Book picks similar to
The Fourth State of Matter by Jo Ann Beard


nonfiction
short-stories
short-story
non-fiction

More Stories We Tell: The Best Contemporary Short Stories by North American Women


Wendy Martin - 2004
    The second collection drawn together by editor Wendy Martin, these twenty-four exquisite examples of contemporary writing feature stories by Joyce Carol Oates, Margaret Atwood, Mary Gaitskill, Alice Munro, Sandra Cisneros, and Lorrie Moore (to name a few).We Are the Stories We Tell is also available from Pantheon.

The Diary of a Young Girl


Anne Frank - 1947
    In 1942, with the Nazis occupying Holland, a thirteen-year-old Jewish girl and her family fled their home in Amsterdam and went into hiding. For the next two years, until their whereabouts were betrayed to the Gestapo, the Franks and another family lived cloistered in the “Secret Annexe” of an old office building. Cut off from the outside world, they faced hunger, boredom, the constant cruelties of living in confined quarters, and the ever-present threat of discovery and death. In her diary Anne Frank recorded vivid impressions of her experiences during this period. By turns thoughtful, moving, and surprisingly humorous, her account offers a fascinating commentary on human courage and frailty and a compelling self-portrait of a sensitive and spirited young woman whose promise was tragically cut short.--back cover

Psychology in Action


Karen Huffman - 1987
    To meet it, you need a fully integrated text and supplements package that sets the stage for a perfectly choreographed learning experience.

Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft


Janet Burroway - 1987
    A bestseller through six editions, Writing Fiction by novelists Janet Burroway and Elizabeth Stuckey-French explores the elements of fiction, providing practical writing techniques and concrete examples. Written in a tone that is personal and non-prescriptive, the text encourages students to develop proficiency through each step of the writing process, offering an abundance of exercises designed to spur writing and creativity. The text also integrates diverse, contemporary short stories in every chapter in the belief that the reading of inspiring fiction goes hand-in-hand with the writing of fresh and exciting stories.

The Landlady


Roald Dahl - 1959
    Here, a young man in need of room meets a most accommodating landlady...The Landlady is taken from the short story collection Kiss Kiss, which includes ten other devious and shocking stories, featuring the wife who pawns the mink coat from her lover with unexpected results; the priceless piece of furniture that is the subject of a deceitful bargain; a wronged woman taking revenge on her dead husband, and others.

Growing Up Asian in Australia


Alice PungAnnette Shun Wah - 2008
    In this collection, compiled by award-winning author Alice Pung, they tell their own stories with verve, courage and a large dose of humour. These are not predictable tales of food, festivals and traditional dress. The food is here in all its steaming glory - but listen more closely to the dinner-table chatter and you might be surprised by what you hear.Here are tales of leaving home, falling in love, coming out and finding one's feet. A young Cindy Pan vows to win every single category of Nobel Prize. Tony Ayres blows a kiss to a skinhead and lives to tell the tale. Benjamin Law has a close encounter with some angry Australian fauna, and Kylie Kwong makes a moving pilgrimage to her great-grandfather's Chinese village.Here are well-known authors and exciting new voices, spanning several generations and drawn from all over Australia. In sharing their stories, they show us what it is really like to grow up Asian, and Australian.Contributors include: Shaun Tan, Jason Yat-Sen Li, John So, Annette Shun Wah, Quan Yeomans, Jenny Kee, Anh Do, Khoa Do, Caroline Tran and many more.

Cambodia


Brian Fawcett - 1986
     Through thirteen wildly imaginative short stories and a passional essay on colonialism and Southeast Asia, Cambodia: A Book for People Who Find Television Too Slow startles, amuses, and infuriates its readers with juxtaposed images and penetrating insights into the media jungle. Like subtitles read in a foreign film, the pace of Brian Fawcett’s intoxicating prose accelerates quickly and unfolds right before the readers eyes until it is moving more swiftly than the imagines on the evening moves. Passion stirs in the pages of Fawcett’s book, urging readers to resist the annihilation of memory and imagination in our society.

They Cage the Animals at Night


Jennings Michael Burch - 1984
    This is the story of how he grew up and gained the courage to reach out for love.

This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life


David Foster Wallace - 2009
    The speech is reprinted for the first time in book form in THIS IS WATER. How does one keep from going through their comfortable, prosperous adult life unconsciously? How do we get ourselves out of the foreground of our thoughts and achieve compassion? The speech captures Wallace's electric intellect as well as his grace in attention to others. After his death, it became a treasured piece of writing reprinted in The Wall Street Journal and the London Times, commented on endlessly in blogs, and emailed from friend to friend.Writing with his one-of-a-kind blend of causal humor, exacting intellect, and practical philosophy, David Foster Wallace probes the challenges of daily living and offers advice that renews us with every reading.

A Hunger Artist


Franz Kafka - 1924
    He edited the manuscript just before his death, and these four stories are some of his best known and most powerful work, marking his maturity as a writer. In addition to "First Sorrow," "A Little Woman," and "Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse People" is the title story, "A Hunger Artist," which has been called by the critic Heinz Politzer "a perfection, a fatal fulfillment that expresses Kafka's desire for permanence." The three volumes Twisted Spoon Press has published: Contemplation, A Country Doctor, and A Hunger Artist are the collections of stories that Kafka had published during his lifetime. Though each volume has its own distinctive character, they have most often appeared in English in collected editions. They are presented here as separate editions, in new translations by Kevin Blahut, each with its own illustrator from the Prague community.

The Diary of Anne Frank: And Related Readings


Frances Goodrich - 1955
    There are 10 reading parts.

Half a Life


Darin Strauss - 2010
    We follow Strauss as he explores his startling past-collision life - the funeral, the queasy drama of a high-stakes court case? and what starts as a personal tale of a tragic event opens into the story of how to live with a very hard fact: we can try our human best in the crucial moment, and it might not be good enough. Half a Life is a nakedly honest, ultimately hopeful examination of guilt, responsibility, and living with the past.

Cathedral


Raymond Carver - 1983
    . . . Carver is a writer of astonishing compassion and honesty. . . . his eye set only on describing and revealing the world as he sees it. His eye is so clear, it almost breaks your heart” (Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post Book World).From the eBook edition.

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God


Jonathan Edwards - 1741
    Many have said it is the most famous sermon ever preached. The sermon was first delivered in Enfield, MA on July 8, 1741. The sermon had an amazing impact on the audience.

Sofia Petrovna


Lydia Chukovskaya - 1965
    Sofia is a Soviet Everywoman, a doctor's widow who works as a typist in a Leningrad publishing house. When her beloved son is caught up in the maelstrom of the purge, she joins the long lines of women outside the prosecutor's office, hoping against hope for any good news. Confronted with a world that makes no moral sense, Sofia goes mad, a madness which manifests itself in delusions little different from the lies those around her tell every day to protect themselves. Sofia Petrovna offers a rare and vital record of Stalin's Great Purges.