Showing titles in Short Stories

 Prince of Dogs returns listeners to the war-torn kingdoms of Wendar and Varre and the intertwined destinies of Alain, raised in humble surroundings but now the count's heir; Liath, who struggles to unravel the secrets of her past while evading the traps set for her by those seeking the treasure she hides; Sanglant, believed dead by those who could save him but actually a prisoner in the city of Gent; and Fifth Son, who now builds an army to do his father's bidding - or his own! 

Trapped in a London flat, Beth remembers a transgressive love affair in 1960s Paris. The most famous writer in Russia takes his last breath in a stationmaster’s cottage, miles from Moscow. A father, finally free of his daughter’s demands, embarks on a long swim from his Canadian lakeside retreat. And in the grandest house of all, Danni the Polish housekeeper catches the eye of an enigmatic visitor.Rose Tremain awakens the senses in this diverse collection of short stories.

Brought to you by Penguin. *Narrated by Academy, Tony and Primetime Emmy Award winner Ellen Burstyn* From the beloved bestseller and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, a posthumous collection of newly discovered writing, offering a fresh perspective on the remarkable literary mind behind To Kill a...

Acclaimed author of The Adults Alison Espach’s short story "In-Depth Market Research Interviews with Dead People" is an at-once hilarious and heart-breaking portrait of a dead woman’s marriage and the Volvo that stood in the middle of it all.

Since his landmark debut collection, There Are Little Kingdoms, and his award-winning second book, Dark Lies the Island, Kevin Barry has been acclaimed as one of the world's most accomplished and gifted short-story writers. In this third collection, That Old Country Music, we encounter a ragbag of West of Ireland characters, many on the cusp between love and catastrophe, heartbreak and epiphany, resignation and hope. These stories show an Ireland in a condition of great flux but also as a place where older rhythms, and an older magic, somehow persist.

The fourteen short stories in To Cut a Long Story Short show Jeffrey Archer’s great skills with a wide variety of character, of subject and of setting, but all with that trademark twist in the tale. Every reader will have their own favourites: the choices run from love at first sight across the train tracks to the cleverest of confidence tricks, from the quirks of the legal profession - and those who are able to manipulate both sides of the Bar - to the creative financial talents of a member of Her Majesty’s diplomatic service - but for a good cause.

The 'best short story writer in English' (Time) is back with a masterful collection that explores ideas of power, ethics, and justice, and cuts to the very heart of what it means to live in community with our fellow humans. With his trademark prose—wickedly funny, unsentimental, and perfectly tuned—Saunders continues to challenge and surprise: here is a collection of prismatic, deeply resonant stories that encompass joy and despair, oppression and revolution, bizarre fantasy and brutal reality.

Twenty six short stories about the eccentric inhabitants of Meridian Cliffs, a small wind-battered town on England's South Coast. Welcome to Meridian Cliffs. Located at exactly 0 degrees 0 minutes west, and 0 degrees 0 minutes east, it's where the Greenwich Meridian meets the Channel, and time stands poised at absolute zero. But due to ever-increasing coastal erosion, it's getting smaller every day.

Winter 218 BC: In Cisalpine Gaul, a Carthaginian patrol is moving stealthily through thick woodland. It’s led by Hanno, one of Hannibal’s young officers, and his second-in-command, Mutt. Famished and cold, they are making for a town full of the grain that they desperately need. But the local Gauls cannot be trusted; and although defeated, the Romans still have patrols in the area. With peril on every side and a deadly ambush ahead, there is no certainty that either Hanno or Mutt will survive....

Two bloody brilliant short stories from No. 1 bestselling crime writer Stuart MacBride, featuring DS Logan McRae and his boss DI Steel STRAMASH: Something fishy is happening on the isle of Jura. DS Logan McRae gets a phone call from DI Steel ordering him to come to the island at once. One...

Brought to you by Penguin. Step into the unsettling world of Shirley Jackson this autumn with a collection of her finest, darkest short stories, revealing the queen of American gothic at her mesmerising best. There's something nasty in suburbia. In these deliciously dark tales, the daily commute...

The expected never happens . . . A man calls unexpectedly on his mistress and sees another man leaving her flat. Accusing her of being unfaithful, he quarrels with her, strikes her. She dies. Leaving unseen, he tips off the police so that the other man is arrested and charged . . . Has he...

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.

Born from Bukowski's columns, the LA underground press of the 1960s, Bukowski defined his early alter ego, Hank Chinaski, as a self-described dirty old man who eyes his defeatist attitude about himself with his clarity to see humor and holiness in others. Addictive and instructive listening, Bukowski delivers the humanity and intelligence of all the unseen. Filled with his usual obsessions - sex, booze, gambling - Notes features Bukowski's offbeat insights into politics and literature, and his tortured, violent relationships.

When Zikora, a DC lawyer from Nigeria, tells her equally high-powered lover that she’s pregnant, he abandons her. But it’s Zikora’s demanding, self-possessed mother, in town for the birth, who makes Zikora feel like a lonely little girl all over again. Stunned by the speed with which her ideal life fell apart, she turns to reflecting on her mother’s painful past and struggle for dignity. Preparing for motherhood, Zikora begins to see more clearly what her own mother wants for her, for her new baby, and for herself.

Not the End of the World is Kate Atkinson's first collection of short stories. Playful and profound, they explore the world we think we know whilst offering a vision of another world which lurks just beneath the surface of our consciousness, a world where the myths we have banished from our lives are startlingly present and where imagination has the power to transform reality.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth written and read by William Boyd. A philandering art dealer tries to give up casual love affairs - seeking only passionate kisses as a substitute. A man recounts his personal history through the things he has stolen from...

Maud is an irascible 88-year-old Swedish woman with no family, no friends, and...no qualms about a little murder. Ever since her darling father's untimely death when she was only 18, Maud has lived in the family's spacious apartment in downtown Gothenburg rent-free, thanks to a minor clause in a hastily negotiated contract. That was how Maud learned that good things can come from tragedy. Now in her late 80s, Maud contents herself with traveling the world and surfing the net from the comfort of her father's ancient armchair. It's a solitary existence, and she likes it that way. 

Behold the Void includes nine stories of terror that huddle in the dark space between cosmic horror and the modern weird, between old-school hard-edged horror of the 1980s and the stylistic prose of today's literary giants.

A new collection showcasing the best of Ernest Hemingway’s short stories including his well-known classics, as featured in the magnificent three-part, six-hour PBS documentary by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick—introduced by award-winning author Tobias Wolff. Ernest Hemingway, a literary icon and...