Tales of Wandering Hearts
Sometimes, all we need is a collection of short stories to help us escape-just for a while-from the noise, uncertainty, and heaviness of the world around us. In times of doubt or despair, stories have the power to transport us to entirely different worlds, offering moments of peace, imagination, and clarity. Whether you're looking for comfort, adventure, or simply a new perspective, short stories can provide a much-needed breath of fresh air.This book brings together a rich and diverse collection of short stories from writers of different backgrounds, each with a unique voice and style. From tales rooted in modern Emirati life to stories set in fantastical worlds or distant futures, from touching narratives grounded in reality to bold explorations of the unknown-there's something here for every kind of reader.You'll find yourself immersed in a wide variety of genres, including contemporary fiction, fantasy, science fiction, and modern Western settings. Each story offers a new window into the human experience, reflecting the creativity and imagination of its author.Join us on this literary journey, and let these stories introduce you to new worlds, new ideas, and new ways of seeing.
I-96
Like cars snaking down the interstate, Judith Roof's I-96 offers a contemporary collection of singular yet connected short stories fueled by America's lifeblood: individualism and gasoline.Roof's incendiary wit and sly commentary poke at the "-isms" driving our collective road rage . . . regional and political stereotypes, gender and sexual anxieties, parenting and policing, anti-intellectualism and aging, and the being and nothingness that comprise the human condition.In the vein of Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Franz Kafka, Jean Shepherd, and others, just when the protagonists let off the gas, a twist in the route sparks chaos and collision, with others as well as ourselves.I-96 unfolds traditional literary maps to travel new paths - trapping its characters and readers alike in moving vehicles on this never-ending highway - ever isolated but also refusing the share the road.
"The Oath" and other short stories
Short stories are a unique genre where the concentration of time and events creates a condensed intensity, offering endless opportunities for exploration.The four short tales collected here under one cover are all thematically different from one another. The only thread connecting them is a shared geography: each takes place in Russia during various periods of the 20th century.The English translations are followed by the original texts in Russian.The Oath, the story that gives its name to this collection, recounts a dramatic event that unfolds during the protagonist's mandatory military service in the northern reaches of Russia.The Red Triangle is a triptych of three short historical vignettes focusing on Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin-key figures of the Soviet Bolshevik Revolution and its aftermath. These individuals played monumental roles in shaping the country's history, and their importance cannot be overstated.The Evil Sorceress tells the tale of an aging former stage actress whose mundane daily life is suddenly disrupted, bringing forth vivid memories of her long-forgotten childhood in the wake of unexpected events.Finally, The Idealist reflects the tragic experiences of a generation captivated by the bright promises of Bolshevik socialism, only to be shattered by the oppressive force of Stalin's tyrannical rule. His reign of terror forever altering the lives of several generations of Russians.
Fantasy and Reality
Imaginative stories for casual reading by busy people, ranging from micro-stories to more conventional reads, covering historical facts reappraised, ordinary things reperceived, mind-stretching fantasy, and the downright fantastical.
Lake Effect
Winner of the 2024 Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction, selected by Lauren GroffA debut collection about the wild and hidden places in nature and the heart From Seattle to Istanbul, Lake Effect, the debut short story collection by Hillary Behrman, takes you to unmapped mountain ranges, wild urban places and the outskirts of a desert outpost dissecting the many ways we love, labor and isolate ourselves from one another. In these stories characters are rarely headed where they want to be: Paula's real and dream life become indistinguishable. Oliver can't shed the hold of family lore as he negotiates his love affair with Daniel. Siblings, Alex and Marcie, are comforted and scraped raw by intimacy as they traverse the years from juvenile vandalism to a labor and delivery gone terribly wrong. Miles searches for his mother in a homeless encampment beneath a maze of freeways. These stories exist at the intersection of social isolation and fierce intimacies and call into question the limits of our well-intentioned efforts to care for each other.
Nocturnal Apparitions
A gorgeous collection from cult classic Polish author Bruno Schulz: 15 of the most captivatingly strange and beautiful short stories ever written. "An accessible, exhilarating introduction to Schulz's oeuvre." --Washington Post Beloved by famous authors from Salman Rushdie to Jonathan Safran Foer, Bruno Schulz remains one of the great transformers of the ordinary into the fantastical. The stories in this collection are rich, tangled, and suffused with mystery and wonder. In the narrowing, winding city streets, strange figures roam. Great flocks of birds soar over rooftops, obscuring the sun. Cockroaches appear through cracks and scuttle across floorboards. Individuals careen from university buildings to dimly lit parlor rooms, through strange shops and endless storms. These 15 stories provide an exciting, accessible introduction to Schulz's work, from mesmerizing classics like "August" and "The Age of Genius," to the hidden gem "Undula," a recently discovered story believed to be Schulz's first-ever published work. Set in a phantasmagoric version of the Eastern European city where the author was born and died, they showcase Schulz's darkly modern sensibility, crowded with moments of stunning beauty. What emerges is a nightmarish reality where the boundaries of time and space are compromised and made strange. A cult classic author whose career was tragically cut short by his murder during World War II, the world of Schulz's imagination - overpowering and utterly unique - is ripe for rediscovery.
Life in Colour
In this short story collection, join this ragtag cast of loveable characters on their journeys to finding their happily-ever-afters.A World in BlueOliver writes about the happily-ever-afters he doesn't believe in. Blue wants to prove to him they do exist, if only he chooses to turn the page.When Skies are GreyEli thinks he's notorious for ruining everything he touches-food, plants, and especially relationships. But then he meets Grey, the person his best friends swear will be the one to show him how to grow in more ways than one and learn how to love again.The Rainbow ConnectionThe path to happily-ever-after starts here.
The Mother of My Reinvention
THE MOTHER OF MY REINVENTIONessays, stories & lyrical assemblagesRoland Caine, a man lost in retirement, finds his life forever changed by a visiting peahen. Prudie Kayfall, a clumsy, recent widow, struggles to define her purpose against creeping invisibility. Feisty grade-schoolers led by Racie Walker heist a dreaded teacher's weapon of destruction. The gut-punch of a shattering hit & run ripples over countless lives. Essays shine light on caring for an aging mother, navigating family politics with a loving grandmother's hand, the value of creating legacy, and our cultural obsession with youth at all costs.After her fourth novel, CHICK SINGER, was published (Sibylline Press, 2025), author and singer/songwriter, Lorraine Devon Wilke, decided it would be a refreshing pivot to pull together some of her favorite shorter works in a compilation book. Included are award-winning essays and short stories, sharp commentary pieces, personal family memoirs, and select lyrics (with anecdotes behind some of her most popular original songs and accessible links to their recorded tracks). Many entries feature her photographs.Each piece is imbued with her unique view of the world; all will hopefully move, provoke, intrigue, and entertain readers and listeners alike.Cover and interior design by LDWFor more information visit www.lorrainedevonwilke.com.
Alice
Alice, the German writer Judith Hermann's 2009 short-story collection, was short-listed for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. When someone very close to you dies, your whole life changes. Everything is different. Alice is the central figure in these five interconnected narratives, which tell of her life at times of loss. Suddenly it is no longer possible to say what the person looked like, how he spoke, cursed, smiled, how he lived his life. Objects are left behind, books, letters, pictures, and every now and again you think you can see them in a crowd. Judith Hermann tells of days of transition, of waiting, of holding on and letting go and of how clear and dazzling such days can sometimes be. Alice is a book of extraordinary power and great literary beauty from one of Europe's finest writers.
Nothing But Ghosts
A short-story collection following several women whose respective relationships are all on the turn in some way and have passed their first flush of romantic love. The brilliant second collection of stories from Germany's answer to Zadie Smith. Judith Hermann's first collection, Summerhouse, Later, sold over 250,000 hardcovers in Germany and was short-listed for both the IMPAC award and the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. In Nothing but Ghosts, she portrays a generation in a new and precarious stage--she describes relationships with painstaking honesty, filling in the silences where communication has begun to falter and the gaze begins to turn elsewhere.
The Silent Driver
You ever wonder what people really do when they think nobody's watching?I do.Because for years, they forgot I was there.I drove in silence-listening to lies, secrets, arguments, breakups, hookups, promises, prayers, and the kind of truth people only spill when the doors close and the city gets quiet.A limo will make you comfortable enough to confess things you should probably keep to yourself.And I've heard it all.Marriages cracking in the dark.Men cheating like it's just another appointment.Women holding in tears until the highway hum settles their breathing.Executives bragging about crimes they'll never say out loud.Stories that changed me.Stories I never forgot.This time, I'm telling it.Just the truth the way I lived it-sixteen rides that pushed me, taught me, shook me, and showed me exactly who people really are when they think the driver isn't listening.If you've ever wondered what gets said in the back of a luxury SUV...If you've ever questioned how much of yourself you've shown to a stranger...If you're ready for something honest, grown, messy, and unfiltered-Get in.I'll drive.You just listen.
The Leg in Question
What if the body, your own body, or someone else's, became the most unreliable narrator you've ever met?From post-World War I New York to pandemic-era Savannah, from the quiet kitchens of Maine to the heat-soaked streets of Malaysia, THE LEG IN QUESTION unravels the strange, haunting, and often darkly funny ways our flesh betrays us. A young woman insists her healthy leg must be removed. A physician faces ghosts of the living and the dead. A mountain cabin turns feral. A debutante circuit shields a gay man on the cusp of a terrifying new epidemic. Across fifteen stories, doctors and patients collide in moments where the body's mysteries, its failures, obsessions, hungers, and grief, expose the fragile seams between sanity and longing. These are tales of medicine and mortality, yes, but also of the tender, reckless, astonishing human spirit trying to make sense of it all.
The Story of Desponia
Desponia listened and observed what was going on around her. All those years, she was carried by the sea, through wind, emotions, and words. A soul shaped by silent regrets, unnoticed routines, and rainy storms. Somewhere across the mountains, bouzouki sounds felt familiar.
Waiting for the Long Night Moon
From the bestselling author of The Berry Pickers In her debut collection of short fiction, Amanda Peters describes the Indigenous experience from an astonishingly wide spectrum in time and place--from contact with the first European settlers, to the forced removal of Indigenous children, to the present-day fight for the right to clean water In this intimate collection, Amanda Peters melds traditional storytelling with beautiful, spare prose to describe the dignity of the traditional way of life, the humiliations of systemic racism and the resilient power to endure. A young man returns from residential school only to realize he can no longer communicate with his own parents. A grieving mother finds purpose and healing on the front lines as a water protector. And a nervous child dances in her first Mawi'omi. The collection also includes the Indigenous Voices Award-winning and title story "Waiting for the Long Night Moon." At times sad, sometimes disturbing but always redemptive, the stories in Waiting for the Long Night Moon will remind you that where there is grief there is also joy, where there is trauma there is resilience and, most importantly, there is power.
Broken Nest and Other Stories
About the BookFEATURING THE STORY THAT BECAME A POPULAR FILMThis selection of Tagore's stories exemplifies his remarkable ability to enter the complexities of human relationships. Within seemingly simple plots, Tagore portrays with unusual compassion and lyricism the predicament of Bengali women in traditional contexts, moving from the loneliness of an intelligent, beautiful woman neglected by her husband in his acclaimed novella 'Broken Nest' to the powerlessness of a young girl whose prized possession is taken away in 'Notebook', from the casual abandonment of an orphan in 'Postmaster' to a girl robbed of her childhood in 'The Ghat's Tale'.Powerful in their simplicity, brilliant in their astuteness, the novella and three short stories included in this collection-translated by acclaimed poet and fiction writer Sharmistha Mohanty-are some of the Nobel Laureate's finest prose works.About the AuthorSharmistha Mohanty is the author of three works of prose, Book One, New Life and Five Movements in Praise, and a book of poems, The Gods Came Afterwards. Her most recent work is Extinctions, a book of prose poems.
Dear Lucifer & Other Stories
Dear Lucifer and Other Stories is a captivating collection of short fiction that delves into the surreal, the existential, and the darkly humorous aspects of the human experience. From encounters with enigmatic strangers in ancient ruins to letters addressed to Lucifer himself, L.A. Davenport crafts stories that explore the profound and the peculiar with wit and precision. Each tale peels back the layers of everyday life to reveal hidden truths, emotional struggles, and moments of deep connection.With a blend of psychological insight, dark humor, and philosophical musings, this collection offers a rich tapestry of characters grappling with love, loss, and the complexities of existence. Dear Lucifer and Other Stories is perfect for readers who enjoy modern fiction that challenges the mind, stirs the heart, and lingers in the imagination.
Counterfeit
If you're looking to expand your mind and erase some of the mundane in your life. Then the stories that appear in Counterfeit are sure to impress. You can count on Counterfeit to entertain and stimulate. Enjoy the journey. It's meant to be easy.
Labelling the Heart
The world, as in nature, is intimidated by difference, and the church feels its mission is to fix it. All must be conformed to a 'normal' appearance, whatever that is. Fixing differences means eliminating them rather than embracing them and being enriched by them.
Labelling the Heart
The world, as in nature, is intimidated by difference, and the church feels its mission is to fix it. All must be conformed to a 'normal' appearance, whatever that is. Fixing differences means eliminating them rather than embracing them and being enriched by them.
Encountering Baboons and Other African Stories
Set in the years between 1970 and 1982 in three newly independent countries, these stories dramatize the interactions between different cultures in the post-colonial period.The Night Watchman, based on the theme of theft, tells the tale of an Englishwoman and her husband living in West Africa, who hire a local man to guard their property and become intimately involved with the health of him and his wife.In Dealing with the Health of the People, an American Ph.D. student discovers that everything must be bartered for, from articles for daily living, to his use of local labour, to providing health care for ordinary people, as he gathers data from a West African maternal and child health clinic for his dissertation.Encountering Baboons follows a young American teaching first year science at a Southern African agricultural college as he faces wild animals; prejudiced colonial attitudes; clashes between African and Western beliefs and practices; directing a group of students in performing Shakespeare's The Tempest; relations with three very different women; and both political and natural storms.
The Good, The Bad and the Bogeyman - Spooky Yeah
Are you worried? Have you ever thought someone was behind you? Were you rigid and unable to turn around? Could you feel breath on your cheek or hear your name softly called? Do you believe in angels or small children with wings? Well, do you? Or do you feel the bogeyman? Well, are you worried now? He'll be back; just wait and see. Oooo-oo, this sounds like MOTHER. - "Dear God, help us please."
Eye Contact
"Eye Contact is another book of nightmare brilliance by Selene DePackh. In it, DePackh writes with a clean and literary style that eases its way into your subconscious where it seeds itself to become something quite, quite different. I loved this book." -Sarah Walker, Weird Fiction QuarterlyThings sinister and strange can happen in the historic Taconic Behavioral Health Complex and the layers of worlds beneath it. The veil between those worlds is thin there and in the ancient mountains surrounding it. Each witness is pulled into the vortex in their own way-Brian, an orderly haunted by his time as a combat medic; Rowena, the autistic child he tries to save; Artemida, the young Russian witch seeking justice for her sister; Cindy, a seemingly ageless woman from the mountains with both honor and dangerous appetites competing in her blood-each one sees something of the forces at work in their fates, some more clearly than others. These and a small group of others grasp fragments of certainty within their own narratives, and several of their short tales have appeared elsewhere, but this collection brings the threads together in a tapestry that reveals the vast truth of what possesses this cursed place."Selene DePackh acts as a mad doctor in Eye Contact, peeling back each layer of dermis with torturous glee, and leading you, as the reader, to wonder at the spectacle beneath. That spectacle is filled with intricate tales of ghosts that first haunt the cold corridors of the CareWell Institute and later haunt your mind." -Elaine Pascale, author of The Solstice"Selene dePackh writes of her characters' inner lives with precise and cutting detail, exposing the damage the world does to those who cannot conform. In Eye Contact, she weaves together seven stories of human suffering and supernatural revenge to create a disquieting and emotionally complex mosaic novel that explores the fraught relationships between the living and the dead. The ghosts who haunt the Taconic Behavioral Health Center are burdened by regrets and painful glimpses of what might have been, if only they had been allowed to live as who they truly were. dePackh skillfully describes the love, sorrow, fear, and rage that drive her characters, and lays open their deeply conflicted hearts. When they choose to share their secrets with the living they also share their pain. It is retaliation, if not redress, for what they have had to endure. Beautifully written and keenly felt, I recommend Eye Contact highly." -Erica Ruppert, author of Sisters in Arms and Seven Stars: Collected Stories
The Last Tears of Innocence
From a brief moment of modern angst, Jeans embarks on a journey into the complications and adventures of today. It questions the importance of time, replacing life's justifications with philosophy and balancing complexity with the simplicity of clarity. Its focus is largely on removing time, allowing experience simply to exist and unfold. It establishes an augmentation that welcomes a library of interpretation and closes with a sense of spontaneity and fantasy, like a glass head reflecting facets of personality.
A Memory of Flowers and Coconut
From the pen of a multiple award-winning author comes this collection of stories about love, loss, religion, murder, memory, and mystery.In "Midnight Shift", a pair of doctors seeking intimacy instead discover a dying patient eager to divulge an ancient crime.In "A Memory of Flowers and Coconut", we are cast back to 1940s South America to witness an unfolding rural tragedy.In "New", the mystery of a sick child reveals the fabric of Creation itself.In "The Emerald in the Diamond", a robbery in the Mongolian desert somehow makes its way to a baseball stadium in Missouri.These and eight other stories will entertain, evoke, and inspire.Raywat Deonandan' first collection of short stories, Sweet Like Saltwater, won the Guyana Prize for Literature (the national book award of Guyana) in the Best First Work category. Here are some samples of reviews of his fiction..."The imagery is often quite wonderful, capturing sights, sounds, smell, touch, very well." -Linda Field, Arsenal Pulp Press"Through... brilliant characterization and dialogue, the reader is engaged in continuous storying." -Anne Forsythe-Moore, Canadian Author Magazine"Quirky and engaging." -Jim Bartley, The Globe and Mail"Deonandan celebrates the dignity of the common people." -Barbara Mujica, Americas Magazine
Things I Should Keep to Myself
Things I Should Keep to Myself is a collection of short stories and poems, written over the past twenty years, that touch on love, loss, mental illness, and paranormal experiences.
Bodies in Bags
A bad cop in New Hampshire deals with the consequences of shooting an intruder; a drifter wakes up next to her dead companion in Atlantic City; a veteran flees to South Jersey after an impulsive crime. Jamey Gallagher's stories, steeped in desperation and told in tough but tender voices, are about the effects of-and the compulsion to-violence. Bodies in Bags, with its flex and fever, is so visceral you can smell it.
Redshirts Sometimes Survive
A neglected boy clings to an action figure like a lifeline. A trans man meets his childhood hero. An introvert finally finds her voice at a protest. In Redshirts Sometimes Survive, the outcasts, the rebels, the bullied, and the weird find themselves, one other, and a place to call home.Spanning moments of humour, grief, joy, and resistance, these interconnected flash stories are populated by queer fans, lonely children, awkward convention-goers, and disillusioned adults who seek out their favourite starships and captains for solace and strength.By turns moving, thoughtful, and wry, Redshirts Sometimes Survives offers connection and comfort for fans of Star Trek, and for the rest of us. Being a redshirt doesn't mean you're doomed. Sometimes, it means you survive. "A love letter to all of us in the Bridge Crew who found family in other Trek fans. Both funny and heartbreaking." - Gail Anderson-Dargatz, Giller Prize finalist and bestselling author of The Cure for Death by Lightning"Queer found family and crushes, a child put through the system, a nonspeaking disabled elder who recalls the TOS days, the desire for fat bodies sharing adventures, and even Star-crossed fandoms. A must-have collection for geeks of all generations." - Cait Gordon, award-winning author of Season One: Iris and the Crew Tear Through Space!"Hilarious, harrowing, and kind." - Michelle Butler Hallett, disabled novelist and deep Trekkie, winner of the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award, Constant NobodyAbout the Author: Finnian Burnett is a writer whose work explores the intersections of the human body, mental health, and gender identity. They are a recipient of a Canada Council for the Arts grant, a finalist in the 2023 CBC nonfiction prize, and a 2024 Pushcart nominee. They have delivered several keynotes, including at the Surrey International Writers' Conference.Their work appears in Writer's Digest, Blank Spaces Magazine, Reflex Press, The Daily Sci-Fi, CBC, contest anthologies such as Word on the Lake, The Wine Country Writer's Festival anthology, Federation of BC Writers, and more. Their previous novellas-in-flash, The Clothes Make the Man and The Price of Cookies, are available through Ad Hoc Fiction and Off Topic Publishing respectively.When not writing or teaching, Finnian enjoys cold weather walking, Star Trek, and cat memes.
I Felt My Life With Both My Hands
In her newest collection of short fiction, Jessica Treadway chronicles the lives of ordinary women as they navigate motherhood and childlessness; friend and partner relationships; careers and job loss; crises of identity and self-worth; the quest for spirituality; guilt and sacrifice; illness and grief. These stories affirm the significance of our most inner selves, and the possibility of grace in human connection.
Waves of Light and Darkness
Waves of Light and Darkness challenges and delights a reader's perception with surreal and surprising world-building.Whether they are set in the past or the future, in a Kansas farmhouse or a potentially supernatural cave, these short stories share one commonality: a search for something beyond what one knows is needed. Through a multitude of unexpected perspectives (a cat, a coma patient, a ventriloquist), this utterly novel collection of stories examines and reconfigures universal themes of life, death, and human connection.
Morning Edge of Midnight
Only a poet of Braggs' talent and sensibility could bring us stories of such lively language and lost-and-in-love characters. He tells their truths but tells them at a slant that is joyful to read and heartbreakingly beautiful to apprehend.-Anthony Grooms, author of Bombingham and The Vain Conversation
All That It Seems
Senior center residents form their own government during a global pandemic; three forms of artificial intelligence impact folks from Madison, Wisconsin; Tilted Thomas, a man whose spine is tilted to the same degree as the earth's axis, falls in love with Leadfoot Lisa; a gifted guitarist searches for his stolen Fender guitar; and a man feels the moral dilemmas of altering history. Eclectic, relevant, and earnestly human at every turn, Jim Landwehr's stories sparkle with magic and fantasy, hum with technology and history, and celebrate human triumph in troubling times.
A Green Glow on the Horizon
Lauren Ambrite, the National Association of Tourist Attraction Survivors editor of A Green Glow on the Horizon, is a serial collector who satisfies her greedy soul by collecting the stories of fellow Tourist Attraction Trauma survivors starved of significance in a world that consigns to the shadows individuals who "feel too deeply." Lauren knows that, unlike tourists on summer road trips laughing off and leaving behind mermaid shows, jackalopes, and wax statues of the biblical Job, tourist attraction survivors cannot simply walk away. Instead, they wander troubled through these fabulist tales. Standing behind this earnest but sometimes scary editor is author Dawn Burns, a writer who dares to expose the complicated, often contradictory yearnings and compulsions, griefs and grievous missteps of fellow human beings.
The Nine O'Clock Horses & Other Stories
Urban legend, body horror and suburban paranoia collide in THE NINE O'CLOCK HORSES - a collection of short stories, novelettes and micro-fictions from the author of TRADWIFE, HUMMINGBIRD and SALTBLOODA toxic relationship turns monstrous. An insurance investigator discovers something unthinkable in a decaying English boarding school. And a hungry insomniac gets much more than she bargains for when she falls down a rabbit-hole of cooking videos...Equal parts unsettling, stomach-churning and macabre, and seasoned with a healthy dose of feminist rage, THE NINE O'CLOCK HORSES is perfect for fans of Jonathan Sims, Eliza Clark, Daisy Johnson and The Magnus Archives
The Language of Home
What is the language of home? This short story collection offers readers many possible answers that reveal the Deaf experience in all its complexities. Written over nearly forty years by celebrated Deaf author Raymond Luczak, this collection of thirty stories paints a vivid panorama of Deaf lives. From a young DeafBlind boy feeling lost within his hearing family to a hearing son of Deaf parents caught between their infighting and a hearing mother realizing in the split second of her own death the full impact of the missteps she has taken while raising her Deaf son, Luczak crafts narratives that resonate with authenticity. Other stories feature an ASL interpreter feeling conflicted about a Deaf neighbor and a Deaf woman who becomes blacklisted as a backstabber. These characters often navigate the murky waters of the hearing world, sometimes with a touch of ASL gloss. The Language of Home is an exciting literary contribution that offers rare, nuanced representations of Deaf characters.
The Quantity Theory of Morality
"Self is the most daring and delightful novelist of his generation."--GuardianA blistering, brilliant novel from the Booker-shortlisted author, elegantly reflecting his Geoffrey Faber Memorial award-winning story collection The Quantity Theory of InsanityIn The Quantity Theory of Morality, Will Self's unconventional new novel, his pen remains dipped in vitriol and elegance as ever. In this dark yet hilariously satirical "state-of-an-era novel," Self's target is a collective morality that is nothing more or less than pure sociability. His middle-class, middle-English characters appear trapped in a timeless go-round of polite chitchat in dinner parties that refract like a hall of mirrors as the novel progresses, until one day someone says something to the effect of, "This way to the gas chamber, please, ladies and gentlemen." The Quantity Theory of Morality finally solves the equation of time and money that dominates our lives, in a way that is simultaneously deranging, destabilizing, and hilarious.With recurring--if defeated--appearances from now-canonical characters like Zack Busner, the repetition of each chapter, or "Proposition" shows Will Self to be both a master of satire and slapstick humor and a sublime and thoughtful critic of the alienation of modern life. With The Quantity Theory of Morality, Self provides the sequel to his award-winning debut of 34 years ago: The Quantity Theory of Insanity. That literary psycho-surgery proved there wasn't enough sanity go around--now he's established what many of us fear to be the absolute truth: there isn't enough good to go around, either.
Spring that turned into Winter
"Spring that Turned into Winter" gathers seven poignant short stories that explore the hidden storms within ordinary lives. Centered on women's inner worlds, these narratives move from the scorching deserts of betrayal and loss to the tremulous return of hope. Love, loyalty and the sanctity of family are tested against social pressure, poverty, vanity, and the lingering wounds of the past. Jasur Ne'matov's characters-wives, mothers, husbands and children-are never distant symbols but neighbours whose quiet endurance and fragile dreams feel achingly familiar. With a tone that is tender yet unsparing, the collection reveals how hearts survive humiliation, how forgiveness is wrestled from pain, and how even the longest emotional winter can yield to an unexpected spring. Each story becomes a fate, and every fate, a lesson.
Stories to Share With My Partner Book 10
Weaving an anthology is like stitching a patchwork quilt, each story a precious scrap from the soul. Choosing which to include? Well, that is a delicate dance, for too much sugar makes hearts cloy, and humour without bite leaves the soul hollow. Genre niches squeeze too tight, some turn away, shadows clinging. But striking the perfect chord, a symphony on paper, is a leap of faith. "Stories to Share with My Partner - Book 10" is my melody, a chorus of whispers and shouts, hoping to touch every string of your heart. Some titles bare their secrets; others play hide-and-seek, but in each, I offer a piece of myself, hoping you find yours reflected within.
A Poor Excuse for a Book
Dead bodies, bullies, child-snatching goblins and bloodthirsty werewolves. You can find all of these and more on the pages within. A Poor Excuse for a Book is a collection of short stories; an exploration in storytelling that features both nonfiction stories from the author's real-life childhood as well as fiction stories derived from the author's own unique imagination. The cross-section of true life and fantasy offers in-depth insight into the mind, imagination, and past of a newly emerging American Writer.
Clare's Boutique
"This author has talent to burn." -- Publishers WeeklyIn three heartfelt new stories, award-winning author Eric Giroux introduces Clare Renault, suburban-white-boy rap fan nonpareil. Funny and poignant, the stories trace Clare's growth to young adulthood in the Greater Lowell, Massachusetts, of the eighties and nineties--rap's golden age."Ice Time"A winter's journey takes a harrowing turn for Clare and Jack, former best friends."Hamburger Hill"Eighth graders Clare and Sanjay grapple with a painful secret at the dawn of gangsta rap."Stickup"Home from college, Clare opens a used record store, mourns his father, and weighs his future."Novels as Albums (And Albums that Influenced My Novels)"An affectionate personal essay about the music that shaped Giroux's novels, Zodiac Pets and Ring On Deli.
Apple & Palm
The town of Whistle Pig, like the mountains that surround it, can appear unchanging, as immutable as geography. The lives of the characters in the linked stories in Patricia Henley's Apple & Palm contrast with that predictability. After vowing he'd never go home to Appalachia, DJ Diggs returns from Chicago to his family of origin after a Pride Prom fire that leaves his niece disfigured; Roxy, a centenarian, convinces her grandson's pregnant wife to move into the artist's co-op; Ham Zebrak and Adele Pratt, an elderly pair, spend the night together trying to stir up the ghost of sexual chemistry. Apple & Palm is a provocative close-up examination of aging, memory, and desire.
Hands
What happens if hard work doesn't pay off and dreams don't come true? Do bad times last forever? Hands, the remarkable debut from Pardeep Toor, follows Hans, a downtrodden and aimless immigrant pursuing the so-called American Dream by any means necessary. A racist incident forces Hans to quit school and drive a taxi. An unhinged fare and unjustified arrest makes Hans question whether he belongs in this foreign land. And a toxic relationship confirms his cultural isolation within his own community. Illuminating a degenerate immigrant experience littered with hope and failure, Hands interrogates the contradiction between the lofty ideals of assimilating in America and the brutal comedy of the journey.
Momentary Illumination of Objects in Motion
The car is idling on the road between where we've been and where we're going.The door's open. You coming?Momentary Illumination of Objects In Motion tells of life and death, identity and race, change and resistance to change. Arias unflinchingly peers into the places we turn away from, showing us it's not always as neat or as clean as we'd like to imagine. Sometimes it's messy as hell."A kickass debut." Margaret Malone, People Like You"A debut that pulls no punches." Samuel Snoek-Brown, There Is No Other Way to Worship Them"...an after-midnight bar story, a foxhole prayer, a graveyard shift confession." Matthew Robinson, The Horse Latitudes"It's a book that makes you feel whispered to and pulled in close." Rita Bullwinkel, Belly Up"Arias finds flashes of humor in the wreckage, as well as rare moments of beauty." Stevan Allred, The Alehouse at the End of the World
Seagulls Shadows on Slantyrock
November is the month of remembrance. The quint of October, when warm days still seeped through, is gone. The landscape on the horizon is growing dark; the light from the sun seems to go dim wherever it goes. Playing on the streets where the fiery leaves clung on under terraces of houses, coal smoke plumed up firmaments upon the skyline, illuminating the mysterious horizon beyond. At the top of Hampton Cove hill, nightfall began to settle with the ambient orange streetlights clicking light into a day now gone. I was alone with him for the first time in my life. The game was on, in light to dark. Manhunt was in play, and our other friends playing had cheated the streets. At the top of Hampton Cove hill below the last lingering leaves on the trees. Lost with each other without purpose. We had lost the game of manhunt. This was the first time we were alone together, separated from our friends. Awkward as we hung around. We loitered about, tired and worn out, in the futile pursuit. He spotted a Coke can on the road and went over. I felt very puzzled as he forced his foot in between the center of the can. After his foot was lodged in, he took the can and clink-clanked along the road. The sound was familiar to me before he had said it, 'I AM ROBO-COP.' I burst out laughing, like never before, with a peer together. A friendship began.
There
Eight stories of ingenuity at the edges of space. Where maintenance workers outsmart corporate stations. Where medical officers and botanists save colonies through partnership. Where a janitor's kindness opens doors decades of searching couldn't find. On platforms and stations designed to divide, these characters forge unexpected connections-across species, across class, across the void itself. For readers who want their science fiction served with solidarity, where the recycled air might be thin but the human connections run deep.Nicky Penttila writes science fiction and fantasy about competent outsiders who find belonging in the most unlikely places-and change their worlds in the process.Includes these stories: Chrome BloomFloating the LawJust Breathe - first published in The Expanding Universe, vol. 11Round SandySeek and FindThe Air Between UsThe Convict's DaughterThe Girl from Bennia Station
The Eyes and Other Ghost Stories (Warbler Classics Annotated Edition)
The Eyes and Other Ghost Stories gathers eight of Edith Wharton's most iconic supernatural tales: "The Lady's Maid's Bell," "The Eyes," "Afterward," "The Triumph of Night," "Kerfol," "Miss Mary Pask," "Bewitched," and "Mr. Jones." The collection offers a compelling fusion of subtle psychological terror, atmospheric setting, and incisive social commentary, which account for Wharton's significant place within the American Gothic tradition. These masterfully curated stories are celebrated for their elegant crafting, eerie ambiguity, and exploration of power, alienation, and the supernatural. These qualities and Wharton's pure writing prowess make her ghost stories enduring classics of both psychological and literary horror. This Warbler Classics edition includes an extensive, detailed biographical timeline.
A Duty of Care
A collection of short stories, mainly about medicine and surgery and for the most part set in Australia. The majority of the stories are fiction but three, told in the first person, are personal memoir.The author has extensive experience in health care and this is revealed in his descriptions of the settings and the way care is delivered and the personalities involved. The stories are often outrageous but always believable and characters are real and relatable.The reader can expect to be amused and informed.
