"This is the first collection of stories from a widely acclaimed novelist writing in the realm of the literary fantastical. They urge an understanding of youth and mortality, ghosts, ghost towns, doubling and loss, with the hope that we can know one another more deeply or at least stand side by side to observe the mystery of the world"--

A seventeenth-century Dutch anatomist discovers the Achilles tendon by dissecting his own amputated leg. Chopin's heart is carried back to Warsaw in secret by his adoring sister. A woman must return to her native Poland in order to poison her terminally ill high school sweetheart, and a young man slowly descends into madness when his wife and child mysteriously vanish during a vacation and just as suddenly reappear. Through these brilliantly imagined...

We are a collection of voices, the assembled history of the many voices that have spoken into our lives and shaped us. Voices of the past, voices of the present, and voices of the future. There is an African proverb, "Se wo were fi na wosankofa a yenkyi," which translates as "It is not wrong to go back for that which you have forgotten." This is why we continue to remember the tales of struggle and tales of perseverance, even as we look to tales of...

""Jacob White can write."--Padgett Powell." A wide array of layered stories written with disarming care."-Ron Carlson, author of Five Skies." Jacob White's characters are in trouble, and their creator brings them to life with language both lush and harsh, gritty and great."-Antonya Nelson, author of Bound." Fresh, fierce, sad, funny, deep. The author is a natural story teller, with a voice that is like music. This book sings. It's real, it's beautiful."-Lev...

"The stories in Five-Carat Soul...spring from the place where identity, humanity, and history converge... McBride explores the ways we learn from the world and the people around us. An antiques dealer discovers that a legendary toy commissioned by Civil War General Robert E. Lee now sits in the home of a black minister in Queens. Five strangers find themselves thrown together and face unexpected judgment. An American president draws inspiration from...

The award-winning master of psychological suspense is in top form in this collection of diverse and diabolically clever stories - including one never-before-published novella. These brilliantly crafted stories of deception, murder, dangerous games, and love gone wrong - irrefutable evidence that Laura Lippman's riveting fiction will more than satisfy any crime reader.

A collection of stories follows four young men as they come of age in a Rhode Island postindustrial enclave and struggle to liberate themselves from the limitations imposed on African Americans while navigating the dynamics of sex, drugs, class, and family.

"A construction worker on the run from the shady local businessman whose dog he has stolen; a Wild West re-enactor engaged in a long-running affair with the Indian "squaw" who slays him on the battlefield every year; a middle-aged high school janitor caught in a scary dispute over land and cattle with her former step-son - Callan Wink's characters are often confronted with predicaments few of us can imagine. But thanks to the humor, remarkable empathy...

"From one of our most acclaimed writers, a sumptuous gathering of his singular work in the short form, including seven new stories--nothing short of a literary event For more than four decades, Thomas McGuane has been heralded as an unrivaled master of the short story. Now the arc of that achievement appears in one definitive volume: thirty-eight stories drawn from his much-lauded previous collections, and another seven entirely new pieces appearing...

Improve your comprehension, grow your vocabulary and ignite your imagination with these eight unconventional Spanish short stories!