Other books that might interest you

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  The Good Life - Stories

  Erin McGraw

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  A collection of short stories that are “at once laugh-out-loud funny and utterly serious” (Claire Messud, author of The Burning Girl).   “McGraw ably leavens heartbreak with humor . . . she renders quirky, refreshingly real characters—a mediocre ballet dancer who takes in a more successful dancer’s daughter; an insecure self-help author who’s thrown for a loop by a visit to her parents; a disillusioned bed-and-breakfast owner who flirts with moving to Aruba; Catholic priests who have trouble living up to their vows—on the verge of improving their lot in life. The happiness they catch glimpses of, though, frequently eludes their grasp . . . McGraw’s pitch-perfect dialogue and artful closeups on the telling, trying details of ordinary lives deliver stories that are easy to read but hard to forget.” —Publishers Weekly   “I love these stories about nice normal people trying—and failing—to cling to their fondest delusions.” —Molly Giles, author of All the Wrong Places

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  What Burns

  Dale Peck

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  The first collection of short fiction from Lambda Award–winning novelist Dale Peck spans twenty-five years of writing, including two O. Henry award-winners and the recipient of a Pushcart Prize. 
  The stories in What Burns examine the extremes of desire against a backdrop of family, class, and mortality. 
  In "Bliss," a young man befriends the convicted felon who murdered his mother when he was only a child. In "Not Even Camping Is Like Camping Anymore," a teenage boy fends off the advances of a five-year-old his mother babysits. And in "Dues," a man discovers that everything he owns is borrowed from someone else including his time on earth. 
  Walking the tightrope between tenderness and violence that has defined Peck's work since the publication of his first novel, Martin and John, through his most recent, Night Soil, What Burns reveals Peck's mastery of the short form.

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  Classic Short Stories - Volume...

  Virginia Woolf, E. W. Hornung

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  Stories are one of mankind’s greatest artistic achievements.  Whether written down or spoken they have an ability to capture our imagination and thoughts, and take us on incredible journeys in the space of a phrase and the turn of a page. 
   
  Within a few words of text or speech, new worlds and characters form, propelling a narrative to a conclusion with intricate ease. Finely crafted, perfectly formed these Miniature Masterpieces, at first thought, seem remarkably easy to conjure up. But ask any writer and they will tell you that distilling the essence of narrative and characters into a short story is one of the hardest acts of their literary craft.  Many attempt, but few achieve.

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  World That Couldn't Be The...

  Clifford D. Simak

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  The planet where his new plantation was established was very strange, with a complete lack of sex; all of his workers and all the animals and plants had no sex at all; they were all 'its'.    But like every farmer on every planet, Duncan had to hunt down anything that damaged his crops—and whatever animal ate his vua plants was going to die.  Of course he had no idea what this one looked like or what it was like, but whatever it was, he would track it and his rifle would bring it down.  It was a very interesting hunt with a very interesting ending.  Simak has written another delightful story that will keep you listening and wondering to the very end.  With maybe a chuckle and guffaw on top.   Listen and find out why.

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  Sex & Taipei City

  Yu-Han Chao

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  “In these tales of love, lust and relationships gone awry, Yun-Han Chao portrays a city and culture of secret desires, hidden passions, and endless regret.” —Home Planet News Sex in Taipei City is not what one expects: it is repressed, traded for cash, vengeful, sometimes awkward and almost always secretive. In Sex & Taipei City, a diverse cast of characters finds relationships more trouble than they bargained for. Some are young and innocent: a teenager loses her virginity to a Ching Dynasty torture device in her family’s Strange Objects Museum. Some are far from innocent: a schoolgirl sells her body as an odd form of revenge and a grandfather alienates his family by watching Japanese porn at too loud a volume. For others, sexuality is a battle: a wife leaves her husband over a sexist joke, a foreign nanny steals an American baby, a mail order bride runs away, and a “spinster” beats up a pervert in the MRT station.“From the fascinating quirks of food obsessions to the odd-but-seemingly-ordinary erotic moments of Taiwanese citizens, Yu-Han Chao’s Sex & Taipei City’s stories unfold a world of both the exotic and the familiar, captured in squirmy, disarming details . . . Funny, bold, and in moments, heartbreaking, these nineteen stories make up a stunning debut.” —William J. Cobb, author of The Bird Saviors“Contemporary Taiwan’s contradictions come to life in Yu-Han Chao’s wonderful and gossipy collection Sex and Taipei City . . . These are the stories shared between rounds of karaoke that are so juicy and awful, you don’t realize it when your song comes on.” —Ed Lin, author of the Taipei Night Market novels

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  The Count of Monte Cristo

  Alexandre Dumas

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  The Count of Monte Cristo (French: Le Comte de Monte-Cristo) is an adventure novel by Alexandre Dumas, père. It is often considered, along with The Three Musketeers, as Dumas' most popular work. It is also among the highest selling books of all time. The writing of the work was completed in 1844. Like many of his novels, it is expanded from the plot outlines suggested by his collaborating ghostwriter Auguste Maquet. The story takes place in France, Italy, islands in the Mediterranean and the Levant during the historical events of 1815–1838 (from just before the Hundred Days through the reign of Louis-Philippe of France). The historical setting is a fundamental element of the book. It is primarily concerned with themes of hope, justice, vengeance, mercy, forgiveness and death, and is told in the style of an adventure story.

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