Fiction Literature Short Stories

"Living In Bondage" is a gripping tale of resilience, redemption, and the indomitable human spirit. Set against the backdrop of a sprawling metropolis, the story follows Maya, a young woman trapped in the suffocating embrace of poverty and despair. From the bustling streets teeming with life to the dimly lit alleys where shadows lurk, the vivid descriptions transport listeners into Maya's world, immersing them in the sights, sounds, and smells of urban life.

From a spaceship flight into a Black Hole, to a genie that comes out of a ketchup bottle; from a magical pen that knows all the answers to a test, to a crochet-loving pirate; these original short stories by bestselling author Kes Gray will excite and inspire young readers not only to read on, but also to write and illustrate their own stories.

Es war so schön draußen auf dem Land, es war Sommer – die Weizenfelder waren golden, der Hafer war grün, und unten zwischen den grünen Wiesen stand das Heu aufgestapelt. Dort schritt der Storch auf seinen roten Beinen umher und klapperte auf Ägyptisch, was die Sprache war, die seine Mutter ihn gelehrt hatte. Rund um die Felder und Wiesenländer erhoben sich riesige Wälder, in denen verborgene tiefe Seen lagen. Ja, es war in der Tat wunderschön dort draußen auf dem Land.

A couple of large ships were sent up toward the North Pole to discover the boundaries of land and sea and how far it would be possible for the human race to penetrate in that direction.

The country around the town of Kjöge is very bare. The town itself lies by the seashore, which is always beautiful, although it might be more beautiful than it is, because all around are flat fields, and a forest a long way off. But one always finds something beautiful in the spot that is one's own home, something for which one longs, even when one is in the most wonderful spot in the world.

There was once a young man who studied to become a poet. He wanted to be a poet by next Easter, so that he could marry and earn his living from poetry, which he knew was just a matter of making things up. But he had no imagination. He firmly believed he had been born too late. Every subject had been used up before he had a chance at it, and there was nothing in the world left to write about.

From the award nominated author of It Eats Your Hunger, comes the story of Adam Bell, a young man who accepts a job at Wild Mountain Wolf Sanctuary, a hidden facility in a secluded corner of the New Mexico desert. The work is hard but fulfilling, helping Adam come into his own and take hold of his humanity. However, beneath the earth, The Rabbit Man is awakening, a wretched terror hellbent on stripping that humanity away. Plagued by horrific visions and running out of time, he has a choice to make: fight to survive, or become nothing more than a forgotten Dead Rabbit.

Before The Road by Cormac McCarthy brought apocalyptic fiction into the mainstream, there was science fiction. No longer relegated to the fringes of literature, this explosive collection of the world’s best apocalyptic writers brings the inventors of alien invasions, devastating meteors, doomsday scenarios, and all-out nuclear war back to with a bang. The best writers of the early 1900s were the first to flood New York with tidal waves, destroy Illinois with alien invaders, paralyze Washington with meteors, and lay waste to the Midwest with nuclear fallout.

“There have never been as many exquisitely built stories in existence than there are now,” proclaims guest editor Lauren Groff in her introduction. This abundance led to a volume of robust stories with the nerve to push against narrative expectations. The Best American Short Stories 2024 boasts a collection of twenty stories that “buzz with their own strange logic.” Daring and resonant, the stories in this volume invite in Groff “a feeling that both the author and I were simultaneously discovering something together.”

Edgar Award winner Otto Penzler returns with a new anthology of exhilarating mysteries, assembling Victorian society's lords and ladies and most miserable miscreants. Behind the velvet curtains of horse-drawn carriages and amid the soft glow of the gaslights are the detectives and bobbies sniffing out the safecrackers and petty purloiners who plague everything from the soot-covered side streets of London to the opulent manors of the countryside. Brush off your dinner jackets and straighten out your ball gowns for these exciting, glitzy mysteries.

Action and adventure short stories of men and animals in the wild.

Each captivating story plunges headfirst into the lives of utterly original characters. Some are darkly humorous—two mothers exchanging snide remarks through notes in their kids’ backpacks—while others are devastatingly poignant. In the title story, when a cosplayer, dressed as his favorite anime character, is mistaken for a violent threat the consequences are dire; in another story, a teen struggles between her upper middle class upbringing and her desire to fully connect with so-called black culture.

Dr. Margaret Richter has it all. She’s rich, thanks to her best-selling self-help books. She has a beautiful home in Cape Cod overlooking the beach. And she has a monthly book club that everyone is dying to get invited to. Literally. Because behind the crystal wine glasses, the fine linens and the catered hors d'oeuvres lies a tangled web of secrets, of deceit, of murder. No member of the book club is innocent—and many are guilty. And the person with the most to hide is Margaret Richter herself.

Six tales featuring the roguish master thief, Godahl!

Nathan Tyler is an unassuming professor at a middling American university with a rather obscure specialty in mathematics—in short, a nobody from nowhere. So why is the White House calling? Summoned to Washington, DC, for a top-secret briefing, Nathan discovers that he’s the key to a massive foreign intelligence breakthrough. Reading between the lines of a cryptic series of equations, he could open a door straight into the heart of the Kremlin and change the global balance of power forever.

The prestigious annual story anthology, featuring prize-winning stories by Kate DiCamillo, Jess Walter, Dave Eggers, Allegra Goodman, Jai Chakrabarti, Francisco Gonzalez, and more.

This definitive audio collection, read by Stacy Keach, traces the development and maturation of Hemingway's distinct and revolutionary storytelling style - from the plain bald language of his first story to his mastery of seamless prose that contained a spare, eloquent pathos, as well as a sense of expansive solitude. These stories showcase the singular talent of a master, the most important American writer of the 20th century.

For over 60 years, readers of all ages have been enchanted by the magical realms, the epic battles between good and evil, and the unforgettable creatures of Narnia. This box set includes all seven titles in The Chronicles of Narnia - The Magician's Nephew; The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; The Horse and His Boy; Prince Caspian; The Voyage of the Dawn Treader; The Silver Chair; and The Last Battle.

What is it about the cat that captivates the creative imagination? No other creature has inspired so many authors to take pen to page. Mystery, horror, science fiction, and fantasy stories have all been written about cats.

It is one of the most well-known and well-loved fantasy epics of the twentieth century: the story of Elric, emperor of the dying kingdom of Melniboné. For a hundred centuries the Melnibonéans have ruled from the Dragon Isle of Imrryr. Now, after years of corruption and decadence, Elric’s amoral cousin Prince Yyrkoon, the brother of his beloved Cymoril, sets his eyes on the Ruby Throne. Elric must face his treacherous cousin not as a warrior but as a sorcerer king once again in league with the ancient gods of Melniboné, the Chaos Lords, and thus sealing his inexorable fate.