Chroma


Frederick Barthelme - 1987
    Frederick Barthelme creates an unforgettably wistful cast of characters, ordinary people moving carefully and curiously through a gently painful world.

Collected Stories


Gabriel García Márquez - 1983
    Combining mysticism, history, and humor, the stories in this collection span more than two decades, illuminating the development of Marquez's prose and exhibiting the themes of family, poverty, and death that resound throughout his fiction.

Apples from the Desert: Selected Stories


Savyon Liebrecht - 1986
    Apples From the Desert brings together Liebrecht’s most vivid and affecting work and makes it available in English for the first time.With a precision and a subtle ferocity reminiscent of the work of Nadine Gordimer, Liebrecht’s stories reveal the impact of larger social and political conflicts within the private worlds of home and family. She depicts the personal tragedies—and the small acts of courage and reconciliation—that grow from the deep-rooted conflict between Arabs and Jews, women and men, and older and younger generations in present-day Israel. These stories create a finely nuanced portrait of contemporary Israel; at the same time, they reach toward truths that know no national boundaries. As Lily Rattok writes in her introduction, “Liebrecht’s skill as a writer, combined with her perceptiveness, her compassion, and her deep humanity, create a body of work that is a testament to the healing power of storytelling.”

The Collected Stories


Alexander Pushkin - 1828
    In both prose and verse, Pushkin was one of the world’s great storytellers: direct and dramatic, clear-sighted, vivid, and passionate.This new and expanded Everyman’s edition of his stories includes all the mature work. In addition to such novella-length masterpieces as The Captain’s Daughter and The Tales of Belkin the collection now contains many more short pieces and the masterly History of Pugachev, a powerful account of the man who rebelled against Catherine the Great.

The Overcoat and Other Short Stories


Nikolai Gogol - 1836
    Four works by great 19th-century Russian author - "The Nose," a savage satire of Russia's incompetent bureaucrats; "Old-Fashioned Farmers," a pleasant depiction of an elderly couple living in rustic seclusion; "The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarrelled with Ivan Nikiforovich," one of Gogol's most famous comic stories; and "The Overcoat," widely considered a masterpiece of form.

Controlled Burn: Stories of Prison, Crime, and Men


Scott Wolven - 2005
    Scott Wolven is such a talent, and his raw, blistering tales of hard-bitten convicts, dodgy informers, and men running from the law make for "the most exciting, authentic collection of short stories I have read in years," says George Pelecanos. Brooding, edgy, and sometimes violent, Controlled Burn's loosely linked stories are each in some way a distillation of hard time -- spent either in prison, the backwoods of Vermont, or the badlands of the American West. Peopled by boxers, drunks, truck drivers, murderers, bounty hunters, drifters traveling under assumed names, and men whose luck ran out a thousand miles ago, these stories feel hard-won from life, and if they are moody and stark, so too are they filled with human longing. Controlled Burn is divided into two sections: "The Northeast Kingdom" and "The Fugitive West." In each, Scott Wolven reveals a broken world where there is no bottom left to hit. In the haunting "Outside Work Detail," convicts stoically dig graves for their fellow prisoners yet reserve their deepest grief for the senseless death of a deer. "Crank" introduces Red Green, a maniacally brilliant addict who brews his own crystal meth in a backwoods lab, and whose high-energy antics inspire both cautious admiration and mortal fear in his business associates. In "Ball Lightning Reported," Red Green's ultimate fate is revealed. In "Atomic Supernova," a revenge-obsessed sheriff deputizes a known cop-killer to help him hunt down a counterfeiter and drug lord. The unexpectedly tender and heartbreaking "The Copper Kings" concerns a father facing the dark truth behind his son's disappearance. And in "Vigilance," a hunted man struggles to escape his past, always yearning for an honorable yet perhaps unreachable future. Powered by a spare, ruminative prose style that recalls the best of Denis Johnson and Thom Jones, Controlled Burn is an unforgettable debut.

The SFWA Grand Masters 1


Frederik Pohl - 1999
    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

Dark Screams: Volume Eight


Richard Chizmar - 2017
    WALPUSKI’S TYPEWRITER by Frank Darabont They say that genius is ten percent inspiration and ninety percent perspiration. For Howard Walpuski, it’s an IBM Selectric II typewriter, a nefarious secret, and a whole lot of blood. THE BOY by Bentley Little Christine has found the perfect neighborhood to raise her family: a quaint, quiet, friendly place where everyone gets along. Everyone, that is, except for the boy. TUMOR by Benjamin Percy He dodged death in the nick of time when the golf ball-sized tumor was surgically removed from his head. But the tumor isn’t done with him. TWISTED AND GNARLED by Billie Sue Mosiman He’s smart. Smarter than anyone knows. No one has linked him to the string of bodies he’s left up and down the California coast. Only one woman has ever come close—and she’s no match for his intellect. THE PALAVER by Kealan Patrick Burke It’s time for Oscar Dennihy to close his failing barber shop and retire—until a mysterious customer tells him a truly hair-raising tale . . . and gives Oscar a wonderful and terrible new purpose. INDIA BLUE by Glen Hirshberg Like most Americans, Enrico never gave much thought to the sport of cricket. Not until America’s Rockin’ Professional Cricket game—a spectacle that will live forever in his most horrible nightmares. Praise for the Dark Screams series “A wicked treat [featuring] . . . some of the genre’s best.”—Hellnotes, on Volume One “Five fun-to-read stories by top-notch horror scribes. How can you lose? The answer: you can’t.”—Atomic Fangirl, on Volume Two “If you have not tried the series yet, do yourself a favor and grab a copy of any (or all) of the books for yourself.”—Examiner.com, on Volume Three “Fans of horror of every variety will find something to love in these pages.”—LitReactor, on Volume Four “[Volume Five] runs the gamut from throwback horror to lyrical and heartbreaking tales.”—Publishers Weekly

A Tomb for Boris Davidovich


Danilo Kiš - 1976
    The characters in these stories are caught in a world of political hypocrisy, which ultimately leads to death, their common fate. Although the stories Kis tells are based on historical events, the beauty and precision of his prose elevates these ostensibly true stories into works of literary art that transcend the politics of their time.

Palm-of-the-Hand Stories


Yasunari Kawabata - 1971
    In them we find loneliness, love, and the passage of time, demonstrating the range and complexity of a true master of short fiction.

The Osage Orange Tree: A Story by William Stafford


William Stafford - 2014
    The narrator recalls a girl he once knew. He and Evangeline, both shy, never find the courage to speak to each other in high school. Every evening, however, Evangeline meets him at the Osage orange tree on the edge of her property. He delivers a newspaper to her, and they talk—and as the year progresses a secret friendship blossoms. This magical coming-of-age tale is brought to life through linocut illustrations by Oregon artist Dennis Cunningham, with an afterword by poet Naomi Shihab Nye, a personal friend of Stafford’s.In the tradition of the work of great fiction writers like Steinbeck, O’Connor, and Welty, The Osage Orange Tree stands the test of time, not just as an ode to a place and a generation but as a testament to the resilience of a nation and the strength of the human heart.

The Collected Stories


Colette - 1958
    of the one hundred stories gathered here, thirty-one appear for the first time in English and another twenty-nine have been newly translated for this volume.

In Dreams Begin Responsibilities and Other Stories


Delmore Schwartz - 1938
    Eight stories portray the world of the New York intellectual during the 1930's and 1940's, probing the conflict between ambitious, educated youths and their immigrant parents.

Bedlam Boy: The Forger & The Traitor


Ian W. Sainsbury - 2020
    Sainsbury. Two short, punchy, action-packed episodes in each book.They murdered his parents, shot him in the head, and left him to die. They should have made sure.Twenty years after Tom Lewis watched his parents die, those responsible are being killed. One by one.Gentle, brain-damaged Tom, a giant of a man who can barely speak, can’t be responsible for their deaths. Can he?When Tom Lewis was shot, something new was created. Something unique. Something deadly. Something patient enough to plan revenge for twenty long years.Meet Bedlam Boy

The Collected Stories


Grace Paley - 1994
    Whether writing about the love (and conflict) between parents and children or between husband and wife, or about the struggles of aging single mothers or disheartened political organizers to make sense of the world, she brings the same unerring ear for the rhythm of life as it is actually lived.The Collected Stories is a 1994 National Book Award Finalist for Fiction.