Literary Works

The Collected Stories of Diane Williams brings together over 300 new and previously published short fictions - distilled works of "unsettling brilliance" (Vanity Fair) that have rewritten the rules of the American short story.

Abdel Latif, an old man from the Aleppo region, dies peacefully in a hospital bed in Damascus. His final wish, conveyed to his youngest son, Bolbol, is to be buried in the family plot in their ancestral village of Anabiya. Though Abdel was hardly an ideal father, and though Bolbol is estranged from his siblings, this conscientious son persuades his older brother Hussein and his sister Fatima to accompany him and the body to Anabiya, which is - after all - only a two-hour drive from Damascus. There's only one problem: Their country is a war zone.

From ancient times to the present day, The World in Books offers a wide-ranging historical education through pleasure reading—and a fantastic introduction to some of the most thought-provoking, profound, and interesting nonfiction works of all time. From Sun Tzu’s The Art of War to bell hooks’s All About Love, as well as such recent classics as Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s We Should All Be Feminists, Davis’s guide suggests a world of nonfiction books and explains just why they’re so historically meaningful and culturally relevant today.

When his girlfriend takes a job in Thailand, Mischa Berlinski goes along for the ride, working for one of Thailand's English-language newspapers. One evening a fellow expatriate tips him off to a story. A charismatic American anthropologist has been found dead, a suicide, in the Thai prison where she was serving a 50-year sentence for murder. Motivated first by simple curiosity, then by deeper and more mysterious feelings, Mischa searches relentlessly to discover the details of her crime.

In 1927, as a twenty-three-year-old postgraduate scholar in Paris, Joseph Campbell first encountered James Joyce’s Ulysses. Known for being praised and for kicking up controversy (including an obscenity trial in the United States in 1920), the novel left Campbell both intrigued and confused, as it had many others. Because he was in Paris, he was able to visit the Shakespeare & Company bookstore - the outpost of the original publisher of Ulysses, Sylvia Beach. She gave him “clues” for reading Ulysses, and that, Campbell attested, changed his career.

AJ has a real boyfriend now, and he's really coming to the cove to meet her friends and family. She's turned into a domestic goddess as she preps to host Christmas at a rental that will hold everyone for the holidays. But beneath the bulky sweaters, AJ has a secret she won't be able to keep hidden forever.

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.

While carrying out historical research at an Ontario asylum, psychiatrist Harry Karlinsky comes across a familiar surname in the register. Could the "Thomas Darwin of Down, England" be a relative of the famous Charles Darwin?In a narrative woven from letters, photographs, historical documents, and illustrations, what emerges is a sketch of Thomas’s life - the last of 11 children born to Charles Darwin. It tells of his obsession with extending his father’s studies into the realm of inanimate objects - kitchen utensils, to be precise.

A cowboy returning to his hometown - and the best friend he left a dozen years before. She's divorced with a child now...can they build a family and find their happily ever after? Graham Whittaker returns to Coral Canyon a few days after Christmas - after the death of his father. He's just found out his longtime girlfriend in Seattle has been cheating on him, and while Coral Canyon isn't his first choice of where to live, it's certainly the friendliest.

A work of gripping nonfiction, North by Shakespeare presents the twinning narratives of rogue scholar Dennis McCarthy, called "the Steve Jobs of the Shakespeare community", and Sir Thomas North, an Elizabethan courtier whom McCarthy believes to be the undiscovered source for Shakespeare's plays.

When Joel Shields dies, Robin Grover's only goal is to get her four best friends back to Five Island Cove to celebrate the life of Kristen's husband. She alone has stayed in the cove while everyone else couldn't wait to get away. Alice Keller comes instantly, because her mansion in the Hamptons and her husband's infidelity is smothering her. Not only that, but Kristen has always been like a mother to her, and she wants to support her.

After Lew Alton unwittingly roused the fire demon Sharra, the Sword of Aldones was the only weapon that could lay her to rest again. But only one man could wield the sword, and getting it was an even bigger problem.

Yumi Parr is the new project coordinator of a Manhattan design agency. Set apart from her coworkers by their race, salaries, alma maters, perfect teeth, and waistbands, Yumi bears their grunt work. After one microaggression too many, she decides to implement a change. Either senior white employees with their mouthfuls of wokespeak will comply or Yumi will learn a difficult lesson about the realities of modern business culture.

In After the Fireworks, three of Aldous Huxley's lost classic pieces of short fiction are collected for the first time. In the title novella, Rome is the stunning backdrop where internationally famous novelist Miles Fanning is setting out on a walk down Via Condotti toward the Spanish Steps when he encounters the mysterious Pamela Tarn - a beautiful young American admirer of his work who shares a name, as well as conspicuous personality traits, with a character from his most celebrated book.

From William Shakespeare and Jane Austen to Gabriel García Márquez and Toni Morrison, Writers explores more than 100 biographies of the world’s greatest writers. Writers introduces key ideas, themes, and literary techniques of each figure, revealing the imaginations, and personalities behind some of the world's greatest novels, short stories, poems, and plays. A diverse variety of authors are covered, from the Middle Ages to present day, providing a compelling glimpse into the lives of the people behind the page.

After surviving the Hunt on the Red Moon, Dane should have been happy to return to civilization, and, for a while, he was. But then he got bored. So when their proto-saurian friend Aratak asked Dane and Rianna to accompany him on a mission to a primitive world, where their fighting skills would be needed for the party's survival, Dane jumped at the chance. He should have remembered the old saying: Be careful what you wish for.

One rainy morning in 1871 in lower Manhattan, Martin Pemberton, a freelance writer sees in a passing stagecoach several elderly men, one of whom he recognizes as his supposedly dead and buried father. While trying to unravel the mystery, Pemberton disappears, sending McIlvaine, his employer, the editor of an evening paper, in pursuit of the truth behind his freelancer’s fate. Layer by layer, McIlvaine reveals a modern metropolis surging with primordial urges and sins.

Akila uses her wits and her shape-changing abilities to save her brother, Briam, when their home is besieged. But that leaves them both on the run, with Akila trying to keep them safe while Briam finds more trouble to get into. When he is chosen as year-king in the city of Diadem, Akila struggles to save his life, finding help in the most unexpected places.

When Hannah learns that famed chef Daniel Costello is facing accusations of sexual assault, she's thrown back to the summer she spent waitressing at his high-end Dublin restaurant when she was a young college student—the plush splendor of the dining rooms, the wild parties after service, the sizzling tension of the kitchens. But Hannah also remembers how the attention from Daniel soon morphed from kindness into something darker. Now the restaurant is shuttered and Daniel tries to understand how his life is now completely out of his control

Called “the most influential Ukrainian book for the 15 years of independence", Field Work in Ukrainian Sex by Oksana Zabuzhko is the tale of one woman’s personal revolt. It provoked the top literary scandal of the decade. The novel was first published in Ukraine in 1996, unleashing a storm of controversy and propelling the author to national fame. It topped the bestseller list in Ukraine for more than ten years, making it the most successful Ukrainian-language book of the '90s in every regard.