Anthology World Literature

Fitzgerald's tale of Benjamin Button, a man who starts aging backwards with bizarre consequences. This story was the basis for the Oscar-winning Brad Pitt film of the same name.

En el prólogo de estos Doce cuentos peregrinos, García Márquez nos regala su explicación de por qué doce, por qué cuentos y por qué peregrinos. En Barcelona, una prostituta que va entrando en la vejez entrena a su perro para llorar ante la tumba que ha escogido para sí misma. En Viena, una mujer se vale de su don de ver el futuro para convertirse en la adivina de una familia rica.

Xuan Juliana Wang's remarkable debut introduces us to the new and changing face of Chinese youth. From fuerdai (second-generation rich kids) to a glass-swallowing qigong grandmaster, her dazzling, formally inventive stories upend the immigrant narrative to reveal a new experience of belonging: of young people testing the limits of who they are, in a world as vast and varied as their ambitions. In stories of love, family, and friendship, here are the voices, faces, and stories of a new generation never before captured in fiction.

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.

"You had better shove this in the stove," Mark Twain said at the top of an 1865 letter to his brother, "for I don't want any absurd 'literary remains' and 'unpublished letters of Mark Twain' published after I am planted." He was joking, of course. But when Mark Twain died in 1910, he left behind the largest collection of personal papers created by any nineteenth-century American author.

Gripping and compassionate, Land of Big Numbers traces the journeys of the diverse and legion Chinese people, their history, their government, and how all of that has tumbled—messily, violently, but still beautifully—into the present. Cutting between clear-eyed realism and tongue-in-cheek magical realism, Chen’s stories coalesce into a portrait of a people striving for openings where mobility is limited.

As a window into the magic and potential of the Northwest Territories, Richard Van Camp's fourth short-story collection is hilarious and heartbreaking. A teenaged boy confesses to a vicious assault on a cross-dressing classmate; Lance tells the sensual story of becoming much closer to his wife's dear friend Juanita; while a reluctant giant catches up with gangsters Torchy and Sfen in a story with shades of supernatural and earthly menace.

A livewire debut from Dantiel W. Moniz, one of the most exciting discoveries in today's literary landscape, Milk Blood Heat depicts the sultry lives of Floridians in intergenerational tales that contemplate human connection, race, womanhood, inheritance, and the elemental darkness in us all. Set among the cities and suburbs of Florida, each story delves into the ordinary worlds of young girls, women, and men who find themselves confronted by extraordinary moments of violent personal reckoning.

Barbara Kingsolver has written these five short stories with the same wit and sensitivity that characterize her highly praised and beloved novels Animal Dreams and The Bean Trees. Spreading her characters over a variety of colorful landscapes, she tells stories of hope, momentary joy, and powerful endurance.

Four Jack Tales from the Appalachian oral tradition, recorded by a nationally accalimed storyteller. In this collection, Jack has a little trouble adjusting to the workaday world and to personal financial management. Eventually he works hard enough, but his fortunes do not seem to parallel his productivity. Jack finally has to go a bit out of his way to prove himself, meanwhile dealing with a prospective father-in-law who plays hard to get.

Les contes fantastiques de Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893) comptent parmi les meilleures du genre en littérature française. Cet extrait de "La Peur" (seconde version) dans lequel l’auteur parle du romancier russe Tourgueniev, s’appliquerait parfaitement à lui-même : "Avec lui, on la sent bien, la peur vague de l’Invisible, la peur de l’inconnu qui est derrière le mur, derrière la porte, derrière la vie apparente. Avec lui, nous sommes brusquement traversés par des lumières douteuses qui éclairent seulement assez pour augmenter notre angoisse."

The veil between the living and the dead is obscured, chaos becomes panacea, and characters take drastic measures into their own hands. Survivors of all kinds seek strategy and solace: a group of homeless people organize an occupation of vacant condos, a new resident to a disturbing neighbourhood tries to make sense of madness, a dog investigates the sudden disappearance of his owner. The five intertwined vignettes in the title story are set in a Caribbean country where the spectre of the sugar plantation haunts everyone.

When Alice follows a white rabbit down a hole she discovers the extraordinary world of Wonderland, where a magical adventure begins. It’s not long before Alice finds herself attending a very unconventional tea party and taking part in a peculiar game of croquet, all in the company of such mysterious and unforgettable characters as the Mad Hatter, the Cheshire Cat and the Mock Turtle.

101 Famous Poems, compiled by Roy J. Cook and first published in 1916, is a collection of one familiar poem each by the best-known poets in the English language, including Alfred Tennyson, William Shakespeare, Robert Frost, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Milton, Elizabeth Barret Browning, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Robert Louis Stevenson, Walt Whitman, Lord Byron, Emily Dickinson and William Wordsworth. The anthology is indexed by title, author and first line.

A mysterious note from Merlin sends Jack and Annie to Paris, France, for the 1889 World's Fair. Their mission: find four "new magicians" and protect them from an evil sorcerer who plans to kidnap them and steal the secrets of their magic. When Jack and Annie arrive at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, they find exhibits from all over the world and thousands of people attending the fair!

Una mujer hermosa e ingenua que roba con destreza a altos ejecutivos, un pintor habitado por fuerzas misteriosas y un sacerdote que se enfrenta a un caso de posesión demoníaca en La Candelaria, historias que se tejen en torno a la de Campo Elías, héroe de la guerra de Vietnam, quien inicia su particular descenso a los infiernos obsesionado por la dualidad entre el bien y el mal, entre Jekyll y Hyde, y se convertirá en un ángel exterminador.

Leedswick Castle has housed the Alnwick family in the English countryside for generations, despite a family curse determined to destroy their legacy and erase them from history. Three beloved authors share stories of the Alnwick family through the generations, revealing how love and war can change a place—but only its people can unshackle it from the misdeeds of the past.

Kiev. 1942. Larissa is a renowned embroiderer, surviving in occupied Ukraine as a seamstress in her ruin of a workshop. When an SS officer arrives to order a traditionally embroidered Ukrainian shirt, Larissa uses the opportunity to create a piece of art from her handiwork. Threading together the history and the horrors between the two enemies, she finds a way to express her defiance toward the Nazis and the local collaborators. But at what price? Prepare yourself for an unforgettable journey behind the Second World War’s eastern front.

From the National Book Award “5 Under 35” honoree and author of Bestiary comes startling stories that center the bodies, memories, myths, and relationships of Asian American women. In “Auntland,” a steady stream of aunts adjust to American life by sneaking surreptitious kisses from women at temple, buying tubs of vanilla ice cream to prepare for citizenship tests, and hatching plans to name their daughters “Dog.” In “The Chorus of Dead Cousins,” ghost-cousins cross space, seas, and skies to haunt their live-cousin, wife to a storm chaser.

As a middle-aged man, the protagonist revisits his old home which he had left more than 20 years ago. He meets up with family members, and Runtu, a childhood friend, as well as someone he does not even remember - Mrs Yang, who exclaims "Don't you know me? And I have held you in my arms!" In this story, the listener is given an intriguing insight into people’s lives in China during the 1920s. My Old Home is also available in the collection entitled Chinese Classic Stories, read by Martin Jarvis.