Wodehouse's most gloriously funny stories, this is the tale of bumbling Lord Emsworth, whose quiet life reading "The Care Of The Pig" and pottering among the flowers at Blandings Castle is shattered by an outbreak of lawlessness involving his niece Jane (the third prettiest girl in Shropshire), an airgun - and the trouser seat of the abominable Baxter.

    K. Chesterton's Father Brown is both a diminuitive, genial clergyman and a master sleuth. In these two stories involving the ingenious, unobtrusive priest, a murdered man denounces his killer with his dying breaths, and a brilliant French inspector follows a trail of carnage across London.

    but all of a sudden there are newer and better gadgets in the shops.More up-to-date models."William Trevor has been acclaimed as the greatest contemporary writer of short stories in the English language, likened to Chekhov for his insights into human nature. These three tales of obsession, heartbreak, silent sorrow and the small tragedies of ordinary lives are profound, immaculate and beautiful.This book includes The Mark-2 Wife, The Time of Year and Cheating at Canasta.

    The writer Henry Bech travels to Europe on a hapless cultural exchange, first to Russia, where he struggles to spend his money when everything – from his meals to his bugged hotel room – is already paid for, and then to RumaniaThis book includes Rich In Russia, Foreword, Bech in Rumania, Appendix A and Appendix B.

    In these two stories of lives colliding, a mother buying a birthday gift has her dreams destroyed, and a honeymoon leads to an unexpected epiphany.

    But it was fun. And I felt like getting a bit of my own back on some of the people who'd conned and flattered me into wasting all those years.'

    It includes: 'The Magic Paint', 'The Death of Marinese', 'Censorship in Bitinia', and 'Knall'.

    In these nine stories and essays, he considers holidaymakers and stone monuments, tales of war and blackbirds, and the great pathos of a tiny death: a fly's impossible fight against the grip of flypaper.

    When he arrives to New York, finds that everything in his life have been sinking and losses, like his own band and his companion, Ruth. His pilgrimage by the taverns of the city port culminates in a psychiatric hospital, in fact a hell, or a stranded boat, depending on how you look, a prison, where hell share his time and fortune with sailors, drunken, poor and solemnity characters like the old Kalowsky evicted, the young Garry or Battle, the black guy. While watching the boats passing by the East River Bill understands that Dr. Claggart, the psychiatrist who is in care of him, will never heal his sick soul.

    Includes such stories as: 'The Sexes', 'The Lovely Leave', 'The Little Hours', 'Glory in the Daytime' and 'Lolita'.

    'If she concealed so much and knew so much one must prize her open with the first tool that came to hand - the imagination'. Virginia Woolf's writing tested the boundaries of modern fiction, exploring the depths of human consciousness and creating a new language of sensation and thought. Sometimes impressionistic, sometimes experimental, sometimes brutally cruel, sometimes surprisingly warm and funny, these five stories describe love lost, friendships formed and lives questioned. This book includes "The Lady in the Looking Glass", "A Society", "The Mark on the Wall", "Solid Objects" and "Lappin and Lapinova".

    Ludmilla Petrushevskaya has been acclaimed as one of Russia's greatest living writers. These five dreamlike and blackly comic stories, two of which are here in English for the first time, tell of lost children, midnight forests, strange transformations, cruel curses, grief and resilience, in the darkest of modern fairy tales. This book contains "Through the Wall" and "Anna and Maria".

    These four masterly stories of eccentrics, failed prodigies, injustice and hope, written when she was in her twenties, explore the human condition with humour and pathos. This book includes "Wunderkind", "The Jockey", "Madame Zilensky and the King of Finland", "A Tree, A Rock and A Cloud".

    Cold tense nights, exotic weapons, a very unhappy M, and a surprising romance--it's all in a day's work for master spy 007, James Bond.For the audio book, Anthony Valentine reads with a cool, assertive tone and a familiar accent. Both are entirely right for Bond.Librarian's note: this entry relates to the short story "The Living Daylights." It is one of four in the collection, "Octopussy and The Living Daylights." Entries for all nine Bond short stories can be found by searching Goodreads for: "a James Bond Short Story."

    H. Lawrence's short stories portray complex, flawed interior lives, showing individuals facing momentous emotional events. In these two stories of fragile happiness and failed dreams, a tragedy forces a woman to acknowledge that she has never known her husband, and a man blinded in the First World War discovers an unexpected peace. This book includes "Odour of Chrysanthemums" and "The Blind Man".