Title search results
Showing 1 - 20 of 402 items
The Runner
By Keith Gray. 2005
Jason has had enough of his parents' arguments. He's running away to stay with his brother in Liverpool. On the…
train journey he meets a 'runner' called Jam, who lives on the monster Intercity trains and stations. His carefree and adventurous life sounds so exciting that Jason begins to think he might join Jam. Then Jason discovers Jam's secret.Red Cavalry and Other Stories
By Isaac Babel. 1994
Throughout his life Isaac Babel was torn by opposing forces, by the desire both to remain faithful to his Jewish…
roots and yet to be free of them. This duality of vision infuses his work with a powerful energy from the earliest tales including 'Old Shloyme' and 'Childhood', which affirm his Russian-Jewish childhood, to the relatively non-Jewish world of his collection of stories entitled 'Red Cavalry'. Babel's masterpiece, 'Red Cavalry' is the most dramatic expression of his dualism and in his simultaneous acceptance and rejection of his heritage heralds the great American-Jewish writers from Henry Roth to Saul Bellow and Philip Roth.Curl up with this delicious collection of bite-sized treats from the queen of feel-good fiction! A Recipe for Happiness takes…
you through a year with No.1 bestselling author Jo Thomas and includes seven heartwarming short stories, tons of mouth-watering new recipes and some personal family memories for an insight into Jo's life and loves, along with an extract of her most recent novel. It's perfect for fans old and new!**Jo Thomas' new novel COUNTDOWN TO CHRISTMAS is out now in ebook and paperback!**Your favourite authors love Jo Thomas:'Bursting with flavour, adventure and romance' Ruth Jones'Delicious and delightful - Jo sweeps you away to a better place with every book, which are always filled with warmth, love and a big spoonful of happiness' Veronica Henry'Heart-warming, moving and romantic, with beautiful settings - what could be better?' Katie FfordeLu Xun (Lu Hsun) is arguably the greatest writer of modern China, and is considered by many to be the…
founder of modern Chinese literature. Lu Xun's stories both indict outdated Chinese traditions and embrace China's cultural richness and individuality. This volume presents brand-new translations by Julia Lovell of all of Lu Xun's stories, including 'The Real Story of Ah-Q', 'Diary of a Madman', 'A Comedy of Ducks', 'The Divorce' and 'A Public Example', among others. With an afterword by Yiyun Li.Raven Feeder (Storycuts)
By M C Scott. 2011
Set during the turmoil of the brutal Christian conversion of the Norse, this short story is the coming of age…
tale of Arne Thoreson. Thoreson, whose condemnation of Christianity is born out of respect for his lineage, is the son of Thore, feeder of ravens, and Ranveig, a Singer witch. When adversity befalls Orkney, Arne must not only assert his defiant rejection of Christianity, but take decisive action to thwart the Christ-Wolf, Olaf Trygvason.Part of the Storycuts series.Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories
By Ryunosuke Akutagawa. 2006
Ryünosuke Akutagawa (1892-1927) is one of Japan’s foremost stylists - a modernist master whose short stories are marked by highly…
original imagery, cynicism, beauty and wild humour. ‘Rashömon’ and ‘In a Bamboo Grove’ inspired Kurosawa’s magnificent film and depict a past in which morality is turned upside down, while tales such as ‘The Nose’, ‘O-Gin’ and ‘Loyalty’ paint a rich and imaginative picture of a medieval Japan peopled by Shoguns and priests, vagrants and peasants. And in later works such as ‘Death Register’, ‘The Life of a Stupid Man’ and ‘Spinning Gears’, Akutagawa drew from his own life to devastating effect, revealing his intense melancholy and terror of madness in exquisitely moving impressionistic stories.The Queen of Spades, one of his most popular and chilling short stories, tells of an inveterate card player who…
develops a dangerous obsession with the secret of an old lady's luck, which he believes will bring him the wealth he craves. The Negro of Peter the Great, a story based on the life Pushkin's own great-grandfather, is a vivid depiction - and criticism - of both French and Russian society, while Dubrovsky is the Byronic tale of a dispossessed young officer. The Captain's Daughter tells of a young man sent to military service - based on the actual events of the rebellion against Catherine II, it demonstrates Pushkin's unparalleled skill at blending fiction and history. Together these four stories display the versatility and innovation that earned Pushkin his reputation as a master of prose and established him as the towering figure in Russian literature.The Pursuit of the Well-beloved and the Well-beloved
By Thomas Hardy. 1997
Hardy's two versions of a strange story set in the weird landscape of Portland. The central figure is a man…
obsessed both with the search for his ideal woman and with sculpting the perfect figure of Aphrodite.Prosperity Drive
By Mary Morrissy. 2016
‘A wonderful writer’ Hilary MantelAll of life is laid bare in Prosperity Drive. A woman falls and remembers a moment…
decades earlier that changed the course of her life. A failed priest teaches children to swim at the YMCA. A teenage girl takes a spanner to the car of the young man who has driven her home. A honeymoon in Venice goes disastrously wrong. A man is reunited with his first love in an airport departure lounge. All of the characters begin their journeys on Prosperity Drive, appear and disappear, bump into each other in chance encounters, and join up again through love, marriage or memory in this mesmerising book.Poor Folk and Other Stories
By Fyodor Dostoyevsky. 1988
With their penetrating psychological insight and their emphasis on human dignity, respect and forgiveness, Dostoyevsky's early short stories contain the…
seeds of the themes that came to his major novels. Poor Folk, the author's first great literary triumph, is the story of a tragic relationship between an impoverished copy clerk and a young seamstress, told through their passionate letters to each other. In The Landlady Dostoyevsky portrays a dreamer hero who is captivated by a curious couple and becomes their lodger. Mr Prokharchin, inspired by a true story, is a sly comedy centring on an eccentric miser, and Polzunkov is a powerful character sketch which, in common with the other tales in this volume, questions the very nature of existence.World of Archie Double Digest #139 (World of Archie Digest #139)
By Archie Superstars. 2024
The Grizzwells: I Can't Wait to Be a Dysfunctional Teenager (Udig Ser.)
By Bill Schorr, Ralph Smith. 2013
Gunther Grizzwell is your average family bear, with a wife and kids, a day job, and a bottomless appetite for…
anything from roadkill to the occasional forest hiker. This e-book only collection of Grizzwells comics follows Gunther, his wife, Flora, and his kids, Tucker and Fauna, on their daily exploits both in and out of the home. We see Gunther’s well-intentioned attempts at imparting fatherly wisdom, Tucker and Fauna’s clever schemes for avoiding homework, and Flora’s heroic efforts at preserving order amid her family’s various misadventures. Clever and sharply drawn, The Grizzwells is a funny and unpredictable spin on the traditional family comic strip—with bite. Created by award-winning artist Bill Schorr, it has been in syndication nationally for more than twenty years.Betty & Veronica Decades: The 1970s (Archie Graphic Novels #1)
By Archie Superstars. 2024
Jump back to the Bronze Age with America's Sweethearts, Betty Cooper and Veronica Lodge, as the pair were both best…
friends and raging rivals in the Spectacular Seventies!Continue the 80+ year celebration of Archie Comics with this special retrospective collection! Betty & Veronica shined bright in the 1970s when their standalone title proved to be interesting, hilarious and unforgettable -- and their fashion was always top-notch! "Decades" features some of the iconic stories that cemented their lasting imprint on the world.A Kind of Madness
By Uche Okonkwo. 2024
“Steady-handed and gut-punching. I’m in awe.”—NoViolet Bulawayo An Oprah Daily Most Anticipated Book of 2024 A searing, unflinching collection of…
stories set in Nigeria that explores themes of community expectations, familial strife, and the struggle for survival. A teenage girl from a poor family is dazzled by her rich, vivacious friend, but as the friend’s behavior grows unstable and dangerous, she must decide whether to cover for her or risk telling the truth to get her the help she needs. A young woman and her mother bask in the envy of their neighbors when the woman receives an offer of marriage from the family of a doctor living in Belgium—though when the offer fails to materialize, that envy threatens to turn vicious, pitting them both against their community. And a lonely daughter finds herself wandering a village in eastern Nigeria in an ill-fated quest, struggling to come to terms with her mother’s mental illness. In ten vivid, evocative stories set in contemporary Nigeria, Uche Okonkwo’s A Kind of Madness unravels the tensions between mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, best friends, siblings, and more, marking the arrival of an extraordinary new talent in fiction and inviting us all to consider the question: why is it that the people and places we hold closest are so often the ones that drive us to madness?Storytime with Daddy
By Alan Pickard. 2024
Rory loved listening to stories and he always remembered the ones that Daddy read to him at bedtime. He wanted…
to know where stories came from. And he told Daddy that one day he would like to write stories. And that was why he couldn’t wait to start reading himself. Rory didn’t think that he would ever get tired of stories!Drowning in Gruel: Stories
By George Singleton. 2006
Take a darkly hilarious trip through a South Carolina town with the &“unchallenged king of the comic Southern short story&”…
(The Atlanta Journal-Constitution). &“Usually stories about small, quirky, southern towns are full of adorable, quirky characters that share their unusual philosophies with us and teach us how to enjoy life (think Forrest Gump or even Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil). Gruel may be small, southern, and quirky, but it is also as miserable as its name sounds. The inhabitants are miserable. Even people from as far away as New York who happen to stop by Gruel are miserable . . . Fortunately, the writing is good enough that the misery becomes somehow enjoyable.&” —Booklist &“George Singleton is a madman. He&’s also one of the most talented American writers the South has turned out in decades.&” —The Post and CourierThe Circus in Winter
By Cathy Day. 2005
Over a half century, a small Indiana town hosts a circus troupe during the off-seasons in linked stories “as graceful…
as any acrobat’s high-wire act” (San Francisco Chronicle).A Story Prize FinalistFrom 1884 to 1939, the Great Porter Circus made the unlikely choice to winter in an Indiana town called Lima, a place that feels as classic as Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio, and as wondrous as a first trip to the Big Top. In Lima, an elephant can change the course of a man's life—or the manner of his death. Jennie Dixianna entices men with her dazzling Spin of Death and keeps them in line with secrets locked in a cedar box. The lonely wife of the show’s manager has each room of her house painted like a sideshow banner, indulging her desperate passion for a young painter. And a former clown seeks consolation from his loveless marriage in his post-circus job at Clown Alley Cleaners. In this collection of linked stories spanning decades, Cathy Day follows the circus people into their everyday lives and brings the greatest show on earth to the page.“[An] exquisite story collection.” —The Washington Post“Often funny, always graceful, and rich with a mix of historical and imaginative detail.” —Tim O’Brien, author of The Things They Carried“Sublimely imaginative and affecting.” —The Boston GlobeWe're in Trouble: Stories
By Christopher Coake. 2015
Short fiction about love in the face of mortal threats, in a prize-winning collection by the author of You Came…
Back. In this extraordinary collection of short fiction, characters wrestle with the moments in life that test us most deeply, in ways both dramatic and subtle. In &“We&’re in Trouble,&” a woman is asked to end her dying husband&’s suffering. In &“Abandon,&” a troubled young man must risk jail to do right by the only woman he has ever loved. And &“In the Event&” shows a young musician&’s all-night vigil after he loses his best friends and is suddenly left as the guardian of their three-year-old son. From a wife waiting for news of her husband&’s latest death-defying climb to a sheriff thrown into turmoil after his close friend enacts a horrifying murder-suicide, this &“uncanny, clear-eyed [and] wildly engaging&” story collection was awarded the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize (Entertainment Weekly).Marcovaldo: Or, The Seasons in the City
By Italo Calvino. 1983
A charming portrait of one man&’s dreams and schemes, by &“the greatest Italian writer of the twentieth century&” (The Guardian).…
In this enchanting book of linked stories, Italo Calvino charts the disastrous schemes of an Italian peasant, an unskilled worker in a drab northern industrial city in the 1950s and &’60s, struggling to reconcile his old country habits with his current urban life. Marcovaldo has a practiced eye for spotting natural beauty and an unquenchable longing for the unspoiled rural world of his imagination. Much to the continuing puzzlement of his wife, his children, his boss, and his neighbors, he chases his dreams and gives rein to his fantasies, whether it&’s sleeping in the great outdoors on a park bench, following a stray cat, or trying to catch wasps. Unfortunately, the results are never quite what he anticipates. Spanning from the 1950s to the 1960s, the twenty stories in Marcovaldo are alternately comic and melancholy, farce and fantasy. Throughout, Calvino&’s unassuming masterpiece &“conveys the sensuous, tangible qualities of life&” (The New York Times).The Guy Not Taken: Stories
By Jennifer Weiner. 2004
“Eleven marvelous short stories” by the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of The Summer Place and Mrs. Everything (Entertainment Weekly).In…
these tender and often hilarious stories by Jennifer Weiner, we meet Marlie Davidow, home alone with her new baby late one Friday night when she wanders onto her ex’s online wedding registry and wonders where she’d be if she’d wound up with the guy not taken. We stumble on Bruce Guberman, liquored-up and ready for anything on the night of his best friend’s bachelor party, until stealing his girlfriend’s tiny rat terrier becomes more complicated than he’d planned. We find Jessica Norton listing her beloved New York City apartment in the hope of winning her broker’s heart. And we follow an unlikely friendship between two very different new mothers, and the choices that bring them together—and pull them apart.From a teenager coming to terms with her father’s disappearance to a widow accepting two young women into her home, these stories demonstrate Weiner’s amazing ability to find hope and humor, longing and love in the hidden corners of our common experiences.“Utterly readable.” —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette“Another delightful example of Jennifer Weiner’s tender way with words and emotions.” —Harper’s Bazaar“Very, very funny.” —Philadelphia Inquirer“Puts Weiner on the map as one of her generation’s best literary voices.” —The Boston Herald