American Literature Collection

#1 New York Times best-selling, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Anthony Doerr brings his“stunning sense of physical detail and gorgeous metaphors” (San Francisco Chronicle) to selecting The Best American Short Stories 2019. Doerr and the series editor, Heidi Pitlor, winnow down twenty stories out of thousands that represent the best examples of the form published the previous year.

We all live like we’re famous now, curating our social media presences, performing our identities, withholding those parts of ourselves we don’t want others to see. In this riveting collection of stories from acclaimed author Jess Walter, a teenage girl tries to live up to the image of her beautiful, missing mother. An elderly couple confronts the fiction writer eavesdropping on their conversation.

Zero at the Bone begins with Wiman's preoccupation with despair, and through fifty brief pieces, he unravels its seductive appeal. The book is studded with the poetry and prose of writers who inhabit Wiman's thoughts, and the voices of Wallace Stevens, Lucille Clifton, Emily Dickinson, and others join his own.

Library of Small Catastrophes, Alison Rollins's ambitious debut collection, interrogates the body and nation as storehouses of countless tragedies. Drawing from Jorge Luis Borges's fascination with the library, Rollins uses the concept of the archive to offer a lyric history of the ways in which we process loss. "Memory is about the future, not the past", she writes, and rather than shying away from the anger, anxiety, and mourning of her narrators, Rollins's poetry seeks to challenge the status quo.

How does a Mexican American, the son of poor immigrants, leave his border home and move to the heart of gringo America? How does he adapt to the worlds of wealth, elite universities, the rush and power of New York City? How does he make peace with a stern, old-fashioned father who has only known hard field labor his whole life? Troncoso tells his luminous stories through the lens of an exile adrift in the 21st century, his characters suffering from the loss of culture and language, the loss of roots and home as they adapt to the glittering promises of new worlds that seem so empty.

The transporting stories in this year’s The Best American Mystery and Suspense are populated by those who exist on the fringe of our society and want more than what life has dealt them: A haunted veteran turned career criminal is on the run. An injured fighter turned bouncer seeks vengeance for his lost love. An assassin on his last job finds himself questioning his life choices and breaks all the rules to understand his final victim.

The Complete Charles Dickens Collection: Part One contains all of Charles Dickens' major published works from 1836 to 1849. From the short stories by 'Boz' which began Dickens' journey as an author, to the great works of literature that have inspired generations - including Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, The Old Curiosity Shop, and more - and essays that give us a deeper insight into his life, opinions, and travels, this collection is an essential addition to your library.

This audiobook includes unabridged recordings of all George Orwell's greatest non-fiction: three full-length books, a collection of his most well-renowned essays and the complete collection of his poetry.

Spanning from a mediocre spa in Florida, to New York’s gritty East Village, to death row in Alabama, this collection reveals boundless suspense in small, quiet moments, offering startling twists in the least likely of places. From a powerful response to hateful bullying, to a fight for health care, to a gripping desperation to vote, these stories are equal parts shocking, devastating, and enthralling, revealing the tension pulsing through our everyday lives and affirming that mystery and suspense writing is better than ever before.

“Short stories have to accomplish a nearly impossible magic trick: to introduce a world often much stranger than our own and make you care about it in a matter of pages,” writes R. F. Kuang in her introduction. “The most important part of this magic trick is just a willingness to get weird.” The stories in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2023 are brimming with bizarre and otherworldly premises.

In his introduction, guest editor S. A. Cosby observes that writing short stories is “a special skill that combines brevity with wit and cleverness and the hint of the existential malaise that imbues crime fiction with its gravitas.” The stories in this collection overflow with gravitas in the most unexpected ways: a cryptic note left on a windshield, a murder for hire meets a game of Mouse Trap, a swipe right on a dating app goes horribly wrong.

Here is the preface to 12 magnificent stories, originally part of The John Cheever Audio Collection, in which John Cheever celebrates - with unequaled grace and tenderness - the deepest feelings we have.

With a diverse selection of stories chosen by series editor John Joseph Adams and guest editor Rebecca Roanhorse, The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2022 explores the ever-expanding and changing world of contemporary science fiction and fantasy.

Three complete novels from award-winning author James L. Rubart now available in one low-priced audiobook collection!

Mary Ann Evans (1819-1880), known by her pen name George Eliot, was one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. Her novels are known for their realism and psychological insight. Four of them are included in this volume: Middlemarch, Daniel Deronda, The Mill on the Floss, and The Lifted Veil.

With a newborn in tow, Bubbles Jones escapes a brutal sanctuary for “wayward girls” to confront the hypocritical shame of her pastor father and the betrayal of a lover. But Bubbles is accompanied by a woman who offers her shelter and a dream. Forging an unpredictable path ahead, Bubbles will not yield and will not hide in her unwavering commitment to make a big life real in a world determined to keep her small.

This audiobook includes unabridged recordings of all George Orwell's six novels: 1984; Animal Farm; Burmese Days; Coming Up For Air; Keep the Aspidistra Flying; and A Clergyman's Daughter.

Three tales from The Canterbury Tales, read in the original Middle English by Richard Bebb under the direction of Britain's foremost Chaucer scholar, Derek Brewer.

In her introduction to this year’s The Best American Essays, guest editor Vivian Gornick states that her selections “contribute materially to the long and honorable history of the personal essay by way of the value they place on lived experience.” Provocative, daring, and honest at a time when many writers are deliberately silencing themselves in the face of authoritarian and populist censorship movements, the twenty-one essays collected here reflect their authors’ unapologetic observations of the world around them.

Contains books one, two, and three of the Luke Brothers series: Unexpected Expectations, Unexpected Second Chances, and Unexpected Challenges.