Download or read book Ideas of Heaven A Ring of Stories written by Joan Silber and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2005-05-17 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shortlisted for the National Book Award: "Joan Silber writes with wisdom, humor, grace, and wry intelligence. Her characters bear welcome news of how we will survive."—Andrea Barrett Intense in subject yet restrained in tone, these stories are about longings—often held for years—and the ways in which sex and religion can become parallel forms of dedication and comfort. Though the stories stand alone, a minor element in one becomes major in the next. In "My Shape", a woman is taunted by her dance coach, who later suffers his own heartache. A Venetian poet of the 1500s, another storyteller, is introduced to a modern traveler reading Rilke. His story precedes a mesmerizing narrative of missionaries in China. In the final story, Giles, born to a priesthood family, leans toward Buddhism after a grievous loss, and in time falls in love with the dancer of the first story. So deft and subtle is Joan Silber with these various perspectives that we come full circle surprised and enchanted by her myriad worlds. National Book Award finalist. Reading group guide included.

Download or read book The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories written by Ben Marcus and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 540 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “In twenty-nine separate but ingenious ways, these stories seek permanent residence within a reader. They strive to become an emotional or intellectual cargo that might accompany us wherever, or however, we go. . . . If we are made by what we read, if language truly builds people into what they are, how they think, the depth with which they feel, then these stories are, to me, premium material for that construction project. You could build a civilization with them.” —Ben Marcus, from the Introduction Award-winning author of Notable American Women Ben Marcus brings us this engaging and comprehensive collection of short stories that explore the stylistic variety of the medium in America today. Sea Oak by George Saunders Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower Do Not Disturb by A.M. Homes The Girl in the Flammable Skirt by Aimee Bender The Caretaker by Anthony Doerr The Old Dictionary by Lydia Davis The Father’s Blessing by Mary Caponegro The Life and Work of Alphonse Kauders by Aleksandar Hemon People Shouldn’t Have to be the Ones to Tell You by Gary Lutz Histories of the Undead by Kate Braverman When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine by Jhumpa Lahiri Down the Road by Stephen Dixon X Number of Possibilities by Joanna Scott Tiny, Smiling Daddy by Mary Gaitskill Brief Interviews with Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace The Sound Gun by Matthew Derby Short Talks by Anne Carson Field Events by Rick Bass Scarliotti and the Sinkhole by Padgett Powell

Download or read book The Oxford Book of American Short Stories written by Joyce Carol Oates and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1992 with total page 788 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume offers a survey of American short fiction in 59 tales that combine classic works with 'different, unexpected gems', which invite readers to explore a wealth of important pieces by women and minority writers. Authors include: Amy Tan, Alice Adams, David Leavitt and Tim O'Brien.

Download or read book The Soho Press Book of 80s Short Fiction written by Dale Peck and published by Soho Press. This book was released on 2016-06-07 with total page 593 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Soho Press Book of '80s Short Fiction, editor Dale Peck offers readers a fresh take on a seminal period in American history, when Ronald Reagan was president, the Cold War was rushing to its conclusion, and literature was searching for ways to move beyond the postmodern unease of the 1970s. Morally charged by newly politicized notions of identity but fraught with anxiety about a body whose fragility had been freshly emphasized by the AIDS epidemic, the 34 works gathered here are individually vivid, but taken as a body of work, they challenge the prevailing notion of the ’80s as a time of aesthetic as well as financial maximalism. Formally inventive yet tightly controlled, they offer a more expansive, inclusive view of the era’s literary accomplishments. The anthology blends early stories from writers like Denis Johnson, Jamaica Kincaid, Mary Gaitskill, and Raymond Carver, which have gone on to become part of the American canon, with remarkable and often transgressive work from some of the most celebrated writers of the underground, including Dennis Cooper, Eileen Myles, Lynne Tillman, and Gary Indiana. Peck has also included powerful work by writers such as Gil Cuadros, Essex Hemphill, and Sam D’Allesandro, whose untimely deaths from AIDS ended their careers almost before they had begun. Almost a third of the stories are out of print and unavailable elsewhere. The Soho Press Book of ’80s Short Fiction is a daring reappraisal of a decade that is increasingly central to our culture.

Download or read book The Granta Book of the American Short Story written by Richard Ford and published by . This book was released on 2012-09 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Granta Book of the American Short Story is a selection of the best works of American short fiction published in the last 50 years. -- Publisher details.

Download or read book The Short Stories of F Scott Fitzgerald written by F. Scott Fitzgerald and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 1998-04-15 with total page 11 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Together, these forty-three stories compose a vivid picture of a lost era, but their brilliance is timeless.

Download or read book The New Oxford Book of Canadian Short Stories in English written by Margaret Atwood and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1995 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A survey of Canada's leading writers features forty-seven stories, with new pieces by writers in the original Oxford Book of Canadian Short Stories. Included are short stories by W. P. Kinsella, Morley Callaghan, Timothy Findlay, Matt Cohen, Alice Munro and Margaret Atwood.

Download or read book The Oxford Book of Japanese Short Stories written by Theodore William Goossen and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2002 with total page 486 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beginning with the first writings to assimilate and rework Western literary traditions, through the flourishing of the short story genre in the cosmopolitan atmosphere of the Taisho era, to the new breed of writers produced under the constraints of literary censorship, and the current writings reflecting the pitfalls and paradoxes of modern life, this anthology offers a stimulating survey of the entire development of the Japanese short story.

Download or read book The Penguin Book of the Modern American Short Story written by John Freeman and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2022-05-03 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A selection of the best and most representative contemporary American short fiction from 1970 to 2020, including such authors as Ursula K. LeGuin, Toni Cade Bambara, Jhumpa Lahiri, Sandra Cisneros, and Ted Chiang, hand-selected by celebrated editor and anthologist John Freeman In the past fifty years, the American short story has changed dramatically. New voices, forms, and mixtures of styles have brought this unique genre a thrilling burst of energy. The Penguin Book of the Modern American Short Story celebrates this avalanche of talent. This rich anthology begins in 1970 and brings together a half century of powerful American short stories from all genres, including—for the first time in a collection of this scale—science fiction, horror, and fantasy, placing writers such as Ursula K. Le Guin, Ken Liu, and Stephen King next to some beloved greats of the literary form: Raymond Carver, Grace Paley, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and Denis Johnson. Culling widely, John Freeman, the former editor of Granta and now editor of his own literary annual, brings forward some astonishing work to be regarded in a new light. Often overlooked tales by Dorothy Allison, Percival Everett, and Charles Johnson will recast the shape and texture of today’s enlarging atmosphere of literary dialogue. Stories by Lauren Groff and Ted Chiang raise the specter of engagement in ecocidal times. Short tales by Tobias Wolff, George Saunders, and Lydia Davis rub shoulders with near novellas by Susan Sontag and Andrew Holleran. This book will be a treasure trove for readers, writers, and teachers alike.

Download or read book Verge written by Lidia Yuknavitch and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-02-02 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: LONGLISTED FOR THE STORY PRIZE Named one of the Best Books of the Year by Bustle and Lit Hub A fiercely empathetic group portrait of the marginalized and outcast in moments of crisis, from one of the most galvanizing voices in American fiction. Lidia Yuknavitch is a writer of rare insight into the jagged boundaries between pain and survival. Her characters are scarred by the unchecked hungers of others and themselves, yet determined to find salvation within lives that can feel beyond their control. In novels such as The Small Backs of Children and The Book of Joan, she has captivated readers with stories of visceral power. Now, in Verge, she offers a shard-sharp mosaic portrait of human resilience on the margins. The landscape of Verge is peopled with characters who are innocent and imperfect, wise and endangered: an eight-year-old black-market medical courier, a restless lover haunted by memories of his mother, a teenage girl gazing out her attic window at a nearby prison, all of them wounded but grasping toward transcendence. Clear-eyed yet inspiring, Verge challenges us with moments of uncomfortable truth, even as it urges us to place our faith not in the flimsy guardrails of society but in the memories held—and told—by our own individual bodies.

Download or read book Jesus Son written by Denis Johnson and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2009-02-17 with total page 145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jesus' Son is a visionary chronicle of dreamers, addicts, and lost souls. These stories tell of spiraling grief and transcendence, of rock bottom and redemption, of getting lost and found and lost again. The raw beauty and careening energy of Denis Johnson's prose has earned this book a place among the classics of twentieth-century American literature.

Download or read book Kaya s Short Story Collection written by Janet Beeler Shaw and published by American Girl Publishing Incorporated. This book was released on 2006 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents a collection of stories about the life and times of Kaya, a Nez Perce girl.

Download or read book A Collection of Short Stories written by Gillian Fletcher-Edwards and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2016-11-29 with total page 149 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Collection of Short Stories not only incorporates storylines of love and modern problems evident in todays society but also personal experiences of a miners daughter. Author Gillian Fletcher-Edwards grew up in a mining family of the fifties and sixties, from which many of her stories and life philosophies grew. Marged Evans is the story of two people who drifted apart. Marged allowed the breakup to affect her life, but her receipt of a Christmas card from her long-lost lover changes everything. The Bully is apt for people of every age and culture and will encourage people to deal with bullies in a healthy manner. The Annual Outing is a reflection of the miners holidays when, regardless of the weather, people in droves escaped the bleakness of mining life. The Cottage on the Hill: A Monologue illustrates how people are often undervalued for their work and general loyalty, passed over for yes-men. The Raindrop shows how people can change from being friendly to hostile when necessities are scarce. Fletcher-Edwards hopes that through her stories, people will not forget the struggles that miners familieswherever in the world they liveoften experience.

Download or read book The New Collected Short Stories written by Jeffrey Archer and published by Pan. This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edition brings together three of Jeffrey Archer's classic collections of short stories: To Cut a Long Story Short, Cat O' Nine Tales and And Thereby Hangs a Tale, showcasing the master storyteller's skill like never before. Every reader will have their own favourites: the choices run from love at first sight across the train tracks to the cleverest of confidence tricks, from the quirks of the legal profession - and those who are able to manipulate both sides of the Bar - to the creative financial talents of a member of Her Majesty's diplomatic service - but for a good cause. In 'Caste-Off', Jamwal and Nisha fall in love while waiting for a traffic light to turn green in Delhi, and in 'Don't Drink The Water', a company chairman tries to poison his wife while on a trip to St Petersburg - with unexpected consequences ... The stories held in these pages are irresistible: ingeniously plotted, with richly drawn characters and deliciously unexpected conclusions.

Download or read book Just a Book written by Anna Kristina Nikitina and published by . This book was released on 2008-02 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Just a Book is a delightful set of mystical, magical short stories that will capture your imagination as you are transported to exotic worlds far, far away. Be prepared for your heart to take flight as you follow the adventures of each memorable character in this unusual collection of seven remarkable tales. True romantics everywhere will discover just a tiny bit of themselves in normal, everyday Abigail, the heroine in the title story of Just a Book. Abigail longs to become a famous writer, yet her inspiration only comes during sleep, when a warrior hero and his priestess love play out their romance in Abigail's dreams. When a transcript of her dreams becomes a bestselling book, Abigail must learn the hard truth that success can never be cherished if the price is too steep. Each of the remaining stories in Just a Book, from "Embrace in Flames," the story of Nora the doomed sorceress, to "Beloved Enemy," the tale of Sir Sterdan, a dragon-slaying knight, are set against an unexpected concoction of both real-world and makebelieve locations. So much more than Just a Book, these seven short stories will delight readers with a host of unforgettable characters moving through an endless series of fascinating twists and turns of fate.

Download or read book Your Duck Is My Duck written by Deborah Eisenberg and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2018-09-25 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “[Eisenberg] reminds us in every line of certain saving virtues: wit, wild intelligence, great heart, the beauty of the inquiring human voice. If our culture can produce a writer this wonderful, there must be something beautiful about us yet.” — George Saunders Instead of forcing her characters’ stories into neat, arbitrary, preordained shapes, [Eisenberg] allows them to grow organically into oddly shaped, asymmetrical narratives—narratives that possess all the surprising twists and dismaying turns of real life.” — New York Times “Deborah Eisenberg, one of America’s finest writers, offers new ways of seeing and feeling, as if something were being perfected at the core.” — San Francisco Chronicle “Reading [Eisenberg] makes you wish, as you study the family in front of you in the grocery line, that you could see their thoughts rendered as one of Eisenberg’s stunning inner monologues.” — Los Angeles Times “...[S]uperlative and entertaining...Eisenberg is funny, grim, biting, and wise, but always with a light touch and always in the service of worlds that extend far beyond the page. A virtuoso at rendering the flickering gestures by which people simultaneously hide and reveal themselves, Eisenberg is an undisputed master of the short story.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review) “[Eisenberg] is always worth the wait...so instantly absorbing that it feels like an abduction...This book offers no palliatives to its characters or to its readers — no plan of action. But it is a compass.” — The New York Times “Eisenberg is a gorgeous writer...I thank my stars that there’s a writer in the increasingly imperiled world as smart and funny and blazingly moral and devastatingly sidelong as she is.” — New York Times Book Review “Every character is memorable, every situation seizes our attention, and not a single word is out of place...It’s my fervent hope...that someday we’ll have the opportunity to look back on the many more stories that Deborah Eisenberg has yet to write.” — Financial Times

Download or read book Nine Stories written by J. D. Salinger and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2019-08-13 with total page 151 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The "original, first-rate, serious, and beautiful" short fiction (New York Times Book Review) that introduced J. D. Salinger to American readers in the years after World War II, including "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" and the first appearance of Salinger's fictional Glass family. Nine exceptional stories from one of the great literary voices of the twentieth century. Witty, urbane, and frequently affecting, Nine Stories sits alongside Salinger's very best work--a treasure that will passed down for many generations to come. The stories: A Perfect Day for Bananafish Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut Just Before the War with the Eskimos The Laughing Man Down at the Dinghy For Esmé--with Love and Squalor Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes De Daumier-Smith's Blue Period Teddy