Download or read book Orange World and Other Stories written by Karen Russell and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2019-05-14 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Pulitzer Finalist and universally beloved author of the New York Times best sellers Swamplandia! and Vampires in the Lemon Grove, a stunning new collection of short fiction that showcases Karen Russell’s extraordinary, irresistible gifts of language and imagination. Karen Russell’s comedic genius and mesmerizing talent for creating outlandish predicaments that uncannily mirror our inner in lives is on full display in these eight exuberant, arrestingly vivid, unforgettable stories. In“Bog Girl”, a revelatory story about first love, a young man falls in love with a two thousand year old girl that he’s extracted from a mass of peat in a Northern European bog. In “The Prospectors,” two opportunistic young women fleeing the depression strike out for new territory, and find themselves fighting for their lives. In the brilliant, hilarious title story, a new mother desperate to ensure her infant’s safety strikes a diabolical deal, agreeing to breastfeed the devil in exchange for his protection. The landscape in which these stories unfold is a feral, slippery, purgatorial space, bracketed by the void—yet within it Russell captures the exquisite beauty and tenderness of ordinary life. Orange World is a miracle of storytelling from a true modern master.

Download or read book A Day in the Country and Other Stories written by Guy de Maupassant and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 1998-09-10 with total page 453 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This selection of twenty-seven stories shows Maupassant at his comic, cruel, and brilliant best. In addition to the poignant title story, it includes one of the most famous tales ever written, The Necklace , and Le Horla, an account of a disintegrating personality that chillingly parallels the author's own decline into madness. All the stories demonstrate his genius for invention and his ability to write unblinkingly about the absurdity of the human condition, supporting Henry James' claim that in the annals of story-telling, Maupassant stands `like a lion in the path'. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Download or read book The Unfinished World And Other Stories written by Amber Sparks and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2016-01-25 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A highly anticipated collection of wildly imaginative short stories from “one of contemporary fiction’s true mad scientists” (Necessary Fiction). In the weird and wonderful tradition of Kelly Link and Karen Russell, Amber Sparks’s dazzling new collection bursts forth with stories that render the apocalyptic and otherworldly hauntingly familiar. In “The Cemetery for Lost Faces,” two orphans translate their grief into taxidermy, artfully arresting the passage of time. The anchoring novella, “The Unfinished World,” unfurls a surprising love story between a free and adventurous young woman and a dashing filmmaker burdened by a mysterious family. Sparks’s stories—populated with sculptors, librarians, astronauts, and warriors—form a veritable cabinet of curiosities. Mythical, bizarre, and deeply moving, The Unfinished World and Other Stories heralds the arrival of a major writer and illuminates the search for a brief encounter with the extraordinary.

Download or read book Other Stories and Other Stories written by Ali Smith and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2012-10-04 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Other Stories and Other Stories is a stunning collection of short stories from Ali Smith. Individually lucid and luminous, these formally inventive and exquisite tales resonate subtly together. In examining the distances and connections between ourselves and others, and lightly and expertly inching us closer to the bone, storytelling itself has never seemed so necessary, so moving or so joyous. 'Beautifully written and quietly unsettling' Big Issue 'Bold and sensitive. Smith's prose is a joy' Independent 'A wonderful collection; deceptively easy on one level with its whirling library of ghost story, funny story, love story, scary story, and more. Like Russian dolls, separate yet invisibly linked, they unfold from and into one another' Herald 'Smith breathes life into her imagined words with a true understanding of the craft of the short-story writer. She dances surely and lightly over the form' Guardian 'Captures quiet epiphanies of the extraordinary in the mundane' Sunday Times 'These stories fizz with life' The Times Literary Supplement

Download or read book The World of Dew and Other Stories written by Julian MortimerSmith and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2021-04-06 with total page 147 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Imagine a world populated by hideous trolls, time-traveling scientists, and intergalactic freighter captains—with smartphones and social media. The World of Dew and Other Stories, chosen by Michelle Pretorius as the 2020 Blue Light Books Prize winner, invites readers into 18 different universes that have unexpected resonances with our own modern life. While these tales are unabashedly sci-fi and fantasy, Julian Mortimer Smith approaches each at a curious angle. Ghosts are cataloged using a Pokémon Go–like app, a soldier has to get enough upvotes on social media before he is allowed to take a shot, and a golden age of cooperation begins as societies around the world prepare for a looming pandemic of blindness. In addition to featuring stories that have appeared in some of the world's top speculative fiction outlets, The World of Dew and Other Stories also includes five new stories published here for the first time. These tales are sometimes terrifying, sometimes touching, sometimes provocative, and occasionally very silly. They function both as windows through which readers can glimpse vast universes waiting to be explored and as mirrors reflecting our own reality back at us in a strange and unfamiliar light.

Download or read book The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories written by Ken Liu and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-03-08 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents the author's selection of his best short stories, as well as a new piece, in a collection that includes "The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary," "Mono No Aware" and "The Waves."

Download or read book Free Love And Other Stories written by Ali Smith and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2015-08-18 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A teenage girl finds unexpected sexual freedom on a trip to Amsterdam. A woman trapped at a dinner party comes up against an ugly obsession. The stories in Free Love are about desire, memory, sexual ambiguity and the imagination. In the harsh light of dislocation, the people in them still find connections, words blowing in the street, love in unexpected places. Ali Smith shows how things come together and how they break apart. She disconcerts and affirms with the lightest touch, to make us love and live differently.

Download or read book Fox Chick The Party written by Sergio Ruzzier and published by Chronicle Books. This book was released on 2018-04-17 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A 2019 Theodore Seuss Geisel Award Honoree NPR Best Books of the Year, New York Times Notable Children's Book, Boston Globe Best Book of the Year Join the dynamic, yet opposite duo as they learn to appreciate differences among friends: Fox and Chick don't always agree, but Fox and Chick are always friends. With sly humor and companionable warmth, Sergio Ruzzier deftly captures the adventures of these seemingly opposite friends. With spare text and airy images, this early chapter book is also accessible to a picture book audience. • Book teaches a lesson about accepting and cherishing our differences through sweet and funny characters as they embark on silly adventures • Luminous watercolor images showcased in comic-book panel form will entice emerging readers, keeping them engaged and wanting more • Sergio Ruzzier is a Sendak Fellow whose work has been lauded by the Society of Illustrators, Communication Arts, and the Society of Publication Designers "A subtle lesson, couched in humor: We can be friends with people who aren't just like us." — The New York Times • Great family and classroom read-aloud book • Books for kids ages 5-8 • Books for early and emergent readers

Download or read book What Remains and Other Stories written by Christa Wolf and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1995-12 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What Remains collects Christa Wolf's short fiction, from early work in the sixties to the widely debated title story, first published in Germany in 1990. Addressing a wide range of topics, from sexual politics to the nature of memory, these powerful and often very personal stories offer a fascinating introduction to Wolf's work. What Remains and Other Stories . . . is clear and farsighted. The eight heartfelt stories in the book show why she has been respected as a serious author since her 1968 novel, The Quest for Christa T. . . . Wolf uses her own experiences and observations to create universal themes about the controls upon human freedom.—Herbert Mitgang, New York Times Christa Wolf has set herself nothing less than the task of exploring what it is to be a conscious human being alive in a moment of history.—Mary Gordon, New York Times Book Review The simultaneous publication of these two volumes offers readers here a generous sampling of the short fiction, speeches and essays that Wolf has produced over the last three decades.—Mark Harman, Boston Globe

Download or read book How They Met and Other Stories written by David Levithan and published by Knopf Books for Young Readers. This book was released on 2008-01-08 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Just in time for Valentine’s Day comes a confection from David Levithan that is sure to have fans of Boy Meets Boy eager to devour it. Here are 18 stories, all about love, all kinds of love. From the aching for the one you pine for, to standing up and speaking up for the one you love, to pure joy and happiness, these love stories run the gamut of that emotion that at some point has turned every one of us inside out and upside down. What is love? With this original story collection, David Levithan proves that love is a many splendored thing, a varied, complicated, addictive, wonderful thing.

Download or read book The Pacific and Other Stories written by Mark Helprin and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2005-06-28 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A dazzling collection of short stories by Mark Helprin, bestselling author of Winter's Tale, which is now a major motion picture starring Colin Farrell, Jessica Brown Findlay, Russell Crowe, William Hurt, and Jennifer Connelly The Pacific and Other Stories is a collection of sixteen stories that display the remarkable scope, incomparable wit, and deft prose that have come to be Mark Helprin's signature. A British paratrooper jumps into occupied territory; the 1958 New York Yankees gain an unexpected teammate in a puny, teenaged Hasidic Jew; a September 11th widow receives an astonishing gift from the contractor working on her new apartment—these and other stories exhibit the constantly changing variety of the ocean itself, the peaks and troughs of life. Lighthearted, glittering fables are met with starker tales that sound the depths of sacrifice and duty. The Pacific and Other Stories is a resplendent, powerful collection of lasting substance and emotional import.

Download or read book The Devil and Other Stories written by Leo Tolstoy and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2003-07-10 with total page 556 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'It is impossible to explain why Yevgeny chose Liza Annenskaya, as it is always impossible to explain why a man chooses this and not that woman.' This collection of eleven stories spans virtually the whole of Tolstoy's creative life. While each is unique in form, as a group they are representative of his style, and touch on the central themes that surface in War and Peace and Anna Karenina. Stories as different as 'The Snowstorm', 'Lucerne', 'The Diary of a Madman', and 'The Devil' are grounded in autobiographical experience. They deal with journeys of self-discovery and the moral and religious questioning that characterizes Tolstoy's works of criticism and philosophy. 'Strider' and 'Father Sergy', as well as reflecting Tolstoy's own experiences, also reveal profound psychological insights. These stories range over much of the Russian world of the nineteenth century, from the nobility to the peasantry, the military to the clergy, from merchants and cobblers to a horse and a tree. Together they present a fascinating picture of Tolstoy's skill and artistry. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Download or read book Listen Other Stories written by Liam Callanan and published by Four Way Books . This book was released on 2016-04-01 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Listen is a book where characters ask readers to do just that: listen to their stories, especially because many aren't the type of people who often get listened to - even though they should. These characters' trials, missed connections, and sundry challenges are full of surprises - some good, some bad, some funny, some wise, and some all this at once. Perhaps most surprising of all, there's tenderness here and a lot of heart - which often gets the collection's characters into a lot of trouble.

Download or read book El Milagro and Other Stories written by Patricia Preciado Martin and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 1996-02 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stories on the people of the Southwest. Silviana strides to her chicken coop, triggering a "feathered pandemonium" as chickens smell death in the air, Mamacita embroiders, "wondering what in the world it feels like to be kissed," and people who buy tortillas at the market "might as well move to Los Angeles, for they have already lost their souls."

Download or read book The First Person and Other Stories written by Ali Smith and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2012-10-04 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The First Person and Other Stories is the fourth collection of short stories by Ali Smith. The First Person and Other Stories effortlessly appeals to our hearts, heads and funny bones. Always intellectually playful, but also very moving and funny, Smith explores the ways and whys of storytelling. In one, a middle-aged woman conducts a poignant conversation with her gauche fourteen-year-old self. In another, an innocent supermarket shopper finds in her trolley a foul-mouthed, insulting and beautiful child. Challenging the boundaries between fiction and reality, a third presents its narrator, 'Ali', as she drinks tea, phones a friend and muses on the relationship between the short story and - a nymph. Innovative, sophisticated and intelligent, the stories in The First Person and Other Stories are packed full of ideas, jokes, nuance and compassion. Ali Smith and the short story are made for each other. 'Smith's is a profoundly optimistic vision. These stories are frightening yet funny, and the sheer exuberance and playfulness of her language endows dark matters with a lightness of touch' New Statesman 'She's a genius, genuinely modern in the heroic, glorious sense' Alain de Botton 'Terrific . . . hurrah for Ali Smith . . . The best short-story writers make it look as easy as making a cup of tea. Ali Smith is one of these . . . A bold and brilliant collection of stories by a writer unafraid to give it to us as it is' Times 'A glorious collection that celebrates and subverts the short story form' Independent

Download or read book The Hidden Girl and Other Stories written by Ken Liu and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2020-02-25 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Includes stories featured in Pantheon—now an animated series on AMC+ “I know this is going to sound hyperbolic, but when I’m reading Ken Liu’s stories, I feel like I’m reading a once-in-a-generation talent. I’m in awe.” —Jamie Ford, New York Times bestselling author “Captivating.” —BuzzFeed “Extraordinary.” —The Washington Post “Brilliant.” —The Chicago Tribune With the release of The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories, Ken Liu’s short fiction has resonated with a generation of readers. From stories about time-traveling assassins, to Black Mirror-esque tales of cryptocurrency and internet trolling, to heartbreaking narratives of parent-child relationships, The Hidden Girl and Other Stories is a far-reaching work that explores topical themes from the present and a visionary look at humanity’s future. This collection includes a selection of Liu’s speculative fiction stories over the past five years—seventeen of his best—plus a new novelette. In addition, it also features an excerpt from The Veiled Throne, the third book in Liu’s epic fantasy series The Dandelion Dynasty. Stories include: Ghost Days; Maxwell's Demon; The Reborn; Thoughts and Prayers; Byzantine Empathy; The Gods Will Not Be Chained; Staying Behind; Real Artists; The Gods Will Not Be Slain; Altogether Elsewhere, Vast Herds of Reindeer; The Gods Have Not Died in Vain; Memories of My Mother; Dispatches from the Cradle: The Hermit—Forty-Eight Hours in the Sea of Massachusetts; Grey Rabbit, Crimson Mare, Coal Leopard; A Chase Beyond the Storms (an excerpt from The Veiled Throne, Book 3 of the Dandelion Dynasty); The Hidden Girl; Seven Birthdays; The Message; Cutting

Download or read book A World Apart and Other Stories written by Kathleen Hayes and published by Charles University in Prague, Karolinum Press. This book was released on 2022-12-01 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “It grew dark and a mist spread over the countryside like a curtain. We were at the Bohemian border. Customs control, shouting, the din of the station, and finally the train moved on with a monotonous drone. ‘It was right here that I met Teresa Elinson,’ Marta said, in the corner of the cozy compartment. I replied: ‘Who is Teresa Elinson? I don’t remember you ever mentioning her.’ ‘No, never. It was a kind of adventure. That time too the train hurtled into the dark, where red sparks flew and lights flashed, scattering in the mist...’” Thus begins the story by Růžena Jesenská that gives this book its name. In this anthology, Kathleen Hayes has selected and translated eight stories by Czech female authors at the turn of the 19th and 20th century: a period of female political emancipation and impressive literary development. All of the writers included in the present volume were recognized in their own day and constitute a cross-section of the literary styles of the period. Tilschová’s “A Sad Time” is written in a Naturalist style; Jesenská’s “A World Apart” presents themes and motifs that appealed to the Decadents. Malířová’s “The Sylph” is both diaristic and satirical, while Svobodová’s ironical “A Great Passion”, with its rural setting and folklore motifs, reminds one of the writings of Karel Jaromír Erben. Preissová’s short story may be read as a celebration of folk culture. Benešová’s “Friends” is interesting for its psychological presentation of a child’s point of view and its implicit criticism of anti-Semitism. The book is accompanied by the biographies of each author and an introduction by Kathleen Hayes.