Author: Andrey Platonov
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1448104599
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 164
Book Description
"Reading Platonov, one gets a sense of the relentless, implacable absurdity built into the language and with each...utterance, that absurdity deepens" - Joseph Brodsky People are on the move in all ten stories in this collection, coming home as in "The Return", leaving home as in "Rubbish Wind", travelling far away from their country as in "The Locks of Epiphan", trying to improve their lives and those of others, running away, searching, fleeing. Their journeys are accompanied by two motives which characterize the writing of Andrey Platonov: optimism and faith in the goodness of humanity, and abject despair at the cruelty, randomness, and apparent senselessness of our existence. The protagonists are torn between these poles and sometimes a synthesis shines through the mists of the apparent naivety of faith and the blackness of despair: the hope against hope that a better life is still possible. Though Russian readers and critics have come to look on Platonov as among their greatest prose writers of this century, he has yet to enjoy a parallel international reputation - mainly because much of his best writing was suppressed for more than 60 years. Combining a realism inspired by his work as an engineer with poetic vision and the deceptively simple language of folk tales, Platonov sets his stories alight by using language in a way that renders it unfamiliar, makes the ordinary seem unusual and the extraordinary logical. This translation is the first to present the full range of Platonov's gift as a short story writer to an English-language readership, showing why it is that Joseph Brodsky regarded Platonov as the equal of Joyce, Kafka and Proust. "...strange, almost abrupt, a hallucinatory, nightmarish parable of hysterical laughter and terrifying silences" - Eileen Battersby, Irish Times - in reference to The Foundation Pit
The Return and Other Stories
Author: Andrey Platonov
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1448104599
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 164
Book Description
"Reading Platonov, one gets a sense of the relentless, implacable absurdity built into the language and with each...utterance, that absurdity deepens" - Joseph Brodsky People are on the move in all ten stories in this collection, coming home as in "The Return", leaving home as in "Rubbish Wind", travelling far away from their country as in "The Locks of Epiphan", trying to improve their lives and those of others, running away, searching, fleeing. Their journeys are accompanied by two motives which characterize the writing of Andrey Platonov: optimism and faith in the goodness of humanity, and abject despair at the cruelty, randomness, and apparent senselessness of our existence. The protagonists are torn between these poles and sometimes a synthesis shines through the mists of the apparent naivety of faith and the blackness of despair: the hope against hope that a better life is still possible. Though Russian readers and critics have come to look on Platonov as among their greatest prose writers of this century, he has yet to enjoy a parallel international reputation - mainly because much of his best writing was suppressed for more than 60 years. Combining a realism inspired by his work as an engineer with poetic vision and the deceptively simple language of folk tales, Platonov sets his stories alight by using language in a way that renders it unfamiliar, makes the ordinary seem unusual and the extraordinary logical. This translation is the first to present the full range of Platonov's gift as a short story writer to an English-language readership, showing why it is that Joseph Brodsky regarded Platonov as the equal of Joyce, Kafka and Proust. "...strange, almost abrupt, a hallucinatory, nightmarish parable of hysterical laughter and terrifying silences" - Eileen Battersby, Irish Times - in reference to The Foundation Pit
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1448104599
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 164
Book Description
"Reading Platonov, one gets a sense of the relentless, implacable absurdity built into the language and with each...utterance, that absurdity deepens" - Joseph Brodsky People are on the move in all ten stories in this collection, coming home as in "The Return", leaving home as in "Rubbish Wind", travelling far away from their country as in "The Locks of Epiphan", trying to improve their lives and those of others, running away, searching, fleeing. Their journeys are accompanied by two motives which characterize the writing of Andrey Platonov: optimism and faith in the goodness of humanity, and abject despair at the cruelty, randomness, and apparent senselessness of our existence. The protagonists are torn between these poles and sometimes a synthesis shines through the mists of the apparent naivety of faith and the blackness of despair: the hope against hope that a better life is still possible. Though Russian readers and critics have come to look on Platonov as among their greatest prose writers of this century, he has yet to enjoy a parallel international reputation - mainly because much of his best writing was suppressed for more than 60 years. Combining a realism inspired by his work as an engineer with poetic vision and the deceptively simple language of folk tales, Platonov sets his stories alight by using language in a way that renders it unfamiliar, makes the ordinary seem unusual and the extraordinary logical. This translation is the first to present the full range of Platonov's gift as a short story writer to an English-language readership, showing why it is that Joseph Brodsky regarded Platonov as the equal of Joyce, Kafka and Proust. "...strange, almost abrupt, a hallucinatory, nightmarish parable of hysterical laughter and terrifying silences" - Eileen Battersby, Irish Times - in reference to The Foundation Pit
Reality and Other Stories
Author: John Lanchester
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393540928
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 160
Book Description
A Kirkus Reviews Best Short Fiction of 2021 Selection Ghost stories for the digital age by the Booker Prize–longlisted author of The Wall. In 2017, inspired in part by Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw, the acclaimed English novelist John Lanchester published a ghost story in The New Yorker. "Signal," an eerie story of contemporary life and the perils of technology, was a sensation among readers—and since then Lanchester has written several more. Reality and Other Stories gathers the best of these, taking readers to an uncanny world familiar to fans of The Twilight Zone or Black Mirror. Household gizmos with a mind of their own. Mysterious cell-phone calls from unknown numbers. Reality TV shows and the creeping suspicion that none of this is real… Reality and Other Stories is a book of disquiet that captures the severe disconnection and distraction of our time.
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393540928
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 160
Book Description
A Kirkus Reviews Best Short Fiction of 2021 Selection Ghost stories for the digital age by the Booker Prize–longlisted author of The Wall. In 2017, inspired in part by Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw, the acclaimed English novelist John Lanchester published a ghost story in The New Yorker. "Signal," an eerie story of contemporary life and the perils of technology, was a sensation among readers—and since then Lanchester has written several more. Reality and Other Stories gathers the best of these, taking readers to an uncanny world familiar to fans of The Twilight Zone or Black Mirror. Household gizmos with a mind of their own. Mysterious cell-phone calls from unknown numbers. Reality TV shows and the creeping suspicion that none of this is real… Reality and Other Stories is a book of disquiet that captures the severe disconnection and distraction of our time.
The Running Boy and Other Stories
Author: Megumu Sagisawa
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501749900
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 130
Book Description
With this newly translated version of The Running Boy, the fiction of Megumu Sagisawa makes its long-overdue first appearance in English. Lovingly rendered with a critical introduction by the translator, this collection of three stories, written in 1989, sits on the thinnest part of Japan's economic bubble and provides and cautionary glimpse into the malaise of its impending collapse. From the aging regulars of a shabby snack bar in "Galactic City" to the mental breakdowns of "A Slender Back," and the family secrets lurking within the title story between them, Sagisawa offers a trilogy of laser-focused character studies. Exploring dichotomies of past versus present, young versus old, life versus death, and countless shades of meaning beyond, she elicits vibrant commonalities of the human condition from some of its most ennui-laden examples. A curious form of affirmation awaits her readers, who may just come out of her monochromatic word paintings with more colorful realizations about themselves and the world at large. Such insight is rare in a writer so young, and this book is a fitting testament to her premature death, the legacy of which is sure to inspire a new generation of readers in the post-truth era.
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501749900
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 130
Book Description
With this newly translated version of The Running Boy, the fiction of Megumu Sagisawa makes its long-overdue first appearance in English. Lovingly rendered with a critical introduction by the translator, this collection of three stories, written in 1989, sits on the thinnest part of Japan's economic bubble and provides and cautionary glimpse into the malaise of its impending collapse. From the aging regulars of a shabby snack bar in "Galactic City" to the mental breakdowns of "A Slender Back," and the family secrets lurking within the title story between them, Sagisawa offers a trilogy of laser-focused character studies. Exploring dichotomies of past versus present, young versus old, life versus death, and countless shades of meaning beyond, she elicits vibrant commonalities of the human condition from some of its most ennui-laden examples. A curious form of affirmation awaits her readers, who may just come out of her monochromatic word paintings with more colorful realizations about themselves and the world at large. Such insight is rare in a writer so young, and this book is a fitting testament to her premature death, the legacy of which is sure to inspire a new generation of readers in the post-truth era.
Chemistry and Other Stories
Author: Ron Rash
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1466828064
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 210
Book Description
Chemistry and Other Stories, A Picador Paperback Original From the pre-eminent chronicler of this forgotten territory, stories that range over one hundred years in the troubled, violent emergence of the New South. In Ron Rash's stories, spanning the entire twentieth century in Appalachia, rural communities struggle with the arrival of a new era. Three old men stalk the shadow of a giant fish no one else believes is there. A man takes up scuba diving in the town reservoir to fight off a killing depression. A grieving mother leads a surveyor into the woods to name once and for all the county where her son was murdered by thieves. In the Appalachia of Ron Rash's stories, the collision of the old and new south, of antique and modern, resonate with the depth and power of ancient myths.
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1466828064
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 210
Book Description
Chemistry and Other Stories, A Picador Paperback Original From the pre-eminent chronicler of this forgotten territory, stories that range over one hundred years in the troubled, violent emergence of the New South. In Ron Rash's stories, spanning the entire twentieth century in Appalachia, rural communities struggle with the arrival of a new era. Three old men stalk the shadow of a giant fish no one else believes is there. A man takes up scuba diving in the town reservoir to fight off a killing depression. A grieving mother leads a surveyor into the woods to name once and for all the county where her son was murdered by thieves. In the Appalachia of Ron Rash's stories, the collision of the old and new south, of antique and modern, resonate with the depth and power of ancient myths.
How They Met and Other Stories
Author: David Levithan
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 0375849424
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 255
Book Description
Just in time for Valentine’s Day comes a confection from David Levithan that is sure to have fans of Boy Meets Boy eager to devour it. Here are 18 stories, all about love, all kinds of love. From the aching for the one you pine for, to standing up and speaking up for the one you love, to pure joy and happiness, these love stories run the gamut of that emotion that at some point has turned every one of us inside out and upside down. What is love? With this original story collection, David Levithan proves that love is a many splendored thing, a varied, complicated, addictive, wonderful thing.
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 0375849424
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 255
Book Description
Just in time for Valentine’s Day comes a confection from David Levithan that is sure to have fans of Boy Meets Boy eager to devour it. Here are 18 stories, all about love, all kinds of love. From the aching for the one you pine for, to standing up and speaking up for the one you love, to pure joy and happiness, these love stories run the gamut of that emotion that at some point has turned every one of us inside out and upside down. What is love? With this original story collection, David Levithan proves that love is a many splendored thing, a varied, complicated, addictive, wonderful thing.
Listen & Other Stories
Author: Liam Callanan
Publisher: Four Way Books
ISBN: 1935536826
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 310
Book Description
Listen is a book where characters ask readers to do just that: listen to their stories, especially because many aren't the type of people who often get listened to - even though they should. These characters' trials, missed connections, and sundry challenges are full of surprises - some good, some bad, some funny, some wise, and some all this at once. Perhaps most surprising of all, there's tenderness here and a lot of heart - which often gets the collection's characters into a lot of trouble.
Publisher: Four Way Books
ISBN: 1935536826
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 310
Book Description
Listen is a book where characters ask readers to do just that: listen to their stories, especially because many aren't the type of people who often get listened to - even though they should. These characters' trials, missed connections, and sundry challenges are full of surprises - some good, some bad, some funny, some wise, and some all this at once. Perhaps most surprising of all, there's tenderness here and a lot of heart - which often gets the collection's characters into a lot of trouble.
Virgin and Other Stories
Author: April Ayers Lawson
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0865478708
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 193
Book Description
A confident and mesmerizing fiction debut, from the winner of the Plimpton Prize Set in the South, at the crossroads of a world that is both secular and devoutly Christian, April Ayers Lawson's stories evoke the inner lives of young women and men navigating sexual, emotional, and spiritual awakenings. In "The Negative Effects of Homeschooling," Conner, sixteen, accompanies his grieving mother to the funeral of her best friend, Charlene, a woman who was once a man. In "The Way You Must Play Always," Gretchen, who looks young even for thirteen, heads into her weekly piano lesson in nervous anticipation of her next illicit meeting with her teacher's brother, Wesley. Thin and sickly, wasting from a brain tumor, Wesley spends his days watching pornography and smoking pot, and yet Gretchen can only interpret his advances as the first budding of love. And in the title story, Jake grapples with the growing chasm between him and his wife, Sheila, who was still a virgin when they wed. At a cocktail party thrown by a wealthy donor to his hospital, he ponders the intertwining imperatives of marriage--sex and love, violation and trust, spirituality and desire--even as he finds himself succumbing to the temptations of his host. Self-assured and sensual, Virgin and Other Stories is the first work of a young writer of unusual mastery.
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0865478708
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 193
Book Description
A confident and mesmerizing fiction debut, from the winner of the Plimpton Prize Set in the South, at the crossroads of a world that is both secular and devoutly Christian, April Ayers Lawson's stories evoke the inner lives of young women and men navigating sexual, emotional, and spiritual awakenings. In "The Negative Effects of Homeschooling," Conner, sixteen, accompanies his grieving mother to the funeral of her best friend, Charlene, a woman who was once a man. In "The Way You Must Play Always," Gretchen, who looks young even for thirteen, heads into her weekly piano lesson in nervous anticipation of her next illicit meeting with her teacher's brother, Wesley. Thin and sickly, wasting from a brain tumor, Wesley spends his days watching pornography and smoking pot, and yet Gretchen can only interpret his advances as the first budding of love. And in the title story, Jake grapples with the growing chasm between him and his wife, Sheila, who was still a virgin when they wed. At a cocktail party thrown by a wealthy donor to his hospital, he ponders the intertwining imperatives of marriage--sex and love, violation and trust, spirituality and desire--even as he finds himself succumbing to the temptations of his host. Self-assured and sensual, Virgin and Other Stories is the first work of a young writer of unusual mastery.
Return and Other Stories Based on the Novel Arianna's Tale
Author: LA Quill
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 1105466841
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 109
Book Description
From the author of fantasy novel Arianna's Tale come ten new short stories set in the magickal world of Vorima. These stories, featuring the main characters introduced in Arianna's Tale, give the reader further insight into the characters and aid in the understanding of the greater plot of the entire Imperial Series. Some of the stories included in this anthology take place before the events portrayed in Arianna's Tale. These include Arrival, Deception, Exiled, and Awakening. The first two deal with Damuk and his family. The second two are concerned with Arianna and her family and friends. The other six stories all happen within the novel but are not describes. All ten short stories are alluded to during the course of the novel. If you enjoyed any of the novels in The Imperial Series, are looking for a quick introduction to the world of Vorima, or simply want a fun and interesting read, this anthology is for you.
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 1105466841
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 109
Book Description
From the author of fantasy novel Arianna's Tale come ten new short stories set in the magickal world of Vorima. These stories, featuring the main characters introduced in Arianna's Tale, give the reader further insight into the characters and aid in the understanding of the greater plot of the entire Imperial Series. Some of the stories included in this anthology take place before the events portrayed in Arianna's Tale. These include Arrival, Deception, Exiled, and Awakening. The first two deal with Damuk and his family. The second two are concerned with Arianna and her family and friends. The other six stories all happen within the novel but are not describes. All ten short stories are alluded to during the course of the novel. If you enjoyed any of the novels in The Imperial Series, are looking for a quick introduction to the world of Vorima, or simply want a fun and interesting read, this anthology is for you.
The Prophet and Other Stories
Author: Chʻŏng-jun Yi
Publisher: Cornell East Asia Series
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 216
Book Description
Yi Ch'ōng-Jun was born in 1939 and graduated from the department of German language and literature at Seoul National University in 1966. He has long been recognized as one of Korea's most prolific and demanding authors. Since his debut in 1965, he has enjoyed consistent critical and commercial success. His characters are ordinary people--writers, farmers, photographers and artisans--all struggling to survive in an increasingly materialistic and complicated society. They search for life's significance in the whirlwind change of modern Korea only to discover that the answers to their questions run deep beneath the surface of reality. This collection provides a cross-section of Yi's work, beginning with the haunting novella, The Falconer (1968) and ending with The Fire Worshipers, which won the National Literary Award from the Korean Culture and Arts Foundation in 1986.
Publisher: Cornell East Asia Series
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 216
Book Description
Yi Ch'ōng-Jun was born in 1939 and graduated from the department of German language and literature at Seoul National University in 1966. He has long been recognized as one of Korea's most prolific and demanding authors. Since his debut in 1965, he has enjoyed consistent critical and commercial success. His characters are ordinary people--writers, farmers, photographers and artisans--all struggling to survive in an increasingly materialistic and complicated society. They search for life's significance in the whirlwind change of modern Korea only to discover that the answers to their questions run deep beneath the surface of reality. This collection provides a cross-section of Yi's work, beginning with the haunting novella, The Falconer (1968) and ending with The Fire Worshipers, which won the National Literary Award from the Korean Culture and Arts Foundation in 1986.
The Wagon and Other Stories from the City
Author: Martin Preib
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226679810
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 176
Book Description
Martin Preib is an officer in the Chicago Police Department—a beat cop whose first assignment as a rookie policeman was working on the wagon that picks up the dead. Inspired by Preib’s daily life on the job, The Wagon and Other Stories from the City chronicles the outer and inner lives of both a Chicago cop and the city itself. The book follows Preib as he transports body bags, forges an unlikely connection with his female partner, trains a younger officer, and finds himself among people long forgotten—or rendered invisible—by the rest of society. Preib recounts how he navigates the tenuous labyrinths of race and class in the urban metropolis, such as a domestic disturbance call involving a gang member and his abused girlfriend or a run-in with a group of drunk yuppies. As he encounters the real and imagined geographies of Chicago, the city reveals itself to be not just a backdrop, but a central force in his narrative of life and death. Preib’s accounts, all told in his breathtaking prose, come alive in ways that readers will long remember.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226679810
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 176
Book Description
Martin Preib is an officer in the Chicago Police Department—a beat cop whose first assignment as a rookie policeman was working on the wagon that picks up the dead. Inspired by Preib’s daily life on the job, The Wagon and Other Stories from the City chronicles the outer and inner lives of both a Chicago cop and the city itself. The book follows Preib as he transports body bags, forges an unlikely connection with his female partner, trains a younger officer, and finds himself among people long forgotten—or rendered invisible—by the rest of society. Preib recounts how he navigates the tenuous labyrinths of race and class in the urban metropolis, such as a domestic disturbance call involving a gang member and his abused girlfriend or a run-in with a group of drunk yuppies. As he encounters the real and imagined geographies of Chicago, the city reveals itself to be not just a backdrop, but a central force in his narrative of life and death. Preib’s accounts, all told in his breathtaking prose, come alive in ways that readers will long remember.