Book picks similar to
The Blue Moon Day by Santhosh Sivaraj


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Show Them a Good Time


Nicole Flattery - 2019
    Show Them a Good Time tells the stories of women slotted away into restrictive roles: the celebrity's girlfriend, the widower's second wife, the lecherous professor's student, the corporate employee. And yet, the genius of Flattery's characters is to blithely demolish the boundaries of these limited and limiting social types with immense complexity and caustic intelligence. Nicole Flattery's women are too ferociously mordant, too painfully funny to remain in their places.In this fiercely original and blazingly brilliant debut, Flattery likewise deconstructs the conventions of genre to serve up strange realities: In Not the End Yet, Flattery probes the hilarious and wrenching ambivalence of Internet dating as the apocalypse nears; in Sweet Talk, the mysterious disappearance of a number of local women sets the scene for a young girl to confront the dangerous uncertainties of her own sexuality; in this collection's center piece, Abortion, A Love Story, two college students in a dystopian campus reconfigure the perilous stories of their bodies in a fraught academic culture to offer a subversive, alarming, and wickedly funny play that takes over their own offstage lives. And yet, however surreal or richly imagined the setting, Flattery always shows us these strange worlds from startlingly unexpected angles, through an unforgettable cast of brutally honest, darkly hilarious women and girls.Like the stories of Mary Gaitskill, Miranda July, Lorrie Moore, Joy Williams, and Ottessa Moshfegh, Show Them a Good Time is the work of a profoundly resonant and revelatory literary voice – at once spiky, humane, achingly hilarious-- that is sure to echo through the literary culture for decades to come.

Love and Longing in Bombay


Vikram Chandra - 1997
    Critics around the world have embraced the book as a major work by this exciting young writer.

God Is an Iron and Other Stories


Spider Robinson - 2002
    Campbell Award for Best New Writer, Locus Awards for Best Novella and Best Critic, and numerous other awards. Twenty-four of his 30 books are still in print, in 10 languages. His short work has appeared in magazines around the planet, from Omni and Analog to Xhurnal Izobretatel i Rationalizator (Moscow), and in numerous anthologies. His most recent books are the novels Callahan's Key, and The Free Lunch.Contents:God Is an Iron (1979)In the Olden Days (1984)Local Champ (1979)Melancholy Elephants (1982)Not Fade Away (1982)Orphans of Eden (1996)Rubber Soul (1982)Soul Search (1979)Stardance (1977) with Jeanne RobinsonThe Magnificent Conspiracy (1977)

Because You Love to Hate Me: 13 Tales of Villainy


AmerieSamantha Shannon - 2017
    No fairy tale will ever seem quite the same again!Featuring writing from . . .Authors: Renée Ahdieh, Ameriie, Soman Chainani, Susan Dennard, Sarah Enni, Marissa Meyer, Cindy Pon, Victoria Schwab, Samantha Shannon, Adam Silvera, Andrew Smith, April Genevieve Tucholke, and Nicola YoonBookTubers: Benjamin Alderson (Benjaminoftomes), Sasha Alsberg (abookutopia), Whitney Atkinson (WhittyNovels), Tina Burke (ChristinaReadsYA blog and TheLushables), Catriona Feeney (LittleBookOwl), Jesse George (JessetheReader), Zoë Herdt (readbyzoe), Samantha Lane (Thoughts on Tomes), Sophia Lee (thebookbasement), Raeleen Lemay (padfootandprongs07), Regan Perusse (PeruseProject), Christine Riccio (polandbananasBOOKS), and Steph Sinclair & Kat Kennedy (Cuddlebuggery blog and channel).

Walking to Aldebaran


Adrian Tchaikovsky - 2019
    Clarke award-winning Adrian TchaikovskyMy name is Gary Rendell. I’m an astronaut. When they asked me as a kid what I wanted to be when I grew up, I said, “astronaut, please!” I dreamed astronaut, I worked astronaut, I studied astronaut.I got lucky; when a probe sent out to explore the Oort Cloud found a strange alien rock and an international team of scientists was put together to go and look at it, I made the draw.I got even luckier. When disaster hit and our team was split up, scattered through the endless cold tunnels, I somehow survived.Now I’m lost, and alone, and scared, and there’s something horrible in here.Lucky me.Lucky, lucky, lucky.

Tales from Valleyview Cemetery


John Brhel - 2015
    A father hears strange voices on his daughter's baby monitor. A trio of gravediggers faces a swarm of supernatural creatures. A group of teenagers puts a mausoleum legend to the test. A husband and wife take a stroll through a corn maze that they'll never forget. Tales From Valleyview Cemetery contains seventeen interconnected tales of terror -- legends of a town and cemetery entrenched in occult practice, macabre history, and a demon elemental waiting for his people's return. A collection of short horror stories written in the vein of the "Scary Stories To Tell in the Dark" books.

Dreams in Black Static: Eight Stories


Ambrose Ibsen - 2020
    After watching it, one of them vanishes...A heart transplant recipient gets much more than he bargained for when he digs into his donor's sinister past...Mourning the death of their son, a young couple is plunged into madness after encountering something otherworldly in the wilderness...DREAMS IN BLACK STATIC is a collection of eight terrifying stories by Ambrose Ibsen, author of The Haunting of Beacon Hill and Asylum. The tales included are:"Me and Mr. Ray" **"Decatur Road" **"Dreams in Black Static" **"Distortional Addict" **"Trim" **"Subterrane Dream" **"Orchard""The Uncanny" **** = Appearing in print for the first time

Malgudi Days


R.K. Narayan - 1943
    K. Narayan’s centennialIntroducing this collection of stories, R. K. Narayan describes how in India “the writer has only to look out of the window to pick up a character and thereby a story.” Composed of powerful, magical portraits of all kinds of people, and comprising stories written over almost forty years, Malgudi Days presents Narayan’s imaginary city in full color, revealing the essence of India and of human experience. This edition includes an introduction by Pulitzer Prize- winning author Jhumpa Lahiri. 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.

Two and Twenty Dark Tales: Dark Retellings of Mother Goose Rhymes


Nina BerryGretchen McNeil - 2012
    The dark twists on classic tales range from exploring whether Jack truly fell or if Jill pushed him instead to why Humpty Dumpty, fragile and alone, sat atop so high of a wall. The authors include Nina Berry, Sarwat Chadda, Leigh Fallon, Gretchen McNeil, and Suzanne Young.

'50sVille


Paul Ibbetson - 2014
    In this strange place, only a select few people ever leave the city limits and even then, they leave reluctantly. This is what fifteen and a half year old Benjamin Granault faces as, through a string of amazing events, he finds himself living in a town where he can never talk about modern technology or current events, a place where being an outsider can cost a person his life and being part of the community may very well cost more. Follow the adventures of Benjamin Granault in ‘50sVille, the strangest town Indiana has ever been unaware of.

I Tagged Her in My Heart


Anuj Tiwari - 2017
    We repair them. They get a new shape. Perhaps a new identity. This applies to love as well. Because you are yours before you are someone else’s. But what happens when we fall or fail in love?After two heartbreaks, Adrika, a fiercely independent career-girl, changes her hashtag on Instagram to #HappyGoLucky and dreams become her priority. Arjun, the workaholic and socially inept, struggles with his weakness for Dimpy Aunty’s daughter Anushka and his hesitation in sharing heartaches and emotional baggage. Into this mess, steps in Dimpy Aunty, an unlikely saviour, with all her quirks and jauntiness, steering them through rough patches in unlikely ways as only she can.Insightful, bold and witty, I Tagged Her in My Heart is based on a true story that will inspire many to look at the sunny side of life when faced with darkness.

Things Undone


Travis Liebert - 2020
    All things unknown and unknowable are coming to light... Strange creatures wander the dark canopies of Germany's Black Forest. A young boy harbors something both dark and divine within him. A man learns to control his dreams, only to find an ancient evil imprisoned within them. Something lurks in the shadows of a woman's house, and it wants her baby. All of these things and more in this riveting new collection of 18 terrifying cosmic and paranormal tales. Get it now and discover the terrors that lurk within.

The New Voices of Fantasy


Peter S. BeagleAmal El-Mohtar - 2017
    The New Voices of Fantasy tethers some of the fastest-rising talents of the last five years. Their tales were hand-picked by the legendary Peter S. Beagle (The Last Unicorn) and genre expert Jacob Weisman (The Treasury of the Fantastic).So go ahead, join the Communist revolution of the honeybees. The new kids got your back.

Pieces Like Pottery


Dan Buri - 2015
    In this distinct selection of stories marked by struggle and compassion, Pieces Like Pottery is a powerful examination of the sorrows of life, the strength of character, the steadfast of courage, and the resiliency of love requisite to find redemption. Filled with graceful insight into the human condition, each linked story presents a tale of loss and love mirroring themes from each of the five Sorrowful Mysteries. In Expect Dragons, James Hinri learns that his old high school teacher is dying. Wanting to tell Mr. Smith one last time how much his teaching impacted him, James drives across the country revisiting past encounters with his father's rejection and the pain of his youth. Disillusioned and losing hope, little did James know that Mr. Smith had one final lesson for him. In The Gravesite, Lisa and Mike's marriage hangs in the balance after the disappearance of their only son while backpacking in Thailand. Mike thinks the authorities are right--that Chris fell to his death in a hiking accident--but Lisa has her doubts. Her son was too strong to die this young, and no one can explain to her why new posts continue to appear on her son's blog. Twenty-Two looks in on the lives of a dock worker suffering from the guilt of a life not lived and a bartender making the best of each day, even though he can see clearly how his life should have been different. The two find their worlds collide when a past tragedy shockingly connects them. A collection of nine stories, each exquisitely written and charged with merciful insight into the trials of life, Pieces Like Pottery reminds us of the sorrows we all encounter in life and the kindness we receive, oftentimes from the unlikeliest of places.

The King's Harvest


Chetan Raj Shrestha - 2013
    At first, the murder seems an open-and-shut case to Dechen, the tough, foul- mouthed, prickly lady cop in charge of the investigation. But as she begins to delve into the lives of Kamala and Puran, she discovers a world of lies, deceit and love gone wrong, where nothing is as it seems, and the guilt of murderers is difficult to establish.On a day of endless rain, a man emerges from thirty-two years of isolation to meet his king, whom he owes a share of the harvest from his fields. Journeying across leech-infested forests and forbidding valleys, he tells his children the story of his life one that has been full of drama and magic. But the biggest miracle of all awaits him in Gangtok...These two novellas, united by their strong sense of place, showcase Chetan Raj Shresthas enormous gifts as a storyteller. Magical, gritty, nerve-wracking and stylish in equal measure, this is an exceptional debut.