Short Family

Diagnosed as severely autistic at the age of three, Tito, nearly nonverbal, was brought up by his loving mother Soma, who taught him to read English and challenged him to write his own stories. The initial result was The Mind Tree, published in 2003, which Tito wrote between the ages of eight and 11. The Gold of the Sunbeams is an equally impressive, beautiful collection of stories, each prefaced by a charming note from Tito explaining how the story came into being.

Grandma's house was a magical place, and in this vivid memoir, Donald Davis makes it possible for each of us to go back to our own grandma's kitchen, clutter room, living room, and to that immeasurable bed that seemed to swallow us whole. This selection also contains a traditional story Davis learned from his grandmother, one handed down through his family from generations who once lived in Scotland before coming to the Appalachian mountains, about the time that fortune-seeker named Jack made the king mad.

This story, set in Texas, is about a mother, her troubled son, and the redemptive powers of love. When gentle-natured Margie Clammor meets motherhood, she's in for the fight of her life. Her charming, manipulative son Tommy has a genius for trouble, and Margie battles year after year to remain his advocate and convince the world to see the good in him. That is, until grown-up Tommy is accused of committing an act so horrific that Margie must either face the facts or surrender everything she holds dear.

The strong but flawed women of Mothers, Tell Your Daughters love and betray one another; their richly fraught relationships can act as anchors, lifelines, or deadly poison. Bonnie Jo Campbell's working-class protagonists are at once vulnerable, wise, cruel, and funny, and they are always getting into or out of trouble.

The recipient of the Journey Prize and Edna Staebler Award, Heather Birrell made a splash in the literary world with her first collection, I Know You Are But What Am I? In Mad Hope, Birrell employs her keen insight into the human condition to present tales featuring a complex array of characters, including a gay man caring for a friend and a science teacher faced with a shocking request.

We've all heard the adage "finders, keepers." But does that tenet apply when the found object is an abandoned baby on a bus stop bench, and the keepers two affluent gay men who have always wanted a child? Award winning author Lucy Jane Bledsoe expertly blurs the lines between what's right and what's necessary, especially when it comes to two loving parents who want to do the right thing, but are also determined to protect their only child.

In his three novellas, In Short Measures, Strong Conspirators, and Sally Forth, Michael Ruhlman delves deeply into the nuanced complexity of romantic and sexual love - and the inevitable evolution of the heart over the span of years and decades. Each novella asks questions about the nature of love in terms of loyalty and fidelity - what are one's obligations toward one's spouse, one's family, and one's heart?

This inspiring anthology collects enduring and entertaining stories that have enthralled young and old, by the cherished authors whose tales have captivated children for generations. Perfect for the family car trip or at-home listening, these recordings sparkle with the wit and wonder of time-tested storytelling.

An exquisite new collection from a Pulitzer Prize-winning master of the short story, the culmination of a five-decade career: work that takes us beneath the placid surface of suburban life into the elusive strangeness of the everyday.

Eva Gray has a secret. Eight years ago her sister entered the Brothers of Sin Motorcycle Club and never came back. Seven years ago she vowed revenge, even if she had to change everything about her life to do it - her look, her name, her face. Now she's stalking the Brothers and looking for weakness. She's close to achieving her goal, so close she can taste it. But a prominent federal judge is now in ICU, and Eva's the only one who can prove the club hired the hit.

Over the past decade, Simon Van Booy has been listening to people’s stories. With these personal accounts as a starting point, he has crafted a powerful collection of short fiction that takes listeners into the innermost lives of everyday people. From a family saved from ruin by a mysterious benefactor to a downtrodden boxer who shows unexpected kindness to a mugger, these tales reveal not only the precarious balance maintained between grief and happiness in our lives but also how the echoes of personal tragedy can shape us for the better.

I knew Jay long before he became my stepfather. We shared a fantasy. Something that now I knew that he and my mother had gone away, I could try. The last thing I expected was for him to come home and catch me.

A brilliant young philosophy student bent on seducing her famous philosopher-mentor finds herself outmaneuvered; diabolically clever high school girls wreak a particularly apt sort of vengeance on sexual predators in their community; a woman stalked by a would-be killer may be confiding in the wrong former lover; a young woman is morbidly obsessed by her unfamiliar new role as “mother.” In the collection’s longest story, a much-praised cutting-edge writer cruelly experiments with “drafts” of his own suicide.

From a Hong Kong movie idol fleeing a sex scandal to an obedient daughter turned Stanford pretender, from a Chinatown elder summoned to his village to a Korean American pastor with a secret agenda, the characters in the collection illustrate the conflict between self and society, tradition and change. In "What We Have Is What We Need", winner of the Atlantic's Student Writing Contest, a boy from Mexico reunites with his parents in San Francisco. When he suspects his mother has found love elsewhere, he fights to keep his family together.

Uwem Akpan's stunning stories humanize the perils of poverty and violence so piercingly that few listeners will feel they've ever encountered Africa so immediately. The eight-year-old narrator of "An Ex-Mas Feast" needs only enough money to buy books and pay fees in order to attend school. Even when his twelve-year-old sister takes to the streets to raise these meager funds, his dream can't be granted. Food comes first. His family lives in a street shanty in Nairobi, Kenya, but their way of both loving and taking advantage of each other strikes a universal chord.

When Avery learns Sean's dark secret, everything changes. His confession blindsides her. Sean has a shady past, she knew that from the beginning, but this is so much worse than she thought. There's a dangerous side to Sean. It's alluring and frightening at the same time. Avery has to decide if love can overcome anything or if she should protect her heart.

A couple awakens in a home in the woods to find themselves rapidly aging as their toddler remains unchanged. A work-worn employee navigates conspiracy theories and the threat of violence in an abandoned office. A tour guide leads a troublesome group to an ancient structure, apparently nonhuman in origin, discovering along the way that the most mysterious creatures of all are right beside him.

John Updike's 21st novel, a bildungsroman, follows its hero, Owen Mackenzie, from his birth in the semi-rural Pennsylvania town of Willow to his retirement in the rather geriatric community of Haskells Crossing, Massachusetts. In between these two settlements comes Middle Falls, Connecticut, where Owen, an early computer programmer, founds with a partner, Ed Mervine, the successful firm of E-O Data, which is housed in an old gun factory on the Chunkaunkabaug River.

Pen/Hemingway finalist Jamil Jan Kochai ​breathes life into his contemporary Afghan characters, moving between modern-day Afghanistan and the Afghan diaspora in America. In these arresting stories verging on both comedy and tragedy, often starring young characters whose bravado is matched by their tenderness, Kochai once again captures “a singular, resonant voice, an American teenager raised by Old World Afghan storytellers.” The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories is a moving exploration of characters grappling with the ghosts of war and displacement.

After her mother’s passing, Aldona finds a tin filled with old letters from a prisoner at Ravensbrück, a women’s concentration camp in northern Germany. Amid the descriptions of daily deprivations and humiliations at the camp, she uncovers the heart-wrenching story of a small circle of women who risked their lives to hide a baby girl from the guards. Aldona is rocked to the core by this record of courage and sisterhood during one of the grimmest chapters of human history.