For Hemingway fans The Complete Short Stories is an invaluable treasury.

    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 Embedded in this primarily journalistic compilation are brand-new short stories, a sheaf of largely unpublished poems, and an offbeat assessment of our divided nation.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.”

    Volume One, presenting the first five writers to receive the award, features the fiction of: Robert A. HeinleinJack WilliamsonClifford D. SimakL. Sprague de CampFritz Leiber

    Martin is a giant in the field of fantasy literature and one of the most exciting storytellers of our time. Now he delivers a rare treat for readers: a compendium of his shorter works, collected into two stunning volumes, that offer fascinating insight into his journey from young writer to award-winning master.Gathered here in Volume I are the very best of George R.R. Martin's early works, including never-before-published fan pieces, his Hugo, Nebula, and Bram Stoker Award-winning stories plus the original novella The Ice Dragon, from which Martin's New York Times bestselling children's book of the same title originated. A dazzling array that features extensive author commentary, Dreamsongs, Volume I, is the perfect collection for both Martin devotees and a new generation of fans.Contents:- Introduction by Gardner Dozois One: A Four-Color Fanboy (2003)- Only Kids Are Afraid of the Dark (1967)- The Fortress (2003)- And Death His Legacy (2003)Two: The Filthy Pro (2003)- The Hero (1971)- The Exit to San Breta (1972)- The Second Kind of Loneliness (1972)- With Morning Comes Mistfall (1973)Three: The Light of Distant Stars (2003)- A Song for Lya (1974)- The Stone City (1977)- This Tower of Ashes (1976)- And Seven Times Never Kill Man (1975)- Bitterblooms (1977)- The Way of Cross and Dragon (1979)Four: The Heirs of Turtle Castle (2003)- The Lonely Songs of Laren Dorr (1976)- The Ice Dragon (1980)- In the Lost Lands (1982)Five: Hybrids and Horrors (2003)- Meathouse Man (1976)- Remembering Melody (1981)- Sandkings (1979)- Nightflyers (1980)- The Monkey Treatment (1983)- The Pear-Shaped Man (1987)

    The preeminent short fiction series since 1915, The Best American Short Stories is the only volume that annually offers the finest works chosen by a distinguished best-selling author.Hermit's story / Rick Bass --Sun, the moon, the stars / Junot Diaz --Mrs. Dutta writes a letter / Chitra Divakaruni --Kansas / Stephen Dobyns --Tumblers / Nathan Englander --Piano tuner / Tim Gautreaux --Uncharted heart / Melissa Hardy --The 5:22 / George Harrar --Islands / A. Hemon --Best girlfriend you never had / Pam Houston --In the kindergarten / Ha Jin --Marry the one who gets there first / Heidi Julavits --Live life king-sized / Hester Kaplan --Africans / Sheila Kohler --Interpreter of maladies / Jhumpa Lahiri --Real estate / Lorrie Moore --Save the reaper / Alice Munro --Bunchgrass edge of the world / Annie Proulx --Robbers of Karnataka / James Spencer --Good shopkeeper / Samrat Upadhyay --Rest of her life / Steve Yarbrough

    S. Pritchett, one of our greatest short story writers, has chosen forty-one stories from nine countries written in the English language for this volume, producing a collection that successfully displays the wealth and variety of an art that spans some 200 years.The United States, Great Britain, and Ireland have fine traditions of short story writing that have developed from the time of Sir Walter Scott and Nathaniel Hawthorne. In the twentieth century the art was perfected by Ernest Hemingway, D. H. Lawrence, W. Somerset Maugham, John Updike, and V. S. Pritchett himself. Other contributions in the book come from such masters as James Joyce, Mark Twain, Henry James, Rudyard Kipling, Frank O'Connor, H. E. Bates, William Trevor, and Liam O'Flaherty. Now, the collection of short story masters extends to Canadian, Indian, New Zealander, and Australian writers, who show in the works included here the full range of invention and ability in a genre that continues to flourish.

    His work bears special resonance for writers and readers, and yet his paintings never tell a story so much as they invite viewers to find for themselves the untold stories within."So says Lawrence Block, who has invited seventeen outstanding writers to join him in an unprecedented anthology of brand-new stories: In Sunlight or In Shadow. The results are remarkable and range across all genres, wedding literary excellence to storytelling savvy.Contributors include Stephen King, Joyce Carol Oates, Robert Olen Butler, Michael Connelly, Megan Abbott, Craig Ferguson, Nicholas Christopher, Jill D. Block, Joe R. Lansdale, Justin Scott, Kris Nelscott, Warren Moore, Jonathan Santlofer, Jeffery Deaver, Lee Child, and Lawrence Block himself. Even Gail Levin, Hopper’s biographer and compiler of his catalogue raisonée, appears with her own first work of fiction, providing a true account of art theft on a grand scale and told in the voice of the country preacher who perpetrated the crime.In a beautifully produced anthology as befits such a collection of acclaimed authors, each story is illustrated with a quality full-color reproduction of the painting that inspired it.

    Award-winning and best-selling author Junot Díaz guest edits this year’s The Best American Short Stories, the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction.

    Kipling is considered one of England's greatest writers, but was born in Bombay. He was educated in England, but returned to India in 1882, where he began writing fantasy and supernatural stories set in his native continent: "The Phantom Rickshaw," "The Strange Ride of Morrowbie Jukes," and his most famous horror story, "The Mark of the Beast" (1890). This masterwork collection, edited by Stephen Jones (Britain's most accomplished and acclaimed anthologist) for the first time collects all of Kipling's fantastic fiction, ranging from traditional ghostly tales to psychological horror.

     Foreword --Introduction / Louise Erdrich --Playing with dynamite / John Updike --The girl on the plane / Mary Gaitskill --A real life / Alice Munro --Silent passengers / Larry Woiwode --Queen Wintergreen / Alice Fulton --The man who rowed Christopher Columbus ashore / Harlan Ellison --Poltergeists / Jane Shapiro --Red moccasins / Susan Power --I want to live! / Thom Jones --Charlotte / Tony Early --What the thunder said / Janet Peery --Naked ladies / Antonya Nelson --Man, woman and boy / Stephen Dixon --Winter barley / Andrea Lee --Concerning mold upon the skin, etc. / Joanna Scott --Pray without ceasing / Wendell Berry --Gold / Kim Edwards --Great Barrier Reef / Diane Johnson --Terrific mother / Lorrie Moore --The important houses / Mary Gordon --Contributor's notes --100 other distinguished stories of 1992 --Editorial addresses of American and Canadian magazines publishing short stories

    The accidental near-drowning of a child exposes the fragility of the trust between children and parents. A young man, remembering a terrifying childhood incident, wrestles with the responsibility he has always felt for his younger brother. In these and other stories Alice Munro proves once again a sensitive and compassionate chronicler of our times. Drawing us into the most intimate corners of ordinary lives, she reveals much about ourselves, our choices, and our experiences of love.

    “I am looking for the artful way any given story is conveyed,” writes Roxane Gay in her introduction to The Best American Short Stories 2018, “but I also love when a story has a powerful message, when a story teaches me something about the world.” The artful, profound, and sometimes funny stories Gay chose for the collection transport readers from a fraught family reunion to an immigration detention center, from a psychiatric hospital to a coed class sleepover in a natural history museum. We meet a rebellious summer camper, a Twitter addict, and an Appalachian preacher—all characters and circumstances that show us what we “need to know about the lives of others.”

    With the help of the entire creative collective, Gordon-Levitt culled, edited and curated over 8,500 contributions into this finely tuned collection of original art from 67 contributors. Reminiscent of the 6-Word Memoir series, The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories: Volume 1 brings together art and voices from around the world to unite and tell stories that defy size.

    These short shorts, usually no more than 750 words, range from linear narratives to the more unusual: stories based on mathematical forms, a paragraph-length novel, a scientific report on volcanic fireflies that proliferate in nightclubs. Flash has always—and everywhere—been a form of experiment, of possibility. A new entry in the lauded Flash and Sudden Fiction anthologies, this collection includes 86 of the most beautiful, provocative, and moving narratives by authors from six continents, including best-selling writer Etgar Keret, Zimbabwean writer Petina Gappah, Korean screenwriter Kim Young-ha, Nobel Prize winner Czeslaw Milosz, and Argentinian “Queen of the Microstory” Ana María Shua, among many others. These brilliantly chosen stories challenge readers to widen their vision and celebrate both the local and the universal.

    Featuring the conclusions to Issue 57's cliffhanger stories by Booker Prize nominee Oyinkan Braithwaite, Brian Evanson, and Mona Awad.