Modern Short Stories

23 stories, all unabridged, from a diverse group of star writers and readers. A truly memorable collection with a wide appeal. Includes "The Years Midnight" by Helen Simpson, read by Harriet Walter; "On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful Morning" by Haruki Marukami, read by Walter Lewis; "Bablady" by A. S. Byatt, read by Roslaind Eyres; "Hotel des Vaoyaguerus" by William Boyd, read by Martin Jarvis; and "Who?" by Fay Weldon, read by Julie Christie.

Exit Wounds is a thrilling anthology of crime stories written by masters of the genre, including Dean Koontz, Val McDermid, Lee Child, Jeffery Deaver, Elly Griffiths, Dennis Lehane, Joe R. Lansdale, and others.

Lawrence Block's 17 Matthew Scudder novels have won the hearts of readers throughout the world - along with a bevy of awards including the Edgar, the Shamus, the Philip Marlowe (Germany), and the Maltese Falcon (Japan). But Scudder has starred in short fiction as well, and it's all here, from a pair of late-'70s novelettes ("Out the Window" and "A Candle for the Bag Lady") through "By the Dawn's Early Light" (Edgar) and "The Merciful Angel of Death" (Shamus), all the way to "One Last Night at Grogan's", a moving and elegiac story never before published.

After the loss of her mother, a woman returns to the San Fernando Valley only to uncover a haunting secret about her childhood friend. A visiting professor at a charming but strange California liberal arts college must face her past in order to protect her son. A sister, lost in the woods, confronts the dangerous truth about her brother, her stepmother, and herself. Rose's dog Wolfie has died, and three seductive women offer to help return him to her. But only if she will pay the price.

Paul Auster's signature work, The New York Trilogy, consists of three interlocking novels: City of Glass, Ghosts, and The Locked Room - haunting and mysterious tales that move at the breathless pace of a thriller.

Like the creation myths they supersede, the revelations of science are seared into our collective imagination through storytelling. From Archimedes' bath to Newton's apple, vivid accounts of scientific discovery help us understand the principles behind each theory, and add to the larger narrative of how the universe works, and how we came to be here. This anthology draws out and distils science's love of narrative from a wide range of scientific disciplines, weaving theory into very human stories.

In this short story from New York Times best-selling author Jonathan Maberry, Edgar Allan Poe's brilliant amateur detective Auguste Dupin is called in to investigate a savage murder perpetrated by an invisible killer.

An eclectic compendium of the finest short fiction of the last 150 years, featuring works by Paul Theroux, Joseph Conrad, James Ellroy, Ambrose Bierce, Charlotte Perkins Gillman, Aldous Huxley, Philip Roth, and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Things are getting serious at the Society for Magickal Heritage. An ancient legend has plans for Ves, and Ves has plans for just about everything else. It’s time to take on the ultimate challenge—and hope for the best. What could possibly go wrong? Well, everything. As usual. But if old magick is going to survive in the modern world, it’s no use being cautious. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, and Ves is giving it everything she’s got. But can she handle the cost? And can the cost handle her?

As the pace of modern life accelerates, the old ways wither and die. But to the Society for Magickal Heritage, that just isn’t good enough.

The electric, unsettling, and often surreal stories in Let's Go Let's Go Let's Go explore the alienated, technology-mediated lives of restless Asian and Asian American women today. A woman escapes into dating simulations to forget her best friend’s abandonment; a teenager begins to see menacing omens on others’ bodies after her double eyelid surgery; reunited schoolmates are drawn into the Japanese mountains to participate in an uncanny social experiment; a supernatural karaoke machine becomes a K-pop star’s channel for redemption. In every story, characters refuse dutiful, docile stereotypes.

Where is Wendy? Leading a labor strike against the Lost Boys, of course. In Jane Yolen's first full collection in more than 10 years, discover new and uncollected tales of beloved characters, literary legends, and much more. A Scottish academic unearths ancient evil in a fishing village. Edgar Allan Poe's young bride is beguiled by a most unusual bird. Dorothy, lifted from Kansas, returns as a gymnastic sophisticate. Emily Dickinson dwells in possibility and sails away in a starship made of light. Winner of the 2018 World Fantasy Award.

These three short works show Austen experimenting with a variety of different literary styles, from melodrama to satire, and exploring a range of social classes and settings. The early epistolary novel Lady Susan depicts an unscrupulous coquette toying with the affections of several men. In contrast, The Watsons is a delightful fragment whose spirited heroine, Emma Watson, finds her marriage opportunities limited by poverty and pride....

FBI special agent Kate O’Hare has made it her mission to nail international con artist Nicolas Fox. When she discovers his plot to plunder a venture capitalist’s 20th-story Chicago penthouse of all its cash and treasures while the self-proclaimed "King of Hostile Takeovers" is getting married, Kate is 85 percent - okay maybe 92 percent - sure that she’s finally going to bag Nick Fox. Problem is, first Kate has to convince her boss, building security, and maybe even herself, that wedding planner Merrill Stubing is actually Nicolas Fox. Second, she has to figure out how to corner and capture him without disrupting the event of the year.

When the latest in a series of dead bodies turns up in the Chicago River, newspaper reporter Alex Chapa and Police Lieutenant Jacqueline "Jack" Daniels reluctantly join forces. Thriller writers J.A. Konrath ( Whiskey Sour, Fuzzy Navel, Cherry Bomb) and Henry Perez ( Killing Red) and their series characters have teamed up to create FLOATERS, a mystery tale that combines humor with thrills.

This was the book that launched a genre. Modern fantasy collections trace their lineage back to Lord Dunsany, and this was his first work that today's listeners would recognise in tone and settings.

Lord Dunsany was the most influential writer in the genre that came to be known as fantasy, which his stories set trends for that continue to this day. In this collection you’ll find sixteen stories from the first and greatest master of the fantasy genre.

Today we have ghosts that haunted our ancestors, as well as our own modern revenants, and there appears to be no earthly use trying to banish or exorcise them by such a simple strategy as refusing to believe in them. Since man knows that whether or not he has seen a ghost, presently he will become one, and thus he has become fascinated with the subject. Therefore he creates ghosts, not merely in his own image, but according to his dreams of power.

Versailles, 1682: a city of the rich, a living fairy-tale, Louis XIV's fever dream. It's a place of opulence, beauty, and power. But strip back the lavish exterior of polite society, and you'll find a dark undercurrent of sexual intrigue and vicious gossip. Nobody is safe here - no matter how highly born they are. No one knows this better than Madame Marie d'Aulnoy. Each week, a rogue group of intellectuals gather at her Parisian home to debate, flirt and perform Contes de Fées - fairy tales - that challenge the status quo, at a salon that will change the course of literature forever.

An excellent collection of creepy ghost stories from some of the most notable names of early horror fiction, including: “The Willows” by Algernon Blackwood, “The Shadows On The Wall” by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, “The Messenger” by Robert W.Chambers, “Lazarus” by Leonid Andreyev, “The Beast With Five Fingers” by W.F. Harvey, “The Mass Of Shadows” by Anatole France, “What Was It” by Fitz-James O’brien, “The Middle Toe Of The Right Foot” by Ambrose Bierce, “The Shell Of Sense” by Olivia Howard Dunbar, and more!