Other books that might interest you

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  Feathered Glory

  James Lasdun

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  Feathered Glory explores themes of male friendship, waning middle-aged powers and sexual transgression in a way that couldn't feel more timely. The marriage of a school professor and artist reveals dangerous fault-lines when an old lover reappears in the husband's life and the wife, fascinated by a charismatic wildlife rehabilitator, brings an injured swan into their home.

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  Woodcuts of Women

  Dagoberto Gilb

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  These ten stories of “intensity and bravado” by the acclaimed Chicano author explore love, lust, and longing among people struggling to find their way (Jean Thompson, The New York Times Book Review).    Featuring characters of Mexican American heritage, each of these haunting stories is crafted with Gilb’s quintessentially spare yet evocative language and explores the lives of men and women at odds with each other. Steeped in an ethos of regimented gender roles, the men in these stories see the women in their lives as little more than woodcuts—crude variations of their actual complexity; symbols of seduction, mystery, and power that will ultimately bring about their undoing.   At turns powerful and resonant, hopeful and humorous, Woodcuts of Women is a tour de force by one of America’s foremost Latino writers.   “Lonely, tough stories—stories that force us to confront what’s difficult in us, and in the people we love.” —Esquire   “The gritty passions of men for women—the grand delusions and tender mercies—are the jukebox songs playing through the 10 stories of Gilb’s ‘Woodcuts of Women.’” —San Francisco Chronicle

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  Prague Noir

  Martin Goffa, Štepán Kopriva

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  This “varied and polished” anthology of original noir fiction introduces a new wave of Czech authors to English-speaking audiences (Publishers Weekly).It can be difficult to imagine noir fiction emerging in a city like Prague, where the profession of private detective didn’t even exist prior to 1990. Before the Velvet Revolution, the only serious criminal organization was the secret police. Yet, with its complex and often tragic history, the home of Franz Kafka and Milan Kundera offers a uniquely rich setting for stories of menace, danger, and secrecy; tales of individuals driven to break the law in the face of a desperate situation. In this “superior entry in Akashic’s noir series,” fourteen contemporary Czech authors introduce themselves—and their world—to an international audience (Publishers Weekly).Prague Noir includes brand-new stories by Martin Goffa, Štěpán Kopřiva, Miloš Urban, Jiří W. Procházka, Chaim Cigan, Ondřej Neff, Petr Stančík, Kateřina Tučková, Markéta Pilátová, Michal Sýkora, Michaela Klevisová, Petra Soukupová, Irena Hejdová, and Petr Šabach.

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  Above Sugar Hill

  Linda Mannheim

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  Above Sugar Hill is an unforgettable collection of short stories set in Washington Heights, New York, in a place no one from outside the neighbourhood is expected to visit. It is a visceral, vital work of site-specific fiction. These tales take place between 1973 and 2001 – a Puerto Rican Independentista fends off the FBI, a young girl spots Marilyn Monroe more than ten years after her suicide, an opera-singing housing activist goes missing, presumed to have been murdered. Here is a literary map of Upper Manhattan, uncompromising narratives and complicated truths.

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  The Dead

  James Joyce

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  A group of Dubliners gather together for a Christmas celebration in James Joyce's transcendent tale of the mundanity and magic in life and death. "The Dead" is taken from Joyce's collection of short stories  Dubliners. (summary by Iremonger)

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  Dis Mem Ber - And Other Stories...

  Joyce Carol Oates

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  In this disturbing short story collection, Joyce Carol Oates explores the inner lives of vulnerable girls and women.   Joyce Carol Oates is renowned for her rare ability to “illuminate the mind’s most disturbing corners” (The Seattle Times). That genius is on full display in this collection of seven feverishly unsettling works, DIS MEM BER and Other Stories of Mystery and Suspense.   In the title story, a precocious eleven-year-old named Jill is in thrall to an older male relative, the mysterious, attractive black sheep of the family. Without telling her parents Jill climbs into his sky-blue Chevy to be driven to an uncertain, and unforgettable, fate. In “The Drowned Girl,” a university transfer student becomes increasingly obsessed with the drowning/murder of another female student, as her own sense of self begins to deteriorate. In “Great Blue Heron,” a recent widow grieves inside the confines of her lakefront home and fantasizes about transforming into that great flying predator unerring and pitiless in the hunt. And in the final story, “Welcome to Friendly Skies,” a trusting group of bird-watchers is borne to a remote part of the globe, to a harrowing fate.   At the heart of this meticulously crafted, deeply disquieting collection are girls and women confronting the danger around them, and the danger hidden inside their turbulent selves.

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