Showing results for "LIFE" in Short Stories

A saga of love, loss and seasons of hope, Signs of Life is a vivid and evocative record of life in the times of pandemic. With uncertainty and unrest gripping the world, Kunti finds solace in translating the Mahabharata, cobbling together bits and pieces. As time and space stand suspended, she finds that stories repeat and renew themselves.

The best-selling novelist Preeti Shenoy returns with another riveting dark story about a relationship and two people who are deeply in love. But both have a murky past. Are they heroes or villains?

In these tales of loss and pleasure, lovers and family, a woman learns to conduct an affair, a child of divorce dances with her mother, and a woman with a terminal illness contemplates her exit. Filled with the sharp humor, emotional acuity, and joyful language Moore has become famous for, these nine glittering tales marked the introduction of an extravagantly gifted writer.

In his three novellas, In Short Measures, Strong Conspirators, and Sally Forth, Michael Ruhlman delves deeply into the nuanced complexity of romantic and sexual love - and the inevitable evolution of the heart over the span of years and decades. Each novella asks questions about the nature of love in terms of loyalty and fidelity - what are one's obligations toward one's spouse, one's family, and one's heart?

From the opening story, "Willing" - about a second-rate movie actress in her 30s who has moved back to Chicago, where she makes a seedy motel room her home and becomes involved with a mechanic who has not the least idea of who she is as a human being - Birds of America unfolds a startlingly brilliant series of portraits of the unhinged, the lost, the unsettled of our America. Lorrie Moore explores the personal and the universal, the idiosyncratic and the mundane, with all the wit, brio, and verve that have made her one of the best storytellers of our time.

In nine poignant stories spiked with humor and intelligence, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni captures lives at crossroad moments - caught between past and present, home and abroad, tradition, and fresh experience. A widow in California, recently arrived from India, struggles to adapt to a world in which neighbors are strangers and her domestic skills are deemed superfluous in the award-winning "Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter".

It’s a New Jersey summer in 1967, and thirteen-year-old Ravi Ramanathan has the makings of a tennis prodigy. His surgeon father encourages his ambition, while his mother dreams of their only child following his father’s path. Surrounded by his parents’ love, Ravi chafes a bit at their daily routines and little traditions. Then one unexpected day, everything changes. Realizing how much he took for granted, Ravi must grow up overnight and find a new role in the life of his family.

An entertaining and surprising ride through an India you thought you knew...

Assembled here are stories new and old, spanning from 1960 to today. Meet the death-defying motorcycle trick riders in the carnival's Devil's Tub, a man who keeps an alligator in his bathtub, a Chinese launder in Coney Island in search of love, a frontiersman who saves himself from a mauling grizzly bear by hiding in a beaver dam, three men from a circus looking for trouble at a rodeo, a washed out boxer trying to hang onto his career, and dozens of others rich characters.

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies explores the raw and tender places where Black women and girls dare to follow their desires and pursue a momentary reprieve from being good. The nine stories in this collection feature four generations of characters grappling with who they want to be in the world, caught as they are between the church's double standards and their own needs and passions.

An aspiring short-story writer grapples with his father's sudden success with the form. McSweeney's is a literary journal based in San Francisco.

In Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, Tim McLoughlin draws upon his three-decade career in the criminal justice system with his characteristic wit and his fascination with misfits and malfeasance. A lifetime immersed in New York City feeds short stories that evoke a landscape of characters rife with personal arrogance and misjudgment; and nonfiction essays about toeing the line when the line keeps disappearing.

Step into the quietly mesmerizing world of The Garden Party and Other Stories by Katherine Mansfield, a landmark of classic literary fiction that reveals the beauty, tension, and emotional depth hidden in everyday life. This acclaimed collection explores family, social class, childhood, love, and inner awakening through luminous prose and subtle psychological insight. From a garden party shadowed by loss to intimate domestic scenes shaped by unspoken thoughts, each story captures ordinary moments that become unforgettable.

Step into the enchanting world of At the Bay by Katherine Mansfield—a luminous novella that captures life’s fleeting beauty and quiet dramas with unparalleled grace. Follow the residents of the idyllic coastal town, including the thoughtful and gentle Mrs. Fairfield, her children and husband, and their neighbors, as Mansfield explores their joys, disappointments, and secret desires. From the playful curiosity of children on sunlit beaches to the tender reflections and inner conflicts of adults, every moment is infused with emotional depth and quiet insight.

What if the everyday world hides whispers of mystery, fleeting moments of wonder, and shadows you almost don’t notice? Step into the hauntingly beautiful and lyrical world of A Haunted House and Other Short Stories—a mesmerizing collection of tales that reveal the hidden currents of life, memory, and imagination. Each story offers a glimpse into Woolf’s keen observations of human emotion: from the ghostly reflections in "A Haunted House" to the fleeting impressions and fragmented lives in "Monday or Tuesday", where the ordinary becomes quietly extraordinary.

The correspondence between Carrie Allsop and David Mayer reveals, piece by piece, the painful details of a devastating affair between their spouses. With each commiserating scratch of the pen, they confess their fears and bare their souls. They share the bewilderment over how things went so wrong and come to wonder where to go from here. Told entirely through the letters of two comforting strangers and those of two illicit lovers, Evidence of the Affair explores the complex nature of the heart. And ultimately, for one woman, how liberating it can be when it’s broken.

Ride along with four calls in my career. Each one is based on true events, names and specific details have been changed for legal and privacy purposes. Otherwise, these calls are what happened based on my experience. You will ride along in my deep first-person perspective. It is intense. It is adult. It is life changing. The job is intense, grueling, and requires mental, emotional, and physical resilience. Most paramedics quit within the first few years. We leave EMS because of low pay, high stress, and bad work-life balance. So why do the job? Because we love it.

Former model Astrid Lane lives a quiet life as a caterer, far from her days as rock star Callum Blake's famous wife. When a retrospective about the 1970s music scene sparks renewed interest in that era, Astrid's estranged daughter Zara reaches out about a podcast discussing her father's career—and a long-buried tragedy that changed their family forever.

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.

We’re all faced with challenges in our lives which in the moment often seem unsurmountable and hopeless. That was the case for Sophie, a high school student who found herself sitting on a park bench one torturous autumn day, ready to end her life and her struggle. In Sophie’s moment of truth, a stranger suddenly appeared next to her, offering his handkerchief which was embroidered with these words: “If you want your life to change, you must change.”