Elevator incident of 2016
A strange late-night talk show lifts spirits with absurdity until it doesn't. What is causing distress in the small village, could a children's story be true? Money. That's it. Really, it can make people do awful things. Tragedy after tragedy on a work assignment. Twenty short stories filled with melancholy, nostalgia, strange encounters, avoidance, and the supernatural.
Other Emergencies
The "other emergencies" experienced by Sarah Freligh's characters range from mildly disruptive to life-altering. In "All That Water," a college dropout struggling with addiction forges an unlikely alliance with a bank teller following a botched robbery. In "Aftershocks," a writer grieving the loss of her support dog is haunted by the memory of what she witnessed on 9/11. In "Happenstance," two women from different backgrounds form a tenuous connection over the shared experience of their histories. And in "Heaven," a detective and a high school girl navigate the fraught terrain in the days following a mass shooting in a small town. Ultimately the stories in Other Emergencies revolve around the resilience of people and the capacity for authentic connection in times of great change.
Remember Me to Lebanon
Evelyn Shakir paints tales that are rich in history and background. She sets her stories in different eras, from the 1960s to the present, peopled with Lebanese women of different ages, sometimes writing letters, often reminiscing, looking back as far as the turn of the century. In different ways, these first- and second-generation women struggle with feminist issues overshadowed by the demands of dual cultures. In "Young Ali," a teenager tries to listen to her beloved father's time-honored tales of men in friendship and marriage. Aggie of "House Calls" is a deceased matriarch who returns to haunt her family with reminders of the customs she fought to uphold while alive. Shakir's other heroines include a thrice-divorced thirty-year-old woman quibbling with a modern matchmaker, an elderly non-Lebanese woman who spies on Muslim neighbors in the wake of 9/11, and a traditional wife and mother who thinks she has found a route out of old-world womanly duties. Many of the author's women grapple with reclaiming or abandoning ancestral demands, and finessing age-old male-female relationships. In "Oh, Lebanon," a war-haunted Lebanese-born woman willfully departs from the mores of her upbringing with surprising results. With agile humor and emotional truth, Shakir offers multiple perspectives on Lebanese women trying to change roles in a new landscape without surrendering cultural identity.
The Human Mosaic
The Human Mosaic is a captivating new collection of short stories from Nitya Rao, weaving together the diverse and intricate pieces of human existence. Through richly crafted narratives, this book invites readers to journey through the kaleidoscope of experiences, emotions, and reflections that define our lives. Each story in The Human Mosaic illuminates a facet of human nature-love, loss, joy, resilience, and self-discovery-capturing the beauty and complexity found in our shared and unique journeys. With poetic prose and deep insight, Rao explores the mosaic of humanity, reminding us that even in our differences, we find threads of connection. This collection is a tender and thought-provoking exploration of life's mysteries, offering readers a glimpse into the extraordinary hidden within the everyday. About the Author: Nitya Rao is a storyteller with a rare gift for capturing the quiet beauty and profound truths of everyday life. With a deep love for literature and the arts, he weaves his experiences and observations into narratives that resonate with the heart and soul. His stories reflect a deep understanding of human emotions, exploring themes of resilience, connection, and self-discovery. Known for his lyrical prose and keen insight, Nitya sees writing as a bridge between hearts and minds, revealing the universal threads that bind us all. The Human Mosaic is a testament to his belief that within every life lies a story worth telling-complex, beautiful, and deeply meaningful. When not writing, Nitya finds inspiration in the world around him, drawn to the subtle moments of life that hold the greatest truths.
The Mexican Messiah
From Vanessa Blakeslee, author of Perfect Conditions: "Part lyrical thriller, part vivid speculation upon perhaps the most pervasive of life's mysteries-not only miracles and faith, but transformation and salvation-Jay Kauffmann's The Mexican Messiah beguiles from the very beginning. I couldn't wait to turn the page but also found myself pausing so as not to miss the rich language in which he has captured this world and its inhabitants with wholly convincing and heartfelt precision. This gem of a collection is a work of wonderment itself."
Just a Taste
From cuddly to explicit, romantic to platonic, unrequited to hopeful, silly to serious: enjoy twenty-five contemporary snapshots of queer love, each at one thousand words or fewer.Collection includes: Nearly Home-Compromise-An Icy Rain-Stubborn Care-Losing Sleep-In the Crowd-Frantic Heat-Longer Distance-Musical Notes-Sleeping In-At the Beach-A Messy Question-Rooftop Interlude-On a Mission-Midnight-An Intimate Morning-Something Green-Smitten-A Kiss to Start-A Terrible Idea-The Easiest Thing-Simple Equations-In the Library-Discordant Details
From the Book of Atmospheres
From the Book of Atmospheres by Robert Scotellaro is a collection of micro and flash stories that explore life at a slant. Often surreal/fabulistic, there is a universality that threads their fabric in unexpected ways. In these tales, imagination is a welcomed guest. And it is clear that light and dark can, in easy union, inhabit these small but flexible spaces.
Classic Short Stories & Poems
Classic Short Stories & Poems: From Daily Real Life by Sukanta Mukherjee, published by 19504, stands as a beacon of knowledge and inspiration. With its insightful content and engaging narrative style, this book transcends genres, offering something valuable for every reader.
Pardon Me for Moonwalking
Slide into the bittersweet, beautifully peculiar world of Patricia Q. Bidar's Pardon Me for Moonwalking, a collection of short stories that illuminate the offbeat, the tender, and the painfully human. Each story offers a glimpse into the extraordinary moments of ordinary lives, from fleeting encounters with strangers to lifelong personal battles.Bidar's characters grapple with isolation, longing, and the tangle of relationships in blue collar living rooms to city streets. With sharp prose, wry humor, and poignant insights, this collection explores themes of love, regret, and hope in a chaotic world, Pardon Me for Moonwalking is a literary kaleidoscope revealing the beauty of human resilience and the power of unexpected connection.
A Terrifying Brush with Optimism
A collection of new and selected works from Lambda Literary Award and Asian-American Literary Award winner Brian Leung. In a cultural moment where folks are stripped of the their dignity or shed it willingly, the figures in this book wonder at the utility of maintaining their own. There's a touch of Hamlet's question in there along with some I Ching. Can monkeys pray? Are we better off living in the real world or a speculative one? Through an essay, a novella, and short and flash fiction pieces, A Terrifying Brush with Optimism is at once leaping, thoughtful, diverse, comic, and brooding.
Disruptions
AN NPR AND NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR - An exquisite new collection from a Pulitzer Prize-winning master of the short story, the culmination of a five-decade career: work that takes us beneath the placid surface of suburban life into the elusive strangeness of the everyday Here are eighteen stories of astonishing range and precision. A housewife drinks alone in her Connecticut living room. A guillotine glimmers above a sleepy town green. A pre-recorded customer service message sends a caller into a reverie of unspeakable yearning. With the deft touch and funhouse-mirror perspectives for which he has won countless admirers, Steven Millhauser gives us the towns, marriages, and families of a quintessential American lifestyle that is at once instantly recognizable and profoundly unsettling. Disruptions is a collection of provocative, bracingly original new work from a writer at the peak of his form.
The Pilot And 30 Other Short Stories
Jack Cravell (Tim Graca) has written short fictional stories inspired by MarkTwain and O Henry all of his life. The first one was created when he was 18 and the last one at 74. Most of the stories involve his dog Bear, aCream Colored Golden Retirever).
The Warden
The Warden by Anthony Trollope is a beautifully crafted novel that explores the complexities of ethics, duty, and social justice in Victorian England. The story centers on Mr. Septimus Harding, a kind and gentle clergyman who serves as the warden of Hiram's Hospital, an almshouse for elderly men. When a reform-minded journalist questions the legality of Mr. Harding's income from the charity, a public scandal erupts, forcing Harding to confront his conscience and the possibility that he may be benefiting unfairly from the institution. As the conflict unfolds, Trollope deftly examines the moral dilemmas faced by Harding, his family, and the community. The novel is as much about the personal cost of doing what is right as it is about the larger social issues of the time, such as reform and the role of the church. The Warden is the first book in Trollope's Chronicles of Barsetshire series and introduces readers to his richly drawn characters and his compassionate, often humorous, depiction of human nature. It is a poignant and thought-provoking exploration of the balance between duty and morality.
The Return of Sherlock Holmes
The Return of Sherlock Holmes is a 1905 collection of 13 Sherlock Holmes stories, originally published in 1903-1904, by British writer Arthur Conan Doyic. Missing, presumed dead, for three years, Sherlock Holmes returns triumphantly to bis desar companion Dr Watson, And not before timel London has never been in more need of his extraordinary services: a murderous individual with an air gun stalks the city. Among thirteen further brilliant tales of mystery, detection and decducaton, Sherlock Holmes insestigates the problem of the Norwand Builder, deciphers the message of the Lancing Men, and cracks the case of the Six Napoleons.
Yellow Chrysanthemum
Set in contemporary India, "Yellow Chrysanthemum" is a stirring collection celebrating the lives of Durga, Uma, Tihar, Somlata, Mridula, and fifteen other women from rural villages to bursting cities. These women are not passive victims but survivors and warriors who have the courage to challenge the status quo of society, which always seeks to silence their voices.As the author, I wrote this book to pay my homage to the women who continue challenging society's oppressive forces. If you are in search of a book that will both challenge and inspire you, "Yellow Chrysanthemum" is a top pick. Take part in the celebration of women's voices, a call for justice, and a reminder of the incredible power that exists within us all to rise above, no matter the odds.Munmun Samanta "Sam"
Thrilled to Death
From award-winning novelist and cultural critic Lynne Tillman, Thrilled to Death is a collection of selected stories across the career of America's most audacious writer Among the vanguard of American literary writers, Lynne Tillman's work has defied categorization throughout her legendary career--a singular body of work that both redefined and reimagined the short story form entirely. Curated by the author, Thrilled to Death is the definitive entry point for both established fans and new readers alike. These selected stories collect a bold, playful, and eclectic ensemble of Tillman's Borgesian fictions that span decades and traverse themes of sex, death, memory, and anxiety. With argumentative wit, Tillman's meditations and reflections on art, politics, and culture are animated by deliciously paradoxical characters who desire and fret in turn, and who are imbued with searing intelligence and dolorous ambivalence. Describing Tillman's writing, Colm T籀ib穩n says: "Her style has both tone and undertone; it attempts to register the impossibility of saying very much, but it insists on the right to say a little. So what is essential is the voice itself, its ways of knowing and unknowing."
Midnight Zone Stories
Step into the shadows of the Midnight Zone, where darkness reigns supreme and the boundaries of reality blur. In this anthology of chilling short stories, explore the twisted tales of individuals grappling with their own sanity, confronting otherworldly identities, facing the wrath of nature's vengeance, and wielding unimaginable power. Each narrative delves into the eerie and unsettling, offering a glimpse into the depths of human nature and the complexities of our modern world. Prepare to be captivated by the mysteries that lurk in the heart of the night, where light fades and the unknown beckons.
The Nothing
The Nothing, Lauren Davis's debut fiction collection, exists on the whisper between reality and illusion. Think Shirley Jackson's characters stuck in the damp Pacific Northwest or an Olympic Peninsula funhouse mirror held up to Karen Russell's Florida. The worlds Davis creates acknowledge the terror and seek the gifts of solitude, grief, and the unrelenting thirst for certainty within us all.In The Nothing, Lauren Davis channels the eerie surrealism and biting social critique of Aimee Bender and Ramona Ausubel, though these folktales are all her own. Each story fractures expectation and then gathers up what's left, creating a bricolage of the uncanny. "Shadows cannot be caught," Davis writes, but here she has done just that-harnessed the lingering traces of The Real and reanimated them. Morphed by nostalgia, grief, and the strangeness of desire in all its forms, Davis's stories are tiny portals through the mundane into something fresher and truer and thus more beautiful.-Lindsey Drager, author of The Avian Hourglass
Go Up, You Baldhead and other short stories
This is the fourth collection of short stories by David Porter. Some are from old ideas, others newer. All share a direct style, twists and turns from the dark side of life and some amusing elements.The stories are drawn from a varied life of performing in theatre in education, high school drama teaching, political organising, serving as Member of Parliament for a decade, examining/assessing and being a married father of four and grandfather of nine.As with his previous short story anthologies, WILD BEASTS AND PLAGUE (2018), SCOFFERS WILL COME (2019) and THE SCAPEGOAT KEEPER (2021) plus his novels OLD MEN'S DREAMS (2015), DETESTABLE THINGS (2020) and NO LACK OF MADMEN (2023), this collection is published under his imprint Walk in My Shoes Publications, acknowledging Charcot Marie Tooth, a condition that has given him a lifetime of deformed feet to walk on.
