American Short

Do you like true crime stories? You should love these tales then Originally authentic police files, True American Crime Stories are from the 1920s through to the 1950s - the era of gangster, molls and prohibition. Almost (but not quite), lost in the mists of time, these tales romp along with plenty of action and recreate the atmosphere of this exciting and dangerous era using the vernacular of the times. You may not have heard much about some of these bad guys, but they were real, ruthless hoodlums and all had their "15 minutes of fame", leaving trails of death and mayhem behind them. Most ...

She swiped right on love—but ended up fighting for her child’s life. Will Trish ever find the love she deserves? An African American Urban Short Story - Trish Johnson thought she had life figured out—smart, ambitious, and determined to succeed. But after landing a job that barely pays the bills and finding herself tangled up with Jackson, a smooth-talking but irresponsible man, she realizes that love and stability don’t always go hand in hand. As she struggles to provide for her daughter, Alia, and navigate the chaos of her ex still living in her basement, Trish reflects on how she ...

You thought that things were crazy in the first series, just wait until you read the sequel. Melissa and August just want some peace in their life, but it doesn’t seem like that’s going to happen with everyone from their past resurfacing. No matter how hard everything becomes between the new couple. Mike and Cassandra were finally in a place in their life that they loved, and they were in a place with each other that they loved even more. Carissa thought that she had lost everyone and felt that she was never going to be accepted again, so she did the only thing she felt was right. Side ...

The Best American series, launched in 1915, is the premier annual showcase for the country’s finest short fiction and nonfiction, and it is the most respected—and most popular—of its kind. Nnedi Okrafor selects twenty pieces that represent the best examples of the form published the previous year and explores the ever-expanding and changing world of science fiction and fantasy today.

Lovers Rock stars Jamaica: its language, its landscape, its vibe, its humor, its edge and its persistent, dogged beauty. These seven stories imagine strange, quirky, familiar and delicious encounters between people in search of romantic love in the twenty-first century. Featuring characters from of all walks of life, each story is connected by the unique vibe of Jamaican desire.

An arresting collection of short stories, reminiscent of Shirley Jackson and Julio Cortazar, by an exciting new international talent.

When Europeans first arrived in North America, between five and eight million Indigenous people were already living there. But how did they come to be here? What were their agricultural, spiritual, and hunting practices? How did their societies evolve, and what challenges do they face today? Eminent historians Theda Perdue and Michael Green begin by describing how nomadic bands of hunter-gatherers followed the bison and woolly mammoth over the Bering land mass between Asia and what is now Alaska between 25,000 and 15,000 years ago, settling throughout North America.

J Jackson Bentley and others have contributed their American homeland short stories for this anthology. There are thrillers, murder mysteries and feel good dramas. Beautifully written and descriptive they are each a mini novel in the vein of the traditional and much loved short story writers of yesteryear. JJB kicks off the book with a tribute to the Great American Short Story, reminding us all of the great stories we now take for granted and which have spawned films and TV series that we know and love. The essay also pays homage to graphic novels and comics. There are fifteen stories ...

Published in 2000 to critical acclaim, The American West: A New Interpretive History quickly became the standard in college history courses. Now Robert V. Hine and John Mack Faragher offer a concise edition of their classic, freshly updated. Lauded for their lively and elegant writing, the authors provide a grand survey of the colorful history of the American West, from the first contacts between Native Americans and Europeans to the beginning of the 21st century.

I was another black girl dumped by my boyfriend so he could be with some white chick. All alone, I was pretty sure my life was heading nowhere…until I met him. Gabe the sexiest white guy I had ever seen and he wanted to take care of me. But he had a secret. He wasn't just a normal rich white guy…he was CEO of a huge oil empire and heir to a multi-billion dollar fortune. Can this black girl's cinderella story really have a happily ever after? Warning: This story contains naughty scenes between a white billionaire and curvy black lady. Adult readers only.

Many Indigenous people believe that one should never whistle at night. This belief takes many forms: for instance, Native Hawaiians believe it summons the Hukai’po, the spirits of ancient warriors, and Native Mexicans say it calls Lechuza, a witch that can transform into an owl. But what all these legends hold in common is the certainty that whistling at night can cause evil spirits to appear—and even follow you home. These shiver-inducing tales introduce listeners to ghosts, curses, hauntings, monstrous creatures, complex family legacies, desperate deeds, and chilling acts of revenge.

On her 12th birthday, Sierva Maria - the only child of a decaying noble family in an 18th-century South American seaport - is bitten by a rabid dog. Believed to be possessed, she is brought to a convent for observation. And into her cell stumbles Father Cayetano Delaura, who has already dreamed about a girl with hair trailing after her like a bridal train. As he tends to her with holy water and sacramental oils, Delaura feels something shocking begin to occur.

“These are dangerous stories. The kind that warp reality and threaten to change the world” warns guest editor Hugh Howey in his introduction. The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2024 promises a treasure trove of audacious characters, daring worldbuilding, and twisted realties. A sibling duo of supernatural hitmen. A traveling spellbreaker and his trusty alligator mount. Superheroes registering for work. Sentient spaceships with an AI-human interface grow up together with their human pilots.

In this striking and bleak, yet luminous debut collection, Nathan Ballingrud, winner of the inaugural Shirley Jackson Award, uses the trappings of the Gothic and the uncanny to investigate a distinctly American landscape: The loneliest and darkest corners of contemporary life. Ballingrud’s stories are love stories. They’re also monster stories. Sometimes the monsters collected here are vampires or werewolves.

#1 New York Times best-selling, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Anthony Doerr brings his“stunning sense of physical detail and gorgeous metaphors” (San Francisco Chronicle) to selecting The Best American Short Stories 2019. Doerr and the series editor, Heidi Pitlor, winnow down twenty stories out of thousands that represent the best examples of the form published the previous year.

In 1999, Texas passed a landmark clean energy law, beginning a groundswell of new policies that promised to make the US a world leader in renewable energy. As Leah Stokes shows in Short Circuiting Policy, however, that policy did not lead to momentum in Texas, which failed to implement its solar laws or clean up its electricity system. Examining clean energy laws in Texas, Kansas, Arizona, and Ohio over 30 years Stokes argues that organized combat between advocate and opponent interest groups is central to explaining why states are not on track to address the climate crisis.

When author Jeff Hobbs arrived at Yale University, he became fast friends with the man who would be his college roommate for four years, Robert Peace. Robert's life was rough from the beginning in the crime-ridden streets of Newark in the 1980s, with his father in jail and his mother earning less than $15,000 a year. But Robert was a brilliant student, and it was supposed to get easier when he was accepted to Yale, where he studied molecular biochemistry and biophysics.

African American literature is the body of literature produced in the United States by writers of African descent. It begins with the works of such late 18th-century writers as Phillis Wheatley. Before the high point of enslaved people narratives, African-American literature was dominated by autobiographical spiritual narratives. The genre known as slave narratives in the 19th century were accounts by people who had generally escaped from slavery, about their journeys to freedom and ways they claimed their lives.

At once an incredible adventure narrative and a penetrating biographical portrait, Egan's book tells the remarkable untold story behind Edward Curtis's iconic photographs, following him throughout Indian country from desert to rainforest as he struggled to document the stories and rituals of more than eighty tribes. Even with the backing of Theodore Roosevelt and J.P. Morgan, it took tremendous perseverance. The undertaking changed him profoundly, from detached observer to outraged advocate.

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.