Showing results for "Currency" in Genre Fiction

Inequality. Influence. Fraud. Sabotage. These are the themes of great fiction and our modern economy. In this collection of short stories by some of today’s most scintillating writers, the rich get poorer and the poor get richer. Yeah, right! From the heartbreaking to the hilarious, here are eight instantly classic battles over currency, class, privilege - and social distance.

Andy Wofford, middle-aged father and English teacher at a third-tier private school, receives a surprising invitation for a drink from an old college classmate. Once awkward and forgettable, Michael Kinnick has become a famous, wealthy, and absurdly confident lifestyle guru. Of all the people who’d want to catch up, why Michael? After thirty divergent years, why now? Mildly apprehensive, Andy is also very curious.

Lonely, thanklessly courteous, and without the benefit of status, Gordon Schulmeister is only tolerated in his younger, hip, and gentrified Oakland neighborhood. Now, amid the tensions of a pandemic, the cantankerousness of his landlord, and dog sitting an intimidating pit bull, Gordon has never felt the target on his back so acutely. To keep his neighbors off his heels, with some hope and a sigh, Gordon might have to finally speak up.

After establishing the Society of Assured Prosperity and successfully disguising his insurance business as a charity, Willem heads to the capital of the kingdom to expand into a new market....

Henry “Digger” Diller has never been anyone’s MVP - he’s the guy who gets called up from jayvee soccer when the star player gets hurt and who volunteers to take his crush’s best friend to the prom. But Digger is pretty happy with life in the middle of Warfield High’s pecking order. Then, he strikes up a friendship with Carlos, a new student from Honduras, who faces his own set of difficulties beyond the drama of adolescent life.

It seems we have not internalized the lessons of George Orwell's dystopian vision in “1984.” Now, forty years later, that terrifying notion is becoming a reality. Win, the fictional son of Winston Smith, experiences firsthand the horrors of the totalitarian system–a system that takes control of every aspect of daily life with sophisticated and cruel efficiency. A system that clutches each of us with a cold claw right now.