Publisher: Salt
'This new short story collection from Clare Fisher explores of feelings of failure around gender, sexuality, and work, that arise in a success-obsessed capitalist culture. Dazzling, playful, and experimental, it veers between the real, the surreal and the absurd.'
Wildest among the fisher-folk may be accounted the Chinese shrimp-catchers. It is the habit of the shrimp to crawl along the bottom in vast armies till it reaches fresh water, when it turns about and crawls back again to the salt. And where the tide ebbs and flows, the Chinese sink great bag-nets to the bottom, with gaping mouths, into which the shrimp crawls and from which it is transferred to the boiling-pot. This in itself would not be bad, were it not for the small mesh of the nets, so small that the tiniest fishes, little new-hatched things not a quarter of an inch long, cannot pass through. The beautiful beaches of Points Pedro and Pablo, where are the shrimp-catchers villages, are made fearful by the stench from myriads of decaying fish, and against this wasteful destruction it has ever been the duty of the fish patrol to act.These stories are set in the waterways around San Francisco Bay and involve the fish patrol with a variety of characters of different ethnicity and cultural backgrounds.Show book
This Audiobook contains the following works arranged alphabetically by authors last names Dracula [Bram Stoker] The Dunwich Horror [H. P. Lovecraft] The Legend of Sleepy Hollow [Washington Irving] Frankenstein [Mary Shelley]Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde [Robert Louis Stevenson] A Halloween Wraith [William Black] The Turn of the Screw [Henry James] The Raven [Edgar Allan Poe] Carmilla [Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu ] The Phantom of the Opera [Gaston Leroux] Also Available:10 Masterpieces you have to listen before you die, Vol. 1 (Golden Deer Classics) 10 Masterpieces you have to listen before you die, Vol. 2 (Golden Deer Classics)Show book
William Fryer Harvey (1885-1937) was an English writer of short stories, most notably in the mystery and horror genres, in which many of his works are recognized as masterpieces of the genre. "Miss Cornelius" is one of W. F. Harvey's most acclaimed works. The elderly spinster, Miss Cornelius appears to be the cause of a range of strange supernatural phenomena which are troubling the house where she is temporarily lodging. But when Andrew Saxon, a local schoolmaster, accuses her of being behind the mysterious haunting she turns on him with a terrifying curse. Following this the focus of the strange and terrifying phenomena mysteriously shifts to the Saxon household... and worse still, it seems as though the awful powers have transferred from Miss Cornelius to Saxon's beloved wife, Molly. As so often with W. F. Harvey's works, there is a terrible and astounding twist at the end of the story.Show book
Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce (1842-circa 1914) was an American author, journalist, short story writer and satirist who disappeared in 1913 under mysterious circumstances and was never seen again. 'A Tough Tussle' is a weird and horrible ghost story about a soldier in the Civil War who finds himself stationed on sentry duty, alone in a wood at night, next to the corpse of an enemy soldier. While he waits and watches, the body appears to change position....Show book
Fauna follows the lead of the bacon-skinned Pig with a menagerie of twisted tales about the lives and times of our fellow-feeling creatures. There are guinea pigs in the underworld, elephants in a virtual world, vengeful birds from a far-off world, and so much more beastliness. There will be nowhere for the humans to hide. "Brilliant imagination and sharp storytelling aside, Dr. David Hartley shows us a delightfully fresh way of looking at who should, really, be our closest friends."- Nik Perring (Author of Not So Perfect, Freaks!) "Fiercely original, these are stories that are at times disturbing, absurd, and darkly comedic, and which refuse to conform to the constraints of time and space. A startling collection, that begs to be read aloud. Hartley is a brilliant storyteller, with the kind of imagination that leaves you feeling a bit fearful for your own safety." - Lucie McKnight Hardy (Author of Water Shall Refuse Them) "I haven't read anything quite like these brilliant, dark and often fairy-tailish short stories. The tension is found here on the edges and boundaries: human/animal, natural/man-made, happiness/horror. With humour and an incredible versatility in voice and style - not to mention technology-hacking rabbits and horses who time travel - Hartley asks us to look hard at our own world and never, ever, underestimate the animals. " - Tania Hershman, author of Some Of Us Glow More Than Others and My Mother Was An Upright Piano Extract: A Panda Appeared in Our Street A panda appeared in our street, skewered to the railing outside my house. Let me paint the picture: there's the road outside my house, then there's this long strip of grass, then there's the houses opposite. And the grass has got these railings all the way around it, for kids to kick their footballs off and stuff, and this panda was just there that morning, stuck on a row of the spikes, directly opposite my house. So, I went up to it and I was like that to the kids who were playing out, I was like; who's is this panda, lads? And they were like; dunno, dunno mate and they didn't seem to care. So, I knocked on to my neighbour, Gail, and she comes out and I'm like; Gail. Check this out. A panda. And she's like; hmm, oh yeah aye. So how are you keeping Jon, are you well? But I'm like; Gail, it's a panda! What should we do? And she's like; leave it, it's just some kid's toy. And that's when I realised. The people of the street; they weren't seeing the same thing I was. They were seeing a stuffed toy, like a teddy bear type thing, all synthetic fur and glass-bead eyes. But I was seeing something else. I was seeing a real-life panda skewered on a row of the railing spikes. And the poor bugger was still alive. There was blood on the floor and the panda was squirming and crying out a bit. I didn't know what to do. I thought about trying to lift it off, but you shouldn't do that in case you hit an artery. Or it might get angry and start attacking me, or it might run off and hurt some kid. So, I thought; ring the RSPCA, Jon, but if I'm the only one who can see it's a real panda, they might end up locking me away instead. So, I just left it. I guess I thought someone else would figure it out, or it would free itself or something.Show book
“A necessary piece in a literary California collection” with new work from Tommy Orange, Rabih Alamdeddine, Mai Der Vang, Jennifer Egan, and others (Los Angeles Times). From immigration rights to climate change, California has been ground zero for the most crucial questions of our time. In a bravura essay, Rabih Alamdeddine remembers bartending during the worst years of the AIDS crisis. William T. Vollmann visits the Carr fire and discovers that gas masks are the new normal. Natalie Diaz describes growing up in the desert and remaking her body on the basketball court. Award-winning journalist Lauren Markham revisits her family’s tales of their arrival in a town built by a con man on stolen land. Karen Tei Yamashita tells of a Japanese-American man going to Hiroshima after the bomb dropped, writing letters home. Reyna Grande witnesses her mother never adapting after migrating from Mexico. Tommy Orange conjures a native man so lost and broke he’s either going to rob a bank or end his life—but love might rescue him. Rachel Kushner sings a hymn to the danger and beauty of cars. And since the Beat movement, California has also given birth to an explosion of poetry. New poems by Frank Bidart, Robin Coste Lewis, D.A. Powell, and recent poet laureate Juan Felipe Herrera join newcomers Mai Der Vang and Javier Zamora in this investigation and celebration of California writing. Featuring new work from Héctor Tobar and Jennifer Egan, Oscar Villalon and Anthony Marra, Geoff Dyer and Elaine Castillo, Freeman’s: California will become a benchmark for California anthologies before and to come. “In this collection, California in all its glorious complexity comes vividly to life.” —Kirkus ReviewsShow book
