Anthology World Literature

In Mules and Men, some of the rich cultural heritage of black America is revealed and preserved. In the 1930s, Zora Neale Hurston returned to her home town of Eatonville, Florida, to collect and record the oral histories, songs, and sermons, many dating back to slavery times, that she remembered hearing as a child. These highly metaphorical folktales, "big old lies", and powerful songs helped her to recover her history, and preserve an important part of American culture.

In these visceral, stunningly crafted stories by the author of the much-acclaimed Trespasses, women’s lives are etched by poverty—material, emotional, sexual—but also splashed by beauty, sometimes even joy, as they search for the good in the cards they’ve been dealt.

H.G. Wells was more than a science fiction pioneer—he was a futurist, a philosopher, and an architect of ideas that continue to shape modern discussions on global governance, education, and human progress. This essential collection brings together Wells’ most influential works on civilization’s fate, world order, and the role of centralized planning in shaping the future. From the bold proclamations of The Open Conspiracy to the thought-provoking insights of World Brain, these writings lay out his vision for a unified, scientifically managed society.

A newborn’s absent face appears on the back of someone else’s head, a filmmaker goes to gruesome lengths to achieve the silence he’s after for his final scene, and a therapist begins, impossibly, to appear in a troubled patient's room late at night. In these stories of doubt, delusion, and paranoia, no belief, no claim to objectivity, is immune to the distortions of human perception. Here, self-deception is a means of justifying our most inhuman impulses—whether we know it or not.

New research has uncovered deeply buried military secrets—both the Allied and Axis special operations during WWII included monsters. Did the Soviets use a dragon to win the Battle of Kursk? Did a vampire fight for the Canadians in Holland? Did the US drop the second atomic bomb on a kaiju? This collection takes real events from World War II and injects them with fantastical creatures that mirror the “unreality” of war itself. Each story—and two poems—feature mythical, mystical, and otherwise unexplainable beings that change the course of history.

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.

Andrew Lang (1844-1912) was a poet, novelist, and literary critic. He created the enchanting world of fairyland inhabited by characters like the snow-queen, the mermaid's son, ogres, dwarfs, monsters, magicians, and giants. The Pink Fairy Book contains 41 tales from Africa, Japan, Scandinavia, and Europe. They range from familiar stories like "The Snow-Queen" and "The Fir-Tree" to the obscure tales of the Tanuki. This collection contains stories like "The Cats' Elopement", The "Princess in the Chest", "Snowflake", and more....

In nine poignant stories spiked with humor and intelligence, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni captures lives at crossroad moments - caught between past and present, home and abroad, tradition, and fresh experience. A widow in California, recently arrived from India, struggles to adapt to a world in which neighbors are strangers and her domestic skills are deemed superfluous in the award-winning "Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter".

The unsolved murder of a farm family haunts the small, white, off-reservation town of Pluto, North Dakota. The vengeance exacted for this crime and the subsequent distortions of truth transform the lives of Ojibwe living on the nearby reservation and shape the passions of both communities for the next generation.

What does it mean to be other? What does it mean to love in a world determined to keep us apart? These questions murmur in the heart of each of Brenda Peynado’s strange and singular stories. Threaded with magic, transcending time and place, these stories explore what it means to cross borders and break down walls, personally and politically.

From master anthologist Ellen Datlow comes an all-original of weird tales inspired by the strangeness of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Between the hallucinogenic, weird, imaginative wordplay and the brilliant mathematical puzzles and social satire, Alice has been enjoyed and savored by every generation since its publication. Datlow asked 18 of the most brilliant and acclaimed writers working today to dream up stories inspired by all the strange events and surreal characters found in Wonderland.

Audible is proud to present the first-ever audiobook recording of Tillie Olsen's legendary short stories, included "Tell Me a Riddle", and "I Stand Here Ironing"—works that transformed women's self-reflection and literature forever. Tillie Olsen's work, since the 1930s, spoke to the hard truths of motherhood and marriage, domestic life, and labor. Her political conviction and poetic intensity brought a depth to an influence that continues to be felt today.

Bradley receives a second chance on a steampunk planet where the wondrous sights captivate, the gizmos fascinate, and it is all possible with steam. Attempting the wilds, Bradley experiences a dash of heart-pumping adventure that unlocks new opportunities and brings unwanted problems. With proper application, a bit of wit, and a dash of luck, he might achieve greatness.

In these 14 unique stories, Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm takes on complex and dangerous emotions, exploring the gamut of modern Anishinaabe experience. Through unforgettable characters, these stories - about love and lust, suicide and survival, illness and wholenes - illuminate the strange workings of the human heart.

Before he was the engaging professor who brought mythology into people’s living rooms through his conversations with Bill Moyers, before he became known as the thinker whose ideas influenced Star Wars, and before his now-beloved phrase “follow your bliss” entered the popular lexicon, Joseph Campbell was a young man who tried his hand at writing fiction. After years of Depression-era unemployment, when he lived off money he had earned playing saxophone and read the world’s great literature in a syllabus of his own design, Campbell published his first short story.

From a cemetery in a mythical small town in Illinois, the dead speak about their lives. Each free-verse monologue stands as an epitaph for the person speaking, yet the play is ultimately about life, not death. Featuring 50 performers with specially commissioned original music, this is the only audio version of this landmark classic available.

In the Shadow of the Towers compiles nearly 20 works of speculative fiction responding to and inspired by the events of 9/11, from writers seeking to confront, rebuild, and carry on, even in the face of overwhelming emotion.

Una fotógrafa comprende algo que hubiera preferido no comprender. Un veterano de la guerra de Corea se enfrenta a su pasado durante un encuentro que parecía inofensivo. Tras el hallazgo por internet de un libro de 1887, un escritor acaba descubriendo la vida de una mujer apasionante.

“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 this warm and moving anthology, a group of best-selling authors and writers pay tribute to legendary, larger-than-life New York Times best-selling author Dorothea Benton Frank and her literary legacy, capturing her unforgettable spirit, joy, and humor in stories of reunions and love. Infused with Dorothea Benton Frank’s remarkable spirit, Reunion Beach is a literary homage and beautiful keepsake that keeps this dearly missed writer’s flame burning bright.