Anthology World Literature

Ambrose Bierce left behind a nasty reputation and more than 90 short stories that are perfect expressions of his sardonic genius. This volume of selected stories represent an unprecedented accomplishment in American literature. In their iconoclasm and needle-sharp irony, their formal and thematic ingenuity and element of surprise, they differ markedly from the fiction admired in Bierce's time.

It is said that books are written to bring sunshine into our dull, grey lives—to show us places we want to escape to, lives we want to live, people we want to love. But there are also stories that can only be found in the deepest, darkest corners of the library. Stories about the unexplained, of lost souls, of things that go bump before the silence. Before the screaming. And some stories just disappear. Stories printed in old newspapers, broadcast live on the wireless, sometimes not even published at all—these are the stories you cannot find on even the dustiest of library shelves.

Tadeusz Borowski’s concentration camp stories were based on his own experiences surviving Auschwitz and Dachau. In spare, brutal prose he describes a world where where the will to survive overrides compassion, and prisoners eat, work, and sleep a few yards from where others are murdered; where the difference between human beings is reduced to a second bowl of soup, an extra blanket, or the luxury of a pair of shoes with thick soles; and where the line between normality and abnormality vanishes.

Vaughan Roberts and his two companions had been trapped on a crime-ridden, chaotic planet until they bamboozled the population with a gigantic hoax - which brought them to the attention of the Interstellar Patrol, who were looking for a few good con men, capable of ingenious improvisation and adept at playing dirty tricks on the bad guys.

Assembled here are stories new and old, spanning from 1960 to today. Meet the death-defying motorcycle trick riders in the carnival's Devil's Tub, a man who keeps an alligator in his bathtub, a Chinese launder in Coney Island in search of love, a frontiersman who saves himself from a mauling grizzly bear by hiding in a beaver dam, three men from a circus looking for trouble at a rodeo, a washed out boxer trying to hang onto his career, and dozens of others rich characters.

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.

"Something Passed By", a story by Robert McCammon, was originally published in his short fiction collection Blue World and was selected for inclusion in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Third Annual Collection.

Drawing on both lived experience and cultural memory, Norma Dunning brings together six powerful short stories centered on modern-day Inuk characters in Tainna. Ranging from homeless to extravagantly wealthy, from spiritual to jaded, from young to elderly, and even from alive to deceased, Dunning’s characters are united by shared feelings of alienation, displacement, and loneliness resulting from their experiences in southern Canada. They must rely on their wits, artistic talent, humor, and spirituality­ for survival, and find solace in shining moments of reconnection.

Noreen McAuliffe's Come Down in the World, a story about a nineteenth-century logging camp, wears a style so seamless and perfectly matched it feels tailor-made. From the first few lines to the quietly explosive finale, the listener is surrounded with instant authenticity that transports us to a time, place, and situation with stakes so high that most of us need a daring writer to imagine them for us.

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.

Newly re-mastered for digital formats, this is the definitive recording of Hans Christian Andersen's six best-loved stories. Narrator Diane Wolkstein, the artistic director of the Hans Christian Andersen Center in New York City, tells Andersen stories throughout the world. She is the author of 23 award-winning books of folklore and has been honored by the National Storytelling Network as a recipient of its coveted Circle of Excellence Award, a designation reserved for America's best living storytellers.

Over the course of 14 novels, millions have fallen in love with the faith, encouragement, and wisdom that are at the very heart of Jan Karon's Mitford series. Now, for the first time, listeners will have the chance to walk with Father Tim through a collection of prayers, sermons, and inspirational passages that incorporates material from each of the novels. In addition, fans will get to hear directly from author Jan Karon, in a brand-new essay about her own personal journey in faith and the ways that the Mitford novels have impacted her.

Return to the Witch Walker world of Tiressia by visiting this collection of spicy tales, containing six bonus scenes and two novellas. What might've happened if Raina and Alexus hadn't been interrupted in Frostwater Wood? What romantic moments did Helena and Rhonin share while alone at the Jade River? What in the devils occurred in Fia's palace between Alexus and Raina to rattle an entire city in City of Ruin? And what's the story between the Frost King and the Prince of the East? Join Charissa Weaks as she pulls back the curtain on these beloved characters' lives.

Cowboy Graves is an unexpected treasure from the vault of a revolutionary talent. Roberto Bolaño's boundless imagination and seemingly inexhaustible gift for shaping the chaos of his reality into fiction is unmistakable in these three novellas. In Cowboy Graves, Arturo Belano - Bolaño's alter ego - returns to Chile after the coup to fight with his comrades for socialism.

In this 2024 re-release, the apocalypse has ended for Adrian Ring, and the rebuilding of the world has begun. But have all the stories of the old world's death been told? Elsewhere on Earth, there is a plane filled with innocents, and a criminal could wipe it from the skies with a tide of undeath. A young man in Manhattan is going mad with hunger and fear. A veterinarian races to save her animal patients, and their owners, one by one. A drunk lunatic is driven to self-destruction, craving the undead horde and the absolution they will give him.

A striking and nuanced collection, bringing to life awkward college students, disgraced public figures, raunchy grandparents, and mystical godmothers. To listen to these stories is to experience the transporting joys of discovery and affirmation, and to realize that story writing in America continues to flourish.

From the story of a young bride whose fairy-tale vision of California is shattered when her husband is murdered and she must face the future on her own, to a proud middle-aged divorced woman determined to succeed in San Francisco, Divakaruni's award-winning poetry fuses here with prose for the first time to create 11 devastating portraits of women on the verge of an unforgettable transformation.

Written over the course of Leskov's career, each story in The Enchanted Wanderer elucidates the very essence of the human condition; themes of love, despair, loneliness, and revenge are explored against the backdrop of 19th-century working-class Russia. Leskov deftly layers social satire and subtle criticism atop myth and fable, resulting in a richly entertaining collection.

Short stories by Arash Dabestani. Please note: This audiobook is in Persian.

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.