American Literature Anthology

This is a story from the "Great Ghost Stories" collection.

Sade: I haven't done a lot of dating since my jerk fiance cheated on me two years ago, but I have a very full life: a great family, a fulfilling job, and a home in beautiful Portland, Oregon. Then my big brother introduces me to his mysterious writer friend from LA.. I'm falling fast, but I don't know if I can risk my heart again. What if this gorgeous, sensitive guy isn't what he seems to be?

It is extremely hard to remain faithful, especially when temptation is right in front of you. This is what caused one man to yield to temptation. He had always been faithful to his wife, but just one touch from the perfect female made him lose his cool. She too was fighting her own set of demons. She was in love with a man who was still committed to another.

Faithless is a work of experimental fiction weaving through various scenes and memories of being in love, out of love, and abused by love as told and experienced by Grace, a troubled 20-something-year-old struggling with her identity as a bisexual Korean-American. Everything is recounted as experienced - in fragments.

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) was an English novelist and poet whose work is best known for combining the traditions of Romanticism with a realistic portayal of a declining rural society in Victorian England. "The Fiddler of the Reels" tells the story of a love triangle. The enigmatic, brilliant and rakish violin player, Wat Ollamore, who arrives in the small South Wessex village of Mellstock, exercises a diabolical fascination with the young, impressionable Car'line Aspent.

In ancient mythology, the Titan Prometheus was punished by the gods for bringing man the gift of fire - an event that set humankind on its course of knowledge. As punishment, Prometheus was bound to a rock. But in The Gift of Fire, those chains cease to be, and the great champion of man walks from that immortal prison into present-day South Central Los Angeles. Disheveled and lost, he is thrown in jail, where he meets lifelong criminal Nosome Blane....

Quiet As They Come is a beautiful and at times brutal portrait of a people caught between two cultures. Set in San Francisco from the 1980s to the present day, this debut collection explores the lives of several families of Vietnamese immigrants as they struggle to adjust to life in their new country, often haunted by the memories and customs of their old lives in Vietnam. While some are able to survive and assimilate, others are crushed by the promise of the "American Dream."

Ancient folklore and modern myth come together in these stories by author Craig Laurance Gidney. Here are found the struggles of a medieval Japanese monk seduced by a mischievous fairy, and a young slave who finds mystery deep within the briar patch of an antebellum plantation. Gidney offers a gay teen obsessed with his patron saint, Lena Horne, and, in the title story, an ailing tourist seeks escape at a distant shore but never reckons on encountering an African sea god. Rich, poetic, dark and disturbing, these are distinctive tales not soon forgotten.

New York Times Notable Book author Charles Yu wrote the best-selling novel How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe. In his stunning, often humorous, collection Sorry Please Thank You, Yu draws on pop culture and science to make incisive observations about society - and offer touching insight into the human condition. In two of Yu’s remarkable stories, he focuses on a big-box-store night-shift employee with girl trouble and a company that outsources grief for profit.

Six Gaelic tales of wonder and adventure, read in an authentic brogue by actor Des Keogh, transport wee listeners to a magic world of leprechauns and giants.

A dramatized, abridged performance of Alice in Wonderland with Eva Le Gallienne, Bambi Linn, and Margaret Webster.

A blind obsession. A driving ambition. A relentless, unrestrained, single-minded pursuit of a shiny metal. These are the symptoms of a condition known as gold fever, and, like Bogart in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, American mining engineer Captain Humbert Reynolds has got it bad. Possible side effects include: temporary insanity, a propensity for violence, and death.

Throughout his life, Noel Coward the master songwriter, 'derived a considerable amount of private pleasure from writing verse'. Much of it is gathered in this first ever audio collection. From moving war-time encounters to satirical barbs at familiar Coward targets and personal reminiscences, this delightful collection is a perfect blend of vintage Noel Coward sure to be enjoyed by faithful fans and new listeners alike.

Raslyn and Cameron are friends who met in college. Years have passed. Ras is now an art exhibitor giving museum tours and Camay (Cameron) pursues music as a profession. In between, a lot takes place. Their friendship is tried when Ras accepts a modeling gig to satisfy her friends' curiosity. She's a big & beautiful woman with curves in the right place. She is serious about the modeling opportunity.

Examining the borders between one nation and another, between one person and another, Urrea reveals his mastery of the short form. This collection includes the Edgar-award winning "Amapola" and his now-classic "Bid Farewell to Her Many Horses," which had the honor of being chosen for NPR's "Selected Shorts" not once but twice.

Tisha Randall wants a boyfriend. When a likely specimen walks into her pet store to purchase "a dog or something," Tisha nearly turns him away with her disdain for would be animal owners who neglected their charges. Upon further review, Tisha realizes the man had a different type of void in his life, very possibly the same one that afflicts her.

Delbert Thompson lived all by himself on a farm deep in the country and never bothered anyone until a group of teen's car broke down about a half mile down the road from Delbert's farm. The teens were only looking to use Delbert's phone to get help, but Delbert was in no mood for company, so the teens picked the wrong door to knock on for help. Delbert was sitting in his rocking chair on his front porch whittling a piece of wood when he stopped what he was doing and noticed a group of people headed his way.

At thirty-five, independent, tenacious Texan Leah is happy with life as a successful weight-loss expert, but something is missing: her romantic side can’t help dreaming about the perfect wedding. The problem is, she’s missing the two main ingredients: a groom, and a father to walk her down the aisle.

Plant Your Feet Firmly is an intimate glimpse of Asian America. Through the pages of seven short stories, the listener is treated to a delicate taste of ordinary people living extraordinary lives - from a cool grandpa to a grieving mother to a disillusioned husband.

A literary jigsaw puzzle of a debut novel set in Colombia during the peak of its decades-long conflict, and in New York City. While her parents are away, a teenager finds herself home alone, with the household staff mysteriously gone, no phone connection, and news of an insurgency on the radio - and then she hears a knock at the door.