American Short

Alexander Shalom Joseph’s American Wasteland is a collection of stories about the contemporary day-to-day in America. It is said in the Talmud that one job of certain Jews is to justify the existence of humanity to God; in this collection, Joseph attempts to do just this with his stories, which speak to the everyday mundane and the vast richness in both meaning and meaninglessness that abound all around us. These stories, vivid in detail, portray a stagnant land full of longing and millions of lost people trying to make sense of a world which can seem both crushing and light.

Said Sayrafiezadeh has been hailed by Philip Gourevitch as “a masterful storyteller working from deep in the American grain”. His new collection of stories are set in a contemporary America full of the kind of emotionally bruised characters familiar to fans of Denis Johnson and George Saunders. These are people contending with internal struggles - a son’s fractured relationship with his father, the death of a mother, the loss of a job, drug addiction - even as they are battered by the larger, often invisible, economic and political forces of American society.

What does it mean to be an American? The story of the African American past demonstrates the difficulty of answering this seemingly simple question. This book illuminates the US's core paradoxes, inviting profound questions about what it means to be an American, a citizen, and a human being. This book considers how, for centuries, African Americans have fought for what the black feminist intellectual Anna Julia Cooper called "the cause of freedom." It begins in Jamestown in 1619, when the first shipment of enslaved Africans arrived in that settlement.

Understanding the origins of civil wars and their trajectories therefore demands some appreciation of the economic, political, social, cultural, and geographic order of societies. If there is one factor that best predicts why a civil war erupts, it is a prior civil war. That is why knowledge of a country's history of political violence, and associated narratives about who is to blame and why, are critical to understanding where a civil war might next occur.

Survive. Journey along the dark roads of one American female and experience the manifestation of truths she found in the form of folktales, short stories, and prose. Step into a world of allegory where things are not always as they seem. Blood, sex, violence, emotion, healing, truth, and love appear as apocalyptic characters, mythological beings, and raw verse.

American populism has always been home to a fascinating assortment of charismatic leaders, characters, kooks, cranks, and sometimes charlatans who have led the charge of ordinary folks who have gotten wise to the ways of the swamp. Every Man a King tells the stories of America's populist leaders, from Andrew Jackson and Teddy Roosevelt to Ross Perot, Pat Buchanan, and Donald Trump. It is a rollicking history of an American attitude that has shaped not only our current moment, but also the long struggle over who gets to define the truths we hold to be self evident.

The American women’s movement has been shrouded in myths, argue three leading scholars in this bold and revisionist history. Eschewing the conventional wisdom that places the origins of the American women’s movement in the nostalgic glow of the late 1960s, Feminism Unfinished traces the beginnings of this seminal American social movement to the 1920s, in the process creating an expanded, historical narrative that dramatically rewrites a century of American women’s history.

Previously titled "I Want Love", Daddy's Girl tells the tale of a young woman raised without a father, beginning from childhood.

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.

In an uncertain world, Hugh Taylor does his best to provide for and protect his family. A recent move has put them on a little uncertain footing, and as they try to settle into their new home and take a day with their kids Hugh and Mary - they will be tested like never before! A fun-filled day is shattered with the sounds of terror. How will Hugh react?

These rib-ticklers include Mark Twain's "The Story of the Old Ram" and "The Story of a Speech"; E. P. Butler's "Pigs Is Pigs"; W. A. Butler's "Nothing to Wear"; Charles Dudley Warner's "How I Killed a Bear"; Eugene Field's "Oon Criteek de Bernhardt", William Livingstone Alden's "Carrie's Comedy", and Edith Wharton's "The Pelican".

Mi chiamo Alana, e faccio la barista. Ma ho un problema di lavoro. Sai, di solito non dovremmo fare preferenze, tra i clienti. Bisogna trattarli tutti allo stesso modo. E sono fiera di essere brava in questo. O almeno, lo ero. Qualche mese fa, un uomo di nome Ben ha preso a frequentare quotidianamente il nostro bar, per prendere un caffè all’Americana. Era ben vestito e dal portamento elegante. Mi sono presa un’infatuazione per lui, e ogni giorno non vedevo l’ora che entrasse nel locale. A volte, fantasticavo su di lui anche quando ero al lavoro.

Hunter's Moon is a collection of six spine-tingling stories: "Bringing the Family", "Hunter's Moon", "Mirror, Mirror, On the Wall", "A Glimpse of the Ankou", "Loco-Motive", and "Drilling Deep".

Like the small towns J. California Cooper has so vividly portrayed in her previous novels and story collections, Wideland, Oklahoma, is home to ordinary Americans struggling to raise families, eke out a living, and fulfill their dreams. In the early 20th century, Irene and Val fall in love in Wideland. While carving out a home for themselves, they also allow neighbors Bertha and Joseph to build a house and live on their land.

In The Best American Erotica 2002, Maggie Estep relates the surprising sexual happenings in a detox clinic, Francesca Lia Block explores the aquatic fantasies haunting a surfer, and Ernie Conrick introduces a tennis star and sex symbol who surrenders to an unusual coach. In these 23 stories you will also find cutting-edge work from other luminaries and from the Internet, where the next wave of erotica has matured into some of the most enticing writing around.

Our American West, Volume 3 is filled with western frontier stories you’ll find entertaining. "The Roadrunner – Our Sagebrush Clowns" reflects on the speedy and often comical bird of our southwestern deserts. Wild and wicked Calamity Jane lived up to her reputation as the West’s most infamous outlaw woman. “The Donner Party – Frozen Horror” describes the horror that led to cannibalism. The 49er Gold Rush ruined the lives of two ambitious and well-intentioned men, John Augustus Sutter and John Marshal...

An engaging introduction to four of the greatest Americans: George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Daniel Webster, and Abraham Lincoln. Their lives are set forth in a simple manner, yet with many interesting details. A glimpse is given of the trials and successes which combined to mold their character and afford such stirring examples for the youth of today. The stories are patriotic in every line, and inspire the listener to the best of thoughts and deeds. Written in the 1800s, the Young Listeners Collection features children's stories from yesterday's classics.

James Baldwin writes about the beginnings of four formidable figures, which were central to the founding of America. He tells the stories of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Daniel Webster and Abraham Lincoln.

Have you heard of the Star Maiden, Old Sally Cato, or Sweet Betsey from Pike? Everyone knows about Paul Bunyan, Johnny Appleseed, and Davy Crockett, But have you heard of these larger-than-life women? From Bess Call, who wrestles any and all challengers, to Molly Cottontail, who can outwit any critter in the woods, to Hekeke, who slays a giant singlehandedly, here are 15 funny, stormy, and always entertaining tall tales of legendary American women. They're as difference as can be, but still cut from the same cloth.

Before Jack Kerouac expressed the spirit of a generation in his 1957 classic On the Road, he spent years figuring out how he wanted to live and, above all, learning how to write. Atop an Underwood brings together more than sixty previously unpublished works that Kerouac wrote before he was twenty-two, ranging from stories and poems to plays and parts of novels, including an excerpt from his 1943 merchant marine novel, The Sea Is My Brother. These writings reveal what Kerouac was thinking, doing, and dreaming during his formative years and reflect his primary literary influences.