pockets Eli’s winnings). Chased by a blind headhunter named Jack Cataract, the Reverend, his girlfriend, and Eli race across North America and around New York City, from Washington Square Park to a jetski ride to the great green gown of Lady Liberty. In this uproariously funny, unabashedly sexy, and highly-anticipated novel, Michael Bible delivers a devastating story about the American South, chess tournaments, and one debaucherous reverend’s struggle with spirituality. In the spirit of Nicholson Baker and Barry Hannah, Sophia is an adventure with a raunchy and obviously flawed cast of characters, written with enormous heart.From the Trade Paperback edition.

    Ruminations on lardbutts. bra-padders. Good ol'boys and giggling Yankee girls. The joys of white bread and knowing your way around a 1957 Chevrolet. And lots more from one of America's favorite writers.

    Now, with his brilliant portrait of Luce, a young woman who inherits her murdered sister's troubled twins, Frazier has created his most memorable heroine.Before the children, Luce was content with the reimbursements of the rich Appalachian landscape, choosing to live apart from the small community around her. But the coming of the children changes everything, cracking open her solitary life in difficult, hopeful, dangerous ways.Charles Frazier is known for his historical literary odysseys, and for making figures in the past come vividly to life. Set in the twentieth century, Nightwoods resonates with the timelessness of a great work of art.